N.M. Wagner on Secular Orchestral Masses (1909)

 [92] Why are the Masses composed by Jos. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Cherubini, Bruch and Gounod not true church music?

We admit that the musical composition as such is of artistic value; however, the Masses of these masters are not true church music because the spirit of the decrees issued by the Church on church music is wanting in them, either because of

(a) their form (concert-like, soli, duetts [sic], superfluous repetition of words, incorrect text or misplacement of words or omission of words) or because of

(b) their style of musical composition (which is worldly, theatrical, distracting instead of edifying; while the composition is not suited to the words, but the words are forced to suit the music). For instance, do we not notice in Mozart's "C" Mass motives similar to those in the opera Cosi Fan Tutti? Does the Gloria in Gounod's Paschal Mass not spontaneously remind us of passages in his Faust? In the style of musical composition employed, these men did not, therefore, distinguish between music for the stage and music for the church. Again, I find a Sanctus in one of Bruch's Masses the rendition of which would take about as long as a Credo of one of the Cecilian Masses, not to mention the ridiculously long Masses of Beethoven and Haydn; e.g., Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

The impossibility of rendering the classical compositions of these masters [Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart] with correctness and fidelity, because of their difficulty, prompted imitators like Wiegand, Lambillotte, Millard, Giorza, Diabelli, Dachauer, La Hache, Mercadante, Novello, Farmer, Stearn, etc., etc., to produce diluted substitutes. These imitators would obviate the difficulties while retaining the attractive form of the others, and their results are found in the compositions which, in abundance of repititon of words and mutilation of text, go beyond the classical authors, and in their attempt to give musical value merely become vulgar.

---

Source: Excerpt of an address by Rev. N. M. Wagner (trans. from German) in St. Peter's Church, Newark, NJ in "Notes," Church Music: A Magazine for the Clergy, Choirmasters and Organists 4, no. 2 (Jan. 1909): 92.