During the concert crowning the season of the NFM Choir, we will hear the greatest work of Gioacchino Rossini’s late period – Petite messe solennelle – performed by the choir and soloists, accompanied by Katarzyna Neugebauer-Jastrzębska on the piano. This impressive mass will be performed under the baton of Lionel Sow, Artistic Director of the NFM Choir.

Petite messe solennelle is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of the Italian composer, known mainly for his operatic legacy. Rossini has in fact created nearly forty works of this type, most of which continue to delight opera audiences around the world. In the last years of his life, Rossini turned towards religious music – it was then that his famous Stabat Mater and the the Messe were created, about which the artist himself said: “the last of my sins of old age”.

The composition was written with Countess Louise Pillet-Will in mind, and its first performance took place during the consecration of the aristocrat’s private chapel in March 1864. The mass was originally intended for twelve voices, two pianos and a harmonium, but a few years later Rossini also decided to arrange the work for a larger ensemble with chorus and orchestra. Orchestrated in a very sophisticated way, this monumental mass is made up of several elaborate sections, following the missa solemnis tradition, although the composer ironically described it as “small” (petite). At the end of the score, Rossini signed an autograph with the following question to the Almighty: “Dear God, here it is, this poor little Mass. Have I written sacred music [musique sacrée] or cursed music [sacrée musique]? I was born for opera buffa, and you know it well! A little bit of study, a little bit of heart, that’s all. So be blessed and give me a place in Paradise.”