“Dear Lord, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Have I just written sacred music, or rather, sacrilegious music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much technique, a little passion, that's all. Blessings to you and grant me Paradise.”Rossini, in his dedication to God himself, seems to have been a bit cheeky with this score, which he considered to be his "last sin of old age"... For if this Mass, written at a late age - the composer was seventy-five - is small in terms of instrumental forces (the original version comprised only piano and harmonium before Rossini orchestrated it three years later), it is hardly small in terms of proportions, and proves to be nothing less than poor! Different styles and moods are interwoven with frank and sincere fervour, imbued with simple faith and real grandeur.
Rossini's artistic testament bears witness to a surprising evolution in the composer's style when we recall that he had abandoned all musical activity more than thirty years earlier. Firmly turning its back on all sadness, it is bathed in a light of gentleness and youthful ardour, as if the composer had found in it the miracle of a second youth. Replete with invention and daring, and with masterly lucid style, it nonetheless displays some unexpected boldness from a composer who, while looking back on his past with the nostalgia of an old man, nonetheless contemplates the future with good-natured relish.
