 More recently , Alfred Schnittke allowed the programmatic aspects of his texts to dictate the course of both his choral symphonies even when no words were being sung . Schnittke 's six @-@ movement Second Symphony , following the Ordinary of the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church , works programmatically on two levels simultaneously . While soloists and chorus briefly perform the mass , set to chorales taken from the Gradual , the orchestra provides an extended running commentary that can continue much longer than the section of the mass being performed . Sometimes the commentary follows a particular chorale but more often is freer and wider ranging in style . Despite the resulting stylistic disparity , biographer Alexander Ivashkin comments , " musically almost all these sections blend the choral [ sic ] tune and subsequent extensive orchestral ' commentary . ' " The work becomes what Schnittke called an " Invisible Mass " , and Ivashkin termed " a symphony against a chorale backdrop " . 
