Missa Exspectationis (complete)

a parody-technique Latin mass by Antony Pitts on Henry Purcell's 'Hear my prayer' - duration: c.30'00

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Rather like a fractal diagram each part of this Mass setting magnifies a smaller and smaller section of the original than the one before: decoration assumes structural importance and then - just when all seems to be utterly and fantastically different - the familiar shape of the original re-emerges.

The Kyrie uses just the opening phrase of Purcell's Hear my Prayer which is heard - forwards, backwards and upside-down - at three different pitches and at three different speeds.

The Gloria follows straight on - it demonstrates the strictest application of a technique derived from Arvo Pärt, and is entirely based on the second phrase of Hear my Prayer with its alternating minor and major 3rds.

The Credo is chanted very simply on a cycle of some 17 chords (which are vertical slices of favourite harmonies from Hear my Prayer). In the first section, declaring belief in God the Father, this cycle is unfolded mainly in single notes, one per syllable. During the statements concerning God the Son, these single notes are stretched out and overlapped, creating thicker and thicker chords until the moment of the Incarnation; at "Crucifixus" the Purcellian harmony is suddenly revealed and then gradually becomes thinner and thinner. In the final section, which refers first to God the Holy Spirit, what's left of the chord cycle is stretched out - one chord per phrase - and a new chromatic texture begins to develop until it takes over completely. The Amen is a strict canon in seven parts at the interval of a 2nd, of which only four voices ever sound at once, over a pedal F: the final chord is that of Hear my Prayer.

The Sanctus begins with a three-fold invocation reminiscent of the Kyrie, although much more complex and condensed. The sections that follow - including the Benedictus - develop the technique of the Gloria still further but with increasing embellishments. This results in the texture of the second Hosanna which is both the most extended and the furthest in tonality from the original C minor. 

The Agnus Dei returns to C minor: the first section (like the Kyrie) just uses the first phrase as it appears in the original piece (i.e., like a manuscript that is full of holes) but with increasing numbers of extra imitative parts; the second section (as in the Gloria) uses instead the second phrase - which begins to sound very familiar - and also combines the same phrase in augmentation, passing through the voices one by one. From the end of the second section the music is purely Purcell until the final pages of the third section where various spurious emendations lead to the highly-extended final two bars: an enormous English cadence which resolves onto a canon at different speeds representing the eternal peace offered us by the Lamb of God.