Paraphrase mass

A paraphrase mass is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass that uses as its basis an elaborated version of a cantus firmus, typically chosen from plainsong or some other sacred source. It was a common means of mass composition from the late 15th century until the end of the 16th century, during the Renaissance period in music history, and was most frequently used by composers in the parts of western Europe which remained under the direct control of the Roman Catholic Church. It is distinguished from the other types of mass composition, including cantus-firmus, parody, canon, soggetto cavato, free composition, and mixtures of these techniques.

Musical paraphrase, in general, had been used for a long time before it was first applied to the music of the Ordinary of the mass. It was common in the early and middle 15th century for a work such as a motet to use an embellished plainchant melody as its source, with the melody usually in the topmost voice. John Dunstable's Gloria is an example of this procedure, as are the two settings by Guillaume Dufay of the Marian Antiphon Alma redemptoris mater. Many compositions in fauxbourdon, a characteristic technique of the Burgundian School, use a paraphrased version of a plainchant tune in the highest voice. In these cases the source would not be obscured by the paraphrase; it was still easily recognizable through whatever ornamentation was applied.

Dufay was probably one of the first to use paraphrase technique in the mass. His Missa Ave regina celorum (written between 1463 and 1474) is similar to a cantus firmus mass in that the tune is in the tenor, however it is paraphrased by elaboration (and he also includes bits of his own motet on that antiphon, foreshadowing the parody technique). By the 1470s or 1480s, the first masses appear that use paraphrase in more than one voice: two examples survive by Johannes Martini, the Missa domenicalis and the Missa ferialis.

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