Music
Missa Brevis
For SATB choir
Text of Latin mass
The first complete performance of Missa Brevis was given by the Leonine Consort in Sydney in 1965.
About the work
I have always had an affinity with the music of the 16th century. For 3 years I sang in Peter Godfrey’s choir at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Auckland, where the repertoire included Byrd’s 4-part mass. This experience meant that the writing of this work came naturally.
Written while I was studying in Wellington, it was one of the first of my works that I heard performed — the Victoria University Choir conducted by Robert Oliver sang selected movements. Its first complete performance — in an otherwise ‘all Bach’ concert given by the Leonine Consort — was broadcast on television.
Scores and recordings
The score was first published by Musica Dei Gloriae Wellington in 1978, but is now out of print. In 1996 it was re-published by Waiteata Music Press.
Missa Brevis was released on a Waiteata Music Press CD of my works.
Composer portrait: Gillian Whitehead — CD
RNZ Concert recorded Missa Brevis in 2011.
Review
‘Gillian Whitehead’s Missa Brevis easily rose to the challenge of justifying its presence, [showing] rare understanding of how to write for concerted voices; everything she calculated on paper worked in practice in this tenderly beautiful performance’.
— Roger Covell, Sydney Morning Herald, 1965