Missa Rex Genitor – Kevin Allen (b. 1964)

 

Click to watch the video on Youtube: Kyrie

Click to watch the video on Youtube: Gloria

Click to watch the video on Youtube: Sanctus/Benedictus

Click to watch video on Youtube: Agnus Dei

In his Missa Rex genitor, this Sunday’s setting of the Mass Ordinary in church, composer Kevin Allen uses Renaissance polyphony as a model, but from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Allen has begun with a good idea and developed it in solid but not antiquated ways, and the end result is satisfying and well within a lively tradition that embraces the past and present.

As the title suggests, Allen bases this work on the plainsong Mass VI, Rex Genitor. In many sections, the polyphony, for three-part tenor and bass voices, makes use of the original chant melodies, but thankfully more by intimation rather than slavishly accurate transcription, and the harmonies venture off to interesting places indeed.

Allen makes use of plainchant passages throughout the Mass. The Kyrie is set in a straightforward alternatim way, which is an attractive approach. Other movements are not set alternatim as such but have extended chant passages.

Gerald Harder

Kyrie

 

Gloria

 

Sanctus-Benedictus

 

Agnus Dei