Berlioz & Martini's Mass

2019 – 150th commemorations of Berlioz’s death

Following the recreation of the Messe des morts by C.-H. Plantade, Le Concert Spirituel and the Palazzetto Bru Zane join forces once again and offer a rarity by Jean-Paul-Egide Martini (known for his famous romance Plaisir d'amour): Messe des morts à grand orchestre dédiée aux mânes des compositeurs les plus célèbres, and performed for the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI in 1815.

With the complicity of the Festival Berlioz, another mass, no less rare, completes this programme: Berlioz's Messe solennelle (1824). When he was only 20 years old, Berlioz composed an already revolutionary work with a tormented history. Commissioned by the chapel master of the Saint-Roch church, who thus offered the young artist an opportunity to showcase his qualities as a lyric composer to the Parisian public, the work was performed for the first time in this church on July 10, 1825. It is given again in Saint-Eustache two years later. After Berlioz declared that he had destroyed the score, the Mass was considered lost until its rediscovery in 1992 by the organist and choirmaster Frans Moors in Antwerp.

Beyond a similar choral writing and a group of three identical soloists (soprano, tenor and bass), it is above all by the originality of the ideas and the fusion of Italian and French styles that the two works come together.