Friday 29 January 2021

Giacomo Rossini: Petite Messe Solennelle (original version from 1863)

1. Kyrie
2. Gloria in excelsis Deo
3. Gratias agimus tibi
4. Domine Deus
5. Qui tollis peccata mundi
6. Quoniam tu solus sanctus
7. Cum Sancto Spiritu
8. Credo in unum Deum
9. Crucifixus
10. A resource exit
11. Preludio religioso (Offertory), Ritornello
12. Sanctus
13. O salutaris hostia
14. Agnus Dei

A rare opportunity to experience the great opera composer Giacomo Rossini's beautiful mass performed by an expanded Edvard Grieg Choir, the internationally renowned pianists Chistian Ihle Hadland and Håvard Gimse and court organist Sigurd Melvær Øgaard at the harmonium.

Giacomo Rossini was the most popular and influential opera composer of the first half of the 19th century. His last opera, Wilhelm Tell, was written in Paris in 1829 when Rossini was 37 years old.

Hearing was not the only sense he was concerned with, taste and smell were also important. For the rest of his life, he was mostly concerned with food, and it was a full 34 years before he composed the Petite Messe Solennelle, one of his "sins of older days", as he himself put it.

"I don't know of a more rewarding activity than eating, that is, real eating. Appetite is to the stomach what love is to the heart. The stomach is the conductor who rules over the great orchestra of our emotions, and makes it act", Rossini is said to have philosophized.

The Mass, which was composed after his culinary rapture, is written for sixteen voices, piano and harmonium, and is dramatic, intense and full of pathos. It was probably as suitable for the salons of Paris as for the church.

Edvard Grieg Choir
Edward Gardner, conductor
Christian Ihle-Hadland, piano
Håvard Gimse, piano
Sigurd Melvær Øgaard, harmonium

The program and performers at the concert can be changed at very short notice due to the corona situation.