Large Choral Works: Personal Favorites - Gounod's 'St. Cecelia Mass'
November 20, 2012
Large Choral Works: Personal Favorites – Gounod’s ‘St. Cecelia Mass’
Periods: Romantic
Today’s post is a continuation of several recent posts dedicated to personal favorite large choral classical works in the western tradition. From my earliest memories as a child listening daily to classical music on our home phonograph, the most memorable moments continue to be the large choral works that became ingrained in my consciousness and remain so to this day.
There is something almost ‘transformational’ that draws one into this music named after Saint Cecelia, the patroness of musicians and Church music. This blog is being posted on Tuesday, November 20th, two days prior to St. Cecelia’s day of feast celebrated world-wide every year on November 22nd. Each segment of the Roman Catholic mass that Gounod celebrates flows seamlessly into one inspiring work, and the entire composition takes approximately 45 minutes to perform. In addition to my favorite performance by the Choeurs René Duclos and the Orchestre de la Société de Concerts du Conservatoire Paris conducted by Jean-Claude Hartemann (1963), I have a more recent performance (digitally recorded) by the Choeurs de Radio-France and the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique conducted by Georges Pretre (1990). Both are excellent, but I still have a love (and personal preference) for the Hartemann 1963 recording.
Gounod’s St. Cecelia Mass follows the ‘classic’ outline of the Roman Catholic Mass, and includes the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Offertorium, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Domine Salvum. All of the segments fit together in a beautiful, seamless manner. The most well known of these segments is arguably the Sanctus that shows up on many compilation recordings made by a variety of world-class artists.
Now, please sit back, relax and actively listen to soprano Jessye Norman singing the ‘Sanctus’ from Gounod’s St. Cecelia Mass in this clip from YouTube™.
