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“Petite Messe Solennelle, in four parts, with accompaniment of 2 pianos and harmonium. Twelve singers will suffice for its execution, that is, eight for the chorus, four for the solos, in total twelve cherubim. May the good Lord forgive me the following comparison: Twelve also are the apostles in Leonardo’s celebrated fresco of the Last Supper, would you believe it! Among your disciples there are some who sing wrong notes!! Lord, rest assured, I promise there will be no Judas at my Supper, and mine will perform in tune and con amore when they sing thy praise in this little Composition, which is alas the last mortal Sin of my Old Age.”

Rossini was one of the few great classical composers to survive into reasonable old age, but – like Sibelius in our own century – his creativity was concentrated into a fairly short space of time. He was 37 when he completed his last opera, William Tell, in 1829; by this time his operatic achievements had already won him a degree of wealth and prestige greater than any other composer had ever enjoyed. After this he retired; the next 25 years were tragically blighted by illness and depression, and during this period he produced only one more work of substance, the Stabat Mater. In 1855, at the age of 63, Rossini returned to live in Paris. Here he built a villa in the suburb of Passy and rented a fashionable salon in the city, and his life blossomed into an extraordinary Indian Summer. His health improved, his famous sense of humour returned, and his Saturday evening soirées became a regular highlight of the social life of the artistic élite of Paris.

“Old Rococo”, as he called himself, now considered himself a relic of a bygone age; the world in which he wrote his great operas had gone for ever, destroyed by three revolutions. But the inspiration to compose returned, and was manifested in a completely new form; during the next ten years, Rossini produced a succession of whimsical miniature masterpieces for the amusement of himself and his friends, in the form of over 150 pieces of piano and vocal music – the “Sins of his Old Age”. Lively and wonderfully imaginative in their musical invention, adventurous and often forward-looking in their harmony, they also display a knowing, ironic humour, with titles prophetic of the surrealism of Erik Satie: Pretentious Prelude, My Hygienic Morning Prelude, Little Castor Oil Waltz, A Merry Train Ride (which ends in a crash, and the death of two passengers!). None of this music has ever been fully appreciated or frequently performed, though some of the pieces attained a wider currency in 1919, when Respighi orchestrated them and transformed them into a sparkling ballet score for Diaghilev, La Boutique Fantasque.

The Petite Messe Solennelle (which is, of course, neither little, despite its modest resources, nor solemn, despite its moments of austere polyphony) was, as Rossini wrote in his preface quoted above, the last and the greatest of his Mortal Sins. He composed it in 1863 for the Countess Pillet-Will, and it was first performed, by his twelve cherubim with piano and harmonium, in intimate surroundings, at the dedication of her private chapel in March 1864. In 1867, fearing that if he didn’t do it, someone else would, Rossini orchestrated the accompaniment, and in this form the Mass had its first public performance in February 1869, four months after his death.  But in this later version much of the spirit of the original is lost; modern performances in large buildings usually compromise by using a larger chorus, but retaining the unique and delightful sonority of the original keyboard accompaniment.

The Mass has justly been described as a summation of all the aspects of Rossini’s art, and stylistically it is amazingly diverse, ranging from a capella renaissance polyphony, through masterly baroque-style double fugues to modern operatic solo ensembles and arias. In lesser hands this diversity could have descended into incoherence, but Rossini’s sheer compositional mastery blends everything together into a convincing whole – aided, of course, by his greatest gift, a seemingly endless supply of glorious tunes. The character of the whole work is distilled in the opening Kyrie: a hushed, heartfelt prayer for mercy from the chorus (sotto voce throughout, apart from a few surging crescendos), soft religioso purring from the harmonium, and a gently dancing accompaniment from the pianos, with an irrepressible twinkle in their eye, even when praying for forgiveness. And then, after a few short minutes, the chorus leaps back through the centuries to the age of Palestrina in an exquisite unaccompanied Christe.

After a brief opening fanfare, the Gloria is set as a sequence of five arias and ensembles for the soloists: an elaborate ensemble for all four in Et in terra pax, with the voices weaving together above an ostinato chordal accompaniment; a graceful trio for contralto, tenor and bass in the Gratias; a heroic tenor solo in Domine Deus; a tender duet for soprano and contralto in Qui tollis, with the harmonium returning to add harmonic support to the delicate arpeggiation of the piano; and a long, lyrical and very Schubertian bass solo in the Quoniam. Finally, after nearly half an hour’s silence, the chorus singers have their moment of glory in the bubbly double fugue Cum sancto spiritu (which Rossini marks with the utterly meaningless tempo direction allegro a capella). The florid runs on the “a” of Amen almost turn into peals of laughter, and it is impossible not to think of that other great setting of the Gloria composed in France 100 years later by Francis Poulenc, which was inspired in part by incongruous images of Benedictine monks playing football, and cherubs sticking out their tongues in the Florentine frescoes of Gozzoli...

With another bizarre tempo marking (Allegro cristiano!), the Credo is given a superbly integrated and through-composed setting for chorus and soloists, bound together by a number of recurring musical motifs. There is one brief contrasting interlude – a beautiful soprano aria for the Crucifixus – before the original music is resumed, and this movement culminates in another terrific double fugue, Et in vitam venturi saeculi. The rest of the Mass unfolds in complete simplicity, with a harmonium prelude for the Offertory, a short a capella Sanctus, the famous soprano aria O Salutaris, and the final Agnus Dei. This concluding movement returns to the style of the Kyrie, with a rhythmic piano accompaniment supporting the thrice-repeated prayer of contralto and chorus, which finally blossoms into an extended, heartfelt coda.

“Dear Lord - now this poor little Mass is finished. I was born for opera buffa, you know that. Not much knowledge, a little feeling, that is all it takes. So blessed be thy name, and grant me a place in Paradise.  G.Rossini, Passy 1863.”  Surely only the most hard-hearted of Gods could refuse the composer’s last request.

 David Gammie