Petite Messe Solennelle

Description

To the one hundred and fifty miniatures for chamber ensemble titled Péchés de vieillesse, Rossini adds a final masterpiece, under this playful title. The composer's irony, having long retired from the stage, is also evident in the postscript dedicated to the Almighty: "Good God – Here it is finished, this poor little Mass. – Is it really sacred music that I have just composed or rather music that is sacred? I was born for opera buffa, you know that well! Little science, a bit of heart, that’s all there is. So be blessed, and grant me paradise." We cannot know if God ratified the pact, but these lines that play with the sharp polysemy of the word sacred clearly show the ambivalences that Rossini himself saw in his church music. A little mass? Modest in means, but solemn in its length and breadth. The very particular formation with soloists, choir, and a reduced accompaniment (two pianos and harmonium) reflects the circumstances of its composition. Written for the consecration of the private chapel of Count Michel-Frédéric Pillet-Will and performed on March 14, 1864, in the presence of a select few representatives of the musical and social elite, the holy mass had to settle for a limited ensemble: "Twelve singers of three sexes, men, women, and castratos, will be sufficient for its execution; namely eight for the choir, four for the solos, a total of twelve cherubs. […] Twelve are also the Apostles in the famous jaw-dropping fresco painted by Leonardo called The Last Supper, who would believe it! Among your disciples, there are those who hit false notes! Lord, rest assured, I affirm that there will be no Judas at my lunch and that mine will sing in tune and con amore your praises." Impeccable: this is how Rossini himself described the first performance of his mass by star soloists from the Italian Theatre and a small vocal ensemble made up of conservatory students. However, this composition was only performed three times during the author's lifetime, but the Parisian press gave it such enthusiastic reviews that the maestro, despite his seventy-two years and precarious health, was urged to create an orchestral version. In the colorful mix of styles that characterizes the work, there is a Christe eleison of refined contrapuntal subtlety and calm fervor a cappella (an obvious homage to the motets of the venerable Palestrina). We encounter the double fugues of the Cum Sancto Spiritu and the Et vitam venturi, whose strict orthodoxy combined with a bursting vitality proves that Rossini had a very sure instinct for the grand finale. The Agnus Dei is of sublime depth: to the triple invocation of the alto, increasingly pleading, the choir without accompaniment responds – Dona nobis pacem – with a simple four-voice phrase. It is only at the very end of the piece that the anguished tension of the dialogue resolves into the unexpected E major of the common final prayer. The harmonic rhetoric, with its perpetual oscillations between major and minor, shadow and light, stability and instability, proves to be one of the characteristics of Rossini's late style. Another innovation is the enrichment of the canonical ordinary by the two pieces of older inspiration that frame the Sanctus: an instrumental offertory in the form of a religious Prelude for solo piano, which occasionally recalls the patriarch Bach and which, after the bubbling ecstasy of the finale of the Credo, leads to a transition to the more meditative character of the following pieces; and the hymn to the holy sacrament O salutaris hostia for soprano, which was only added after the first performance. Is this the authentic religious music of the 19th century, sincere and true, as it could only flourish in the exuberant atmosphere of Mediterranean culture – or, like the bouquets of artificial flowers that adorn the altar, an expression of a taste aberration, a penchant for gaudiness and piety? Rossini's sacred music, like that of many of his compatriots, has always divided opinions. He was surely aware of this when he bluntly replied to Eduard Hanslick, the pope of Viennese criticism, who questioned him about his mass: "It is not music for you, not for the Germans. My most sacred music is never more than semi-seria." But what he exactly meant by sacred music will likely remain as enigmatic as the unique indication placed at the beginning of the Credo: Allegro cristiano. What did he mean? Is this a tempo indication, or a profession of faith?