Andrea Gabrieli: Dominicalis/Catalogue edition 2012 (Newton Classics Audio CD)  

Pierpaolo Turetta
Missa Dominicalis Organ Mass & 2012 Catalogue

Here’s a vibrantly composed, performed and recorded example of a now largely forgotten genre, the organ mass. Not an accompanied setting of the Ordinary Mass liturgy but one which is played, wordlessly, on an organ – or, as in this case, where the organ alternates with a few portions of the text which are sung. The genre as a whole was rendered a museum piece by a late-19th-century interdict from Pope Leo XI, but it can still be heard occasionally in liturgical contexts, and of course on recordings. This Catalogue CD release makes a splendidly festive way to mark Newton Classics’s centenary of issues.

J.S. Bach’s Clavier-Übung III is a consciously compendious example of the North-European, Protestant flavour of Organ Mass, but the genre originates in Italy, and Andrea Gabrieli, uncle of the more famous (but not more talented) Giovanni was an early proponent of the genre as both composer and performer, using to full advantage his position from 1566 as titular organist at St Mark’s in Venice. The building itself, as one can hear from this recording, is perfectly matched to the bursts of celebratory energy and penitential contemplation that echo around its towers and balconies in music inspired by the specific
expression and dogma of each phrase of the text: a more short-breathed but also colourfully Italianate approach than the high-school, low-Church seriousness of Clavier-Übung III.