Gioachino Rossini, a composer I once dismissed as second-rate, in spite of his famous barber, but which now I am increasingly appreciative of, is having his ‘Petite Messe Solennelle’ performed on Sunday 6th May at 5.30 PM at Bagni di Lucca’s Ponte a Seraglio’s parish church, courtesy of the Michel de Montaigne foundation under the directorship of Prof. Marcello Cherubini and celebrating the 150th anniversary of Rossini’s death.

Rossini was always a bit of a joker but there’s a double entendre in the title of his last great work, written almost forty years after he abandoned opera.

If some people say the joke is that the Mass is not ‘petite’ but rather long (at over one hour in length) and that it is not ‘Solennelle’ because Rossini was a great comic composer then they are quite wrong. The Mass is ‘petite’ because it only requires a small group of singers and instrumentalists to perform it. In fact, the original version was just accompanied by a harmonium and two pianos (the parts of which are now usually combined into one, as in this performance). The Mass is also ‘Solennelle’ because it is full of great dignity, elaborate fugal parts and real grandeur. The best bit, however, about Rossini’s last ‘sin of his old age,’ as he labelled the Mass, is that it is so catchingly tuneful.

Anyone who has attended Mass at Montegral, Kuhn’s academy, will have heard bits of this ravishing work there.

Rossini did decide to produce an orchestral version where he wanted women’s voices to sing with the men but he never heard it as women were not allowed to sing in papal services The original version, which we shall hear tonight, was designed for ‘castrati’ but, fortunately, Sabrina Bessi and Laura Brioli will take these parts as Pope Leo XIII banned castration in 1878. (Evidently the Vatican has still to issue an apology for this barbaric practise).

If you can’t be at the concert then, as a consolation prize, here’s a 2015 recording of the original version sung by the Academia Corale Vittore Veneziani of Ferrara: