Messa di Gloria is a nine movement mass

Mass (music)

The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...

, composed by Gioacchino Rossini

Gioacchino Rossini

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...

 for the Arciconfraternita

Archconfraternity

An archconfraternity is a Roman Catholic confraternity, empowered to aggregate or affiliate other confraternities of the same nature, and to impart to them its indulgences and privileges.-Status and operation:...

 di San Luigi. First performed on 24 March 1820 in the Chiesa di San Ferdinando in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, it is in the traditional form of a "Gloria" mass, that is a setting of the first two prayers of the Catholic mass

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

, the Kyrie

Kyrie

Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....

 and Gloria

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

"Gloria in excelsis Deo" is the title and beginning of a hymn known also as the Greater Doxology and the Angelic Hymn. The name is often abbreviated to Gloria in Excelsis or simply Gloria.It is an example of the psalmi idiotici "Gloria in excelsis Deo" (Latin for "Glory to God in the highest")...

. (A "Gloria" mass omits the Credo

Credo

A credo |Latin]] for "I Believe") is a statement of belief, commonly used for religious belief, such as the Apostles' Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Mass, either as text, Gregorian chant, or other musical settings of the...

, Sanctus

Sanctus

The Sanctus is a hymn from Christian liturgy, forming part of the Order of Mass. In Western Christianity, the Sanctus is sung as the final words of the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayer of consecration of the bread and wine...

, and Agnus Dei.) The Messa di Gloria was the only major piece of sacred music written while Rossini was still an active opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 composer.

Analysis

The "Kyrie" is divided into three portions, the first a dotted-rhythm "Kyrie eleison" for chorus in E-flat minor, the second, a more lyrical E-flat major "Christe eleison" for two tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

s (unusual scoring, and likely forbidden for ecclesiastical purposes), with the first minor-key section rounding out the prayer.

The "Gloria" portion takes up the vast majority of the work and is split up into operatic-style "numbers", soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 soloists alternating with tenors, basses, etc. The high point, emotionally, comes at the "Qui Sedes", which begins with a slow portion for chorus and tenor, then concludes with a brilliant cabaletta

Cabaletta

Cabaletta describes the two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera, and is more properly the name of the more animated section following the songlike cantabile. It often introduces a complication or intensification of emotion and/or plot. Some sources...

, showing off the extreme upper end of the tenor's range. Critics of the time were slightly scandalized by Rossini's morphing of sacred ceremony into opera seria

Opera seria

Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

, and even buffa

Opera buffa

Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...

, at times. Suffice it to say that this Mass sounds nothing like Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Great Mass, Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Missa Solemnis

Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)

The Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819-1823. It was first performed on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie,...

, or Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

's last twelve "name day" masses.

In his 1995 study of the Messa di Gloria, Jesse Rosenberg agrees with contemporary reports that the Rossini was helped in the composition of the concluding "number" of the Messa, a four-part double fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

 setting of "Cum spirito sanctu", by another Italian composer more versed in counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

, Pietro Raimondi

Pietro Raimondi

Pietro Raimondi was an Italian composer, transitional between the Classical and Romantic eras...

. Rossini's own contrapuntal abilities were displayed to even better effect in his Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater

Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...

, composed for Paris in 1845. Why he felt he needed Raimondi for this work is not clear.

Sources

• Gallo, Denise P., Gioachino Rossini: a guide to research, Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0815334745
• Osborne, Richard, Rossini: his life and works 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press US, 2007. ISBN 0195181298,