Music Notes for 5/29/11 - the 6th Sunday of Easter

 
God – behold completed this poor little Mass – is it indeed music for the blessed that I have just written, or just some blessed music? Thou knowest well, I was born for comic opera. A little science, a little heart, that is all. So bless Thee, Lord, and grant me Paradise!
-        G. Rossini
 
This charming little missive appears as an inscription at the beginning of Rossini’s fascinating, irresistible Petite Messe Solenelle, one of the composer’s very finest works, which we present music from this morning. Just like that old Saturday Night Live bit about the Holy Roman Empire being neither Holy nor Roman, the Petit Messe Solennelle is neither petite (small) nor even remotely solennelle (solemn)!In fact, it’s over an hour long, and full of effervescence, joy and high spirits throughout – sacred music that only the composer of The Barber of Seville could have dreamed up.
 
Perhaps no composer in history enjoyed the amount of public acclaim as Rossini: he was famous by the age of twenty-one, and never looked back, composing some twenty operas between 1815 and 1823. Then, around 1832, he abruptly retired from opera, moved to Paris, and wrote literally nothing else for the stage for the next thirty-six years until his death in 1868. This was partly due to health, and partly due to his feeling that he had said all he needed to say in the operatic arena. Yet during the last ten years of his life, he returned to composition, producing several hundred mostly small-scale works – piano pieces, songs, and chamber music – all intended for private performances in the salons and drawing rooms of Paris. Rossini refused to have them published, referring to them as the “sins of my old age.” The Petit Messe dates from this period, composed in 1863; it’s worth remembering, with some wonder, that the composer was seventy-two years old when he composed this extraordinarily youthful, joyous music!
 
The inscription at the beginning of these notes tells you much of what you need to know regarding the Messe; Rossini has but one musical language in which he can compose, and it is almost with some sense of devout, humble apology – no mean feat for the most famous living composer in all of Europe - that he sets the ancient, solemn Mass text with such obvious operatic bravado. But for me, the work is all the more sincere in its praise of God because the composer was in fact so touchingly true to his own style, even if it sometimes results in expressive friction between sacred text and secular style.
 
This morning, the choir and soloists sing several movements, all drawn from the long setting of the Gloria. For the Introit, a brief flurry of notes that set the opening Gloria in excelsis – you can almost hear the curtain rising in the opening organ figurations! For the Anthem, an extended, brilliant fugue that closes the Gloria on the text “Cum sancto spiritu,” bookended by two statements of the opening Gloria passage. This fugue is a terrific romp, composed in the best buffa style, with a particularly striking passage near the end where the choir wanders into harmonically unstable, unpredictable territory on long held notes for some time before eventually finding their way back to the opening fugue subject. After this, the “curtain-raising” music returns, followed by a final “Amen” which brings it to a rousing conclusion (we’ll reprise it for the Benediction Response).
For the Offertory, Robin, Charles and Kerry sing another section of the Gloria, the Gratias agimus tibi, which display’s Rossini’s amazing gift for creating instantly recognizable tunes, and the particularly Italianate focus on melodic line above all else. It’s my hope you’ll enjoy this profoundly devout music, cast in secular style but sincere in its worship.
 
We warmly welcome Charles Stanton and Kerry Jennings, baritone and tenor respectively, to our choir – they signed on last week as staff singers and I have a feeling you’ll love listening to them this morning. Charles works both as Artistic Director of Opera Beaumont and as Director of Grants for Bering Omega, and Kerry teaches voice just down the road at Lamar University. We welcome them both!
-        Justin Smith
 
N. B. For the Voluntary, Matthew continues our Italian theme this morning, writing:
 
Gherardeschi's charming Organ Sonata in G Major epitomizes the tunefulness of Italian opera around the turn of the nineteenth century. Like Rossini, Gherardeschi saw no reason why his native idiom couldn't be used in church; so much the better if parishioners left church humming a good tune! This particular sonata, cast as a rondo (with a repeating refrain), also pays homage to eighteenth-century depictions of militaristic music (with trumpet calls) and to the pastorale's gentle whimsy.