Orchestral splendor & operatic melodies
Church music by Italian opera composers of the 19th century
We know Italy as the birthplace of opera. Yet the foundations for this development were actually laid in the country’s churches. Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti – all were hugely influenced by the rich tradition of sacred music in their homeland. Join Guido Johannes Joerg as he explores this fascinating history!
It’s hard to deny that 19th-century Italian music written for the church or the opera house sounds quite similar. Just have a listen! The composers used the same thematic materials and applied the same techniques, attained through comprehensive training at either a church or state school. With a thorough knowledge of counterpoint and harmony, they were able to write an opera as easily as a Mass, and, of course, a secular or sacred choral work, a piano or organ piece, etc. Some techniques were reserved for one genre or another; for example, the strict imitative form of the fugue only appears in opera as short fugati.
While opera was clearly at the heart of music in Italy – it was the only way to achieve national renown – church music was certainly more present in the daily lives of the people. Most churches maintained choirs and orchestras, performing pieces written by professional church music directors, who also raised the next generation of musicians and composers. Indeed, it’s hard to find any famous 19th-century musician who didn’t begin their career in a church choir or banda (brass band). Many of the wealthier parishes were able to perform large-scale choral and orchestral works at church service and in concert, and not just on feast days. And those who were not up to the stresses and strains of the opera business could enjoy a more restful yet solid career as a church music director-composer. While many became respected musicians, composers or teachers, none achieved anything like the fame enjoyed by successful opera composers. In contrast to the situation in Germany at the time (which was still divided into many small princely states), there were few jobs to be had as a court music director.
Pietro Mascagni
Messa di Gloria
in Fa maggiore, 1888
Carus 27.904/00
Almost none of the leading 19th-century Italian (opera) composers came from a major city. In fact, the only significant cultural and artistic capitals at the time were Milan in the north and Naples in the south, while Rome, Venice, Florence and Bologna were still relative backwaters. Yet the residents of many of the country’s small towns could visit a cathedral for regular musical performances or an opera house for seasonal productions (stagione). Rossini got his start in Pesaro (later in Bologna), Donizetti in Bergamo, Bellini in Catania – all as choirboys; Verdi stood in for the village organist in Le Roncole near Busseto; Ponchielli came from a village in the province of Cremona (initially working as an organist), Catalani and Puccini from Lucca, and Mascagni from Livorno; born in Naples, Leoncavallo spent his childhood in a Calabrian village. Most attended a local music conservatory, with the exception of Ponchielli, who studied in Milan, and Bellini and Leoncavallo, who were trained in Naples. Verdi took private lessons after being rejected by the Milan Conservatory. Puccini and Mascagni completed their studies in Lucca and Livorno, respectively, before moving to Milan to continue their musical education under Ponchielli.
Giacomo Puccini
Messa a 4 voci con orchestra
Edizione Nazionale delle Opere
di Giacomo Puccini, III/2 SC 6
Carus 56.001/00
The conservatories of the day required graduating students to compose a (secular) cantata or a Mass, which was the origin, for example, of Catalani’s Messa (1872) and Puccini’s Messa a 4 voci (1880). Mascagni, who had broken off his studies in Milan in 1885, created his Messa di Gloria in 1888 while working as director of a music school in the small Apulian town of Cerignola. Its unusual scoring reflects the forces at the composer’s disposal. There are clear musical correspondences between the Mass and the ensuing work, the one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana, which in May 1889 won a competition run by the music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno, and whose premiere in Rome one year later was an unparalleled success. Some of Puccini’s famous opera melodies first appeared in his Messa a 4 voci (also known as the “Messa da Gloria”) as well as in some of his recently rediscovered piano pieces.
If any of these composers had not embarked on the physically and mentally challenging business of writing and producing operas, their names would hardly be familiar to us today, and no doubt their sacred music would also no longer be performed. Most of the successful opera composers of the time did not write for Milan’s La Scala or the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, but for provincial theaters. There were hordes of such enterprising musicians, most of whom are now forgotten. However, it was their works that helped fill each season’s program; the operas by the select group of star composers would never have been enough to satisfy the public’s insatiable appetite. Audiences craved new operas rather than old favorites. And having a hit in Milan or Naples was clearly small consolation for those composers seeking international fame: they also needed success abroad. And so we can understand why the now world-famous Italian composers of the 19th century readily accepted commissions from the Paris Opéra, the leading opera house of the age. Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi all wrote new operas for the French capital. In the 20th century, the fame of New York’s Metropolitan Opera gradually eclipsed that of the Paris Opéra. Indeed, Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (1910) and Il trittico (1918) were commissioned by and premiered at the Met.
It’s a truism that each listener will ultimately decide for themself whether music sounds like it belongs in a church or on the opera stage, whether a string quartet is dull or exciting. The sacred music of Palestrina and Monteverdi does not eschew spectacular musical effects, and Handel’s church and opera music are not entirely dissimilar. Furthermore, we must always consider the historical background, because each period will perceive a musical style differently. In 19th-century Italy, it was common practice to compile Masses from well-known opera numbers and perform these during church service. In France, Louis Lefébure-Wély’s cheerful organ pieces, which sometimes sounded dangerously like the tinkling of a fairground organ or an orchestrion, became popular in Catholic services from the 1850s onwards. In Italy, simple marches and other dances were often played on the organ, as evidenced by Puccini’s early compositions for this instrument. And, of course, traces of Mascagni’s Messa can be detected in Cavalleria rusticana. Rossini’s Stabat Mater and Verdi’s Messa da Requiem are “operatic” in the sense that they were designed to impress (the fact that both men were also capable of creating more sophisticated church music is demonstrated by a few a cappella choral movements by Rossini and the Quattro pezzi sacri by Verdi). Ponchielli’s Mass in A major (also known as the “Messa per la notte di natale”), which premiered at Christmas 1882 following his appointment as maestro di cappella at Bergamo’s Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, displays a truly festive splendor. Ponchielli can be said to have “inaugurated” the post with this major work.
The Carus catalog encompasses a wide range of large-scale and smaller sacred works, some bombastic and others heartfelt, by 19th-century Italian masters – as well as everything in between. Indeed, you can find something to cater to every taste.
Giuseppe Verdi
Ave Maria, from: Quattro pezzi sacri
Choir of the Gaechinger Cantorey
Dresden Chamber Choir
Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Hans-Christoph Rademann
Guido Johannes Joerg has revived numerous forgotten compositions, with a focus on Italian music of the “long” 19th century. He was involved in the Rossini Renaissance as well as in several Rossini editions for Carus.
Rossini: Messa di Rimini
Ponchielli: Messa per la notte di natale
Verdi: Messa da Requiem
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