Johann Adolph Hasse: Mass D Minor & Miserere in Cminor

Hasse’s life span encompasses a time “between the epochs”: he was almost a generation younger than Bach and Handel, born in 1685, on the other hand a generation older than Haydn (1732) and even two generations older than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756). Hasse’s music, however, was characterized by the new from the very beginning

He was more famous among his contemporaries than almost anyone else beside him, and he was one of the defining composers of his time, especially in the decades between 1730 and 1760. Hasse’s Mass in D minor is a “numbered mass” typical of the period, in which the five parts of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) are divided into fifteen smaller text sections with their own, musically independent movements

On the one hand, the mass shows stylistically related Italian traits, on the the other hand, the composition typical for Hasse’s personal style becomes becomes clear

Elegance in melody and leadership of the vocal parts combined with virtuosity, at the same time “pre-classical” flat harmony, rich in chromaticism, seventh chords and seventh chords, and austere suspensions.