Puccini Messa

Opera composer Puccini was a young man when he crafted this splendid work. Its text is the old-fashioned Roman Catholic Latin Mass. The title of the work derives from its longest component, the "Gloria." Youthful exuberance and optimism underlie the work.

Before turning his attention to opera, Puccini wrote a number of wonderful works that are perhaps less well known, even if they already put his full genius on show. This is particularly true of the astonishing Messa di Gloria, whose evocative power and shimmering colours well deserve the exceptional cast on this recording. Indeed, a special passion inspires the soloists and chorus gathered around Gustavo Gimeno and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.

More than 25 years after his first EMI album, Antonio Pappano has established himself as a leading figure of conducting, particularly in music from his native Italy. This collection includes excerpts from all his EMI and Warner Italian recordings, from the famous Verdi and Puccini cycles with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu to the recent praised versions of Turandot and Rossini’s sacred works.

The early musical experiences of Puccini and Verdi, those two giants of Italian opera, were in fact gained in the field of sacred music. In 1880, at the age of 22, Puccini composed his Messa a 4 voci as a graduation exercise. When still a schoolboy, the 45-year older Verdi stood in for the organist in his home village; at the end of this life, he returned to church music, writing his Quattro pezzi sacri in the 1890s at the age of over 80. The Messa of the younger composer – which was believed lost until 1952 – is a joyful and scintillating work. Artistically, Verdi’s powerful and intense Pezzi sacri can be placed on an equal standing with his beloved operas.

The concept of metanoia – that, which goes beyond thought – most commonly describes a change in the way of seeing and thinking about things. With this recording, italo-brazilian conductor Simone Menezes and her chamber orchestra “K”, together with the choir “Sequenza 9.3”, go on a musical journey to find moments of metanoia in the lives and works of composers such as Giacomo Puccini, Arvo Pärt, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alexander Borodin as well as Johann Sebastian Bach.

Roberto Alagna - L'Enchanteur (2016) {2CD Set Warner Classics 0825646390229}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 666 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 353 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 70 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Parlophone / Warner Classics | 0825646390229
Classical / Romantic / Opera Aria / Tenor

Roberto Alagna is the kind of ‘opera singer’ who can sing for all with such infectious pleasure that all we can do is sit back and enjoy. And so happy are we to listen to him that there’s only one thing we feel we should say to him: thank you. This collection features aria from Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Gounoud, Massenet, Bizet, Berlioz, Offenbach and Bernstein.