Puccini's Messa di Gloria is one of the most popular settings of the Latin Mass and is also featured on many concert programmes in the Puccini Year of 2024. The musical quality, energy, and freshness of this youthful work ensured its ever-growing popularity after its rediscovery in the early 1950s. The composer even went on to quote some of the melodies in his famous operas, notably Manon Lescaut. The Messa di Gloria was most recently performed on June 27, 2024, in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Munich by the Bavarian Radio Chorus and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under its chief conductor Ivan Repuic. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of the great Italian composer, BR-KLASSIK is now presenting the live recording of this outstanding concert on CD. Giacomo Puccini wrote his Messa a quattro voci con orchestra (Mass for Four Voices with Orchestra) between 1878 and 1880 as the final thesis of his music studies in his hometown of Lucca. The first preparatory work was done when he was just eighteen, and the young composer was only 21 when the work was first performed on July 12, 1880. The Mass remained unpublished during his lifetime but became immensely popular after its rediscovery in the early 1950s. However, in the first printed edition and in later performances, it was inaccurately described as a Messa di Gloria, a term that in fact refers to a (usually shorter) composition consisting only of Kyrie and Gloria; Puccini's Mass is, in fact, a full work, the complete setting of the Latin Ordinary with Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. Puccini had begun his work on the Credo as early as 1878. In the Messa di Gloria, the choir takes centre stage with increasingly beautiful melodies; the solo parts for tenor and baritone are sung by Tomislav Muek and George Petean. The approximately 45-minute-long work is complemented on this CD by Puccini's orchestral works Preludio sinfonico and Crisantemithe latter in an arrangement for string orchestra by Lucas Drew. (Studio recordings from February 2023.)
