Messa a 4 voci con orchestra (Messa di Gloria)
Arrangement for chamber orchestra (arr. J. Linckelmann) 1880/2017
Puccini composed his Messa a 4 voci con orchestra in 1878–1880. The musical quality, the energy, and the freshness of this youthful work led the composer to quote from his Mass in later operas, ensuring an ever-growing popularity for the work after its rediscovery in 1952.
With this arrangement for chamber orchestra (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, timpani, and strings), more choirs now have the opportunity of performing this work without the choir being dominated by a full-scale symphony orchestra. The symphonic character of the work is nevertheless preserved. This scoring offers an optimal balance between transparency and orchestral sound.
All the vocal parts (soloists and chorus) are identical with the original version (56.001), so that the vocal score and choral score of that version can be used.
Original version | Arrangement for chamber orchestra |
Soli TBar, Coro SATB, Pic, 2 Fl, 2 Ob, 2 Clt, 2 Fg, 2 Cor, 2 Tr, 3 Trb, Oficleide, Timpani, 2 Vl, Va, Vc, Cb, [2 Cor, Arpa] | Soli TBar, Coro SATB, Fl, Ob, Clt, Cor, Fg, Timp, 2 Vl, Va, Vc, Cb |
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Composer
Giacomo Puccini
| 1858-1924Giacomo Puccini came from a dynasty of church musicians who worked in the Tuscan city of Lucca. His Messa a 4 con orchestra, premiered there in 1880, seemed to point him toward a career in the same direction, but directly after this, he went to Milan Conservatoire with the aim of becoming an opera composer. His only independent orchestral works were written there as student works – the Preludio sinfonico (1882) and Capriccio sinfonico (1883), as well as some of his 16 complete surviving songs for voice and piano (Canti), which he composed, with frequent references to his operas, almost throughout his career. He achieved a breakthrough as an opera composer with Manon Lescaut (1893); between 1893 and 1904 he composed La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, which remain his most frequently-performed works today. In recent years there has been a growing realisation that Puccini's entire output requires reappraisal. And so, he has increasingly come to be understood as a musician searching for a way forward into the modern age. Personal details
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Arranger
Joachim Linckelmann
Reviews
... Linckelmann lotet sinnvoll die Möglichkeiten des Instrumentariums aus, sorgt etwa mit den Holzbläserdurchgängen am Ende des "Kyrie" für Anklänge an Dvorák und bereitet mit dem exzellent aufgestellten Klangkörper einen mustergültig intimen Puccini – übrigens auch in seiner ebenfalls sehr gelungenen Bearbeitung von Puccinis Preludio sinfonico ...
Badische Zeitung, 11.6.2018