''Missa Cuiusvis Toni'' (Mass in any mode) is a four-part musical setting of the

Ordinary of the Mass The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Mass or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. It is contrasted to the ''pr ...

by the 15th-century composer

Johannes Ockeghem Johannes Ockeghem ( – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with hi ...

. It is found in late-century manuscripts, including the

Chigi codex The Chigi codex is a music manuscript originating in Flanders. According to Herbert Kellman, it was created sometime between 1498 and 1503, probably at the behest of Philip I of Castile. It is currently housed in the Vatican Library under the cal ...

(c. 1498–1508), and was published in 1539, 42 years after the composer's death in 1497. The work's name reflects the fact that it may be sung in any of the Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian or

Mixolydian Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' or ''tonoi'', based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; or a modern musical mode or diatonic scal ...

modes. This is made possible by writing the music without clefs or key signatures, allowing the singers to assume those suited to the chosen mode. This unusual and complex idea has led the musicologist Fabrice Fitch to describe the mass as "the work chiefly responsible for Ockeghem's reputation as an artful pedant". Although Leeman L. Perkins describes the ''Missa Cuiusvis Toni'' as "not unduly complex in its contrapuntal style", to compose a work to be singable in any of the four modes is a considerable technical challenge, because the

cadences In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (19 ...

suitable for the Phrygian mode are unsuitable for the other modes, and vice versa. Ockeghem's solution is to write cadences that today would be called

plagal cadence In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999 ...

s. According to the musicologist Richard Turbet, this makes the Mass easiest to sing in the Phrygian mode and successively more difficult in the Mixolydian, Lydian and Dorian modes. Both Turbet and Fitch believe that the work was conceived for the Phrygian mode and then adapted for the other modes.

Recordings

* ''Missa Cuiusvis Toni'', æon, ÆCD 0753 (2 CDs; 2007), performed by Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel. First recording of the four versions. Ed. Gérard Geay.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Johannes Ockeghem Renaissance music Masses (music)