Gioacchino Rossini: Messa Di Gloria

Eleonora Buratto, Teresa Iervolino, Lawrence Brownlee, Michael Spyres, Carlo Lepore, Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Antonio Pappano

"Rossini's Messa di Gloria is a Mass of light," says Sir Antonio Pappano, "unlike in the Requiems of Verdi or Mozart, fear is not really present in Rossini's Messa di Gloria. It's a wonderful experience-Rossini is simply open-eyed, open-faced and open-armed before God." As music director of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Choir and Orchestra, Pappano was already building a remarkable Rossini discography on Warner Classics. Now the British-born composer expands it to include the only liturgical work Rossini wrote before his early retirement at age 37: Rossini's Messa di Gloria. Consisting of nine movements, the work requires five first-rate soloists for its highly virtuosic passages. Pappano found them, not only in the three Italian singers, but also in the outstanding U.S. tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres. The two star tenors and Rossini specialists just released the much celebrated Rossini album Amici e Rivali together in 2020. Spyres describes Rossini's Messa di Gloria as "one of the most demanding vocal scores Rossini ever wrote. Rossini wants it to glorify the Church and the Word, and to do so he shows the full range of each voice. It is truly bel canto at its height."

Price: $25.98