Motetter till mässan i Västerås domkyrka och skola kring sekelskiftet 1600. Liturgihistoriska implikationer

Abstract

Motets for Mass in the Cathedral and School of Västerås c. 1690–1520. Implications for Liturgical History

The cathedral of Västerås, with its affiliated diocesan school, was one of the most distinguished musical institutions of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Scandinavia. Previous musicological research has examined the institutional organization of the school and, to a limited extent, the repertoire that can be linked to the school and the cathedral through extant sources of polyphony. The present study investigates the liturgical implications of those musical sources that can be securely linked to the school before or during the earliest years of the episcopate of Johannes Rudbeckius (1581–1646, bishop of Västerås 1619–1646).

The polyphonic repertoire used in Västerås cathedral and diocesan school is placed in the context of regional and international pre-reformation and Lutheran liturgical traditions, as outlined both through attested polyphonic practice and through official church orders. Annotations and extant liturgical schemata in the sources of polyphony suggest an unexpected dissolution of some fundamental tenets in the forms and orders of the Mass. A preliminary conclusion from these suggestions is that a richness of polyphonic music without previous liturgical links to the order of the Mass was made possible in Västerås on account of a reorientation in the notion of the structure of the Mass, something that can also be linked to coeval and slightly later Swedish church orders, which are highly strict concerning some liturgical elements of the Mass but malleable as regards others.