The Messe solennelle is the earliest large-scale work by Berlioz to have survived. It was composed in 1824 when he was twenty, and had been formally studying music for a little over a year, a year in which, according to his Memoirs, he composed a cantata, an opera, a Latin oratorio and a dramatic scene before embarking on the Mass. All these works, including the Mass, were soon destroyed by the composer when he realised that they were not worthy of his rapidly maturing craft.
But the difference between the Mass and the other rejected works is that the Mass was performed. It was heard in 1825 in the church of Saint-Roch, Paris (the church which had commissioned the work), and again in 1827 in the church of Saint-Eustache before Berlioz turned against it. There were thus many sheets of vocal and orchestral parts to feed the flames when he decided to burn it, but the autograph score itself survived. Of its miraculous preservation nobody had any idea until 1992, when Frans Moors, a school teacher living in Antwerp, reported his discovery of the manuscript among the small collection of miscellaneous music kept in the organ gallery at the church of Saint Charles Borromeus in Antwerp.
An inscription on the manuscript helped to explain how it got there: “The score of this Mass, entirely in Berlioz’s hand, was given to me as a souvenir of the long-standing friendship that binds me to him,” signed “A. Bessems, Paris 1835”. Bessems was a Belgian violinist, born in Antwerp, who went to Paris to study under Baillot at the Conservatoire in 1826 and thus enrolled at the same time as Berlioz. He probably played in the second performance of the Mass in 1827. He also played in Berlioz’s Paris concerts in 1835, at which point, we may surmise, Berlioz gave him the Mass manuscript, perhaps in lieu of a fee. After Bessems’ death in 1868 the manuscript passed to his brother Joseph, who was in charge of the music at Saint Joseph’s Borromeus in Antwerp, and after Joseph’s death in 1892 it remained in the old oak chest in the organ gallery where Moors found it one hundred years later.
The first performance of the Mass, on 10 July 1825, with Henri Valentino conducting an orchestra made up mostly of players from the Opéra, was critical event for Berlioz since it was the first opportunity to hear a large-scale work of his own and because it brought his name before the public and the press. Berlioz himself played the tam-tam, striking its two blows in the Resurrexit with such force that the whole church shook. The press was unanimously favourable, noting the young man’s ‘genius, verve, enthusiasm, and his fine sense of musical painting’. Berlioz0s teacher, Le Sueur, uttered the memorable words: ‘Come let me embrace you. You will be no doctor or apothecary, I swear, but a great composer; you have genius – I tell you because it’s true’.
The second performance followed in Saint-Eustache on 22 November 1827, when, to save money, Berlioz had an orchestra of students and of theatre players who did not have to be paid. To save Valentino’s fee he conducted the performance himself, the start of an illustrious career as a conductor that took him to most countries of Europe. At the depiction of the Last Judgement Berlioz was deeply moved:
I was gripped by a convulsive trembling which I managed to hold in check until the end of the movement, although I then had to sit down and let the orchestra take a few minutes’ rest. I couldn’t have stayed any longer on my feet and I feared the baton might slip from my hand.
Despite his fervour it was then that the work began to seem unacceptable, for the withdrew all but the Resurrexit. This movement was revised and performed twice more in Paris. The Resurrexit too was ‘burnt’, eventually finding its way into other works, especially Benvenuto Cellini in 1836 and the Requiem in 1837. The rest of the Mass had already supplied material for the Symphonie Fantastique in 1830 and was to remain at Berlioz’s disposal until 1849, when the Agnus Dei was adapted as a movement for the Te Deum.
The Mass is composed for three soloists – soprano, tenor, bass – and a full chorus and orchestra including three now rare or obsolete bass brass instruments: serpent, buccin and ophicleide, no more than two of which play together at any one time. The serpent was commonly used in French churches to support the singing, and the buccin was a military instruments of the trombone family. The ophicleide became Berlioz’s standard brass bass, later superseded by the tuba.
The Mass is modelled on those of Cherubini and Le Sueur, the two composers in charge of the music at the Chapelle Royale in the Tuileries in the 1820s. Like Cherubini, Berlioz inserts and offertory motet and the O salutaris and concludes with Domine salvum on the model of both the older masters.
Hugh Macdonald
But the difference between the Mass and the other rejected works is that the Mass was performed. It was heard in 1825 in the church of Saint-Roch, Paris (the church which had commissioned the work), and again in 1827 in the church of Saint-Eustache before Berlioz turned against it. There were thus many sheets of vocal and orchestral parts to feed the flames when he decided to burn it, but the autograph score itself survived. Of its miraculous preservation nobody had any idea until 1992, when Frans Moors, a school teacher living in Antwerp, reported his discovery of the manuscript among the small collection of miscellaneous music kept in the organ gallery at the church of Saint Charles Borromeus in Antwerp.
An inscription on the manuscript helped to explain how it got there: “The score of this Mass, entirely in Berlioz’s hand, was given to me as a souvenir of the long-standing friendship that binds me to him,” signed “A. Bessems, Paris 1835”. Bessems was a Belgian violinist, born in Antwerp, who went to Paris to study under Baillot at the Conservatoire in 1826 and thus enrolled at the same time as Berlioz. He probably played in the second performance of the Mass in 1827. He also played in Berlioz’s Paris concerts in 1835, at which point, we may surmise, Berlioz gave him the Mass manuscript, perhaps in lieu of a fee. After Bessems’ death in 1868 the manuscript passed to his brother Joseph, who was in charge of the music at Saint Joseph’s Borromeus in Antwerp, and after Joseph’s death in 1892 it remained in the old oak chest in the organ gallery where Moors found it one hundred years later.
The first performance of the Mass, on 10 July 1825, with Henri Valentino conducting an orchestra made up mostly of players from the Opéra, was critical event for Berlioz since it was the first opportunity to hear a large-scale work of his own and because it brought his name before the public and the press. Berlioz himself played the tam-tam, striking its two blows in the Resurrexit with such force that the whole church shook. The press was unanimously favourable, noting the young man’s ‘genius, verve, enthusiasm, and his fine sense of musical painting’. Berlioz0s teacher, Le Sueur, uttered the memorable words: ‘Come let me embrace you. You will be no doctor or apothecary, I swear, but a great composer; you have genius – I tell you because it’s true’.
The second performance followed in Saint-Eustache on 22 November 1827, when, to save money, Berlioz had an orchestra of students and of theatre players who did not have to be paid. To save Valentino’s fee he conducted the performance himself, the start of an illustrious career as a conductor that took him to most countries of Europe. At the depiction of the Last Judgement Berlioz was deeply moved:
I was gripped by a convulsive trembling which I managed to hold in check until the end of the movement, although I then had to sit down and let the orchestra take a few minutes’ rest. I couldn’t have stayed any longer on my feet and I feared the baton might slip from my hand.
Despite his fervour it was then that the work began to seem unacceptable, for the withdrew all but the Resurrexit. This movement was revised and performed twice more in Paris. The Resurrexit too was ‘burnt’, eventually finding its way into other works, especially Benvenuto Cellini in 1836 and the Requiem in 1837. The rest of the Mass had already supplied material for the Symphonie Fantastique in 1830 and was to remain at Berlioz’s disposal until 1849, when the Agnus Dei was adapted as a movement for the Te Deum.
The Mass is composed for three soloists – soprano, tenor, bass – and a full chorus and orchestra including three now rare or obsolete bass brass instruments: serpent, buccin and ophicleide, no more than two of which play together at any one time. The serpent was commonly used in French churches to support the singing, and the buccin was a military instruments of the trombone family. The ophicleide became Berlioz’s standard brass bass, later superseded by the tuba.
The Mass is modelled on those of Cherubini and Le Sueur, the two composers in charge of the music at the Chapelle Royale in the Tuileries in the 1820s. Like Cherubini, Berlioz inserts and offertory motet and the O salutaris and concludes with Domine salvum on the model of both the older masters.
Hugh Macdonald
