Test your knowledge! Answer the questions below, then click to see if you were correct.

1) Mozart’s Mass in C minor is considered by many scholars to be one of the three greatest settings of the Ordinary of the Mass ever written. What are the other two?

a) Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in D major and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
b) Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in D major and Bach’s B Minor Mass
c) Beethoven’s Mass in C and Bach’s B Minor Mass
d) Bach’s B Minor Mass and Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass

2) Mozart wrote the Mass in C minor

a) for his wife to perform as soprano soloist
b) for his father, as a gift of appreciation for allowing Mozart to get married
c) for the Archbishop of Salzburg, hoping he would release Mozart from his contract
d) to practice the art of fugue writing

3) Mozart’s Mass is considered incomplete because:

a) he didn’t write an Agnus Dei
b) he didn’t write a sequence
c) he didn’t complete the Credo
d) it’s a trick question–it’s not incomplete

4) Mozart’s Mass in C minor does not include an Agnus Dei, which:

a) was not unusual in Salzburg, where the Archbishop preferred the missa brevis
b) was intended to be chanted by a priest or cantor
c) he rewrote for the Requiem instead
d) none of the above

5) Mozart’s Mass in C minor contains a number of fugues because

a) Mozart’s wife’s favorite musical form was the fugue
b) Mozart had recently become acquainted with the works of Bach
c) both a and b
d) none of the above

6) The 5^th movement of the Gloria of the C minor Mass contains a passage related to:

a) Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
b) Bach’s Cantata 140 "Wachet auf"
c) Pergolesi’s Stabat mater
d) Bach’s B Minor Mass ("Crucifixus")

7) The Credo movement repeats many times this important word:

a) Kyrie
b) Deus
c) Credo
d) Gloria

8) It was common for major-key pieces in the Viennese Classical era to move to what key area?

a) the dominant
b) the subdominant
c) the relative minor
d) the relative major

9) The Sanctus and Osanna sections of the Sanctus contrast each other in which ways?

a) tempo
b) text (words)
c) texture
d) all of the above

10) The Benedictus ends with:

a) an abridged version of the Osanna
b) music which is based on the Crucifixus of Bach’s B Minor Mass
c) it doesn’t end–Mozart never completed the movement
d) a grandiose "Amen"

Click here to see the answers.