FULL MISSA DE GLÒRIA DE PAU CASALS Estrena Mundial El Vendrell 2023 Mar Jordana, Josep Rovira, David Guitart
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Missa de Gloria
- Composer: Casals Pau (Pablo)
- Libretto: traditional
- Venue & Opera Company: Església Parroquial del Vendrell
- Recorded: December 2, 2023
- Type: Concert Live
- Singers: Mar Jordana, Josep Rovira, David Guitart
- Conductor: Daniel Mestre
- Orchestra: Mercè Sanchís, ORGAN
- Chorus: Coral Càrmina
- Chorus Master: Daniel Mestre
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: L'ORGUE DEL VENDRELL
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
On Saturday, December 2, the world premiere of Pau Casals’ Mass of Glory took place at the Vendrell Parish Church, with the voices of soloists and singers from the Carmina Choir, accompanied by the organist Mercè Sanchís, who will play the original baroque organ played by Pau Casals’ father.
The concert, organized by the Association of Friends of the Vendrell Organ, is part of the events of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pau Casals.
Missa de Gloria {1892) Estrena mundial, Pau Casals (1876-1973)
• Kyrie
• Gloria
Domine Deus Quoniam
• Credo
Et in unum Dominum Et ex Patre
Qui propter
Et in Spiritum Sanctum
• Sanctus
• Benedictus
• Agnus Dei
O vos omnes, Pau Casals
Three pieces from EI Pessebre, Pau Casals (1960)
• L’estel
• El plor de !’infant
• Gloria
El Cant dels Ocells, Pau Casals (1932)
PAU CASALS, COMPOSER
The restlessness of composing was always present in Pau Casals. Throughout his life he felt the need to write music, but concert commitments prevented him from dedicating himself to it fully. Even so, throughout his life he composed more than eighty works from the first years of his formation, in 1892 until 1972, a year before his death. Alongside the most emblematic such as the oratorio El Pessebre, the Sant Martí del Canigó sardana, the religious works he dedicated to Montserrat or the United Nations Anthem itself, he wrote a set of very diverse repertoire works, from from religious music, lied, sardana, chamber music, to large format composition.
In 2008, the Pau Casals Foundation began the task of research, complete cataloging and digitization of the creative work of Pau Casals, which is preserved in its entirety in the National Archives of Catalonia, to be edited and put – it within the reach of the interpreters. The edition was carried out by Boileau Publishing, which has since published a total of 21 volumes with Casals’ work for piano, voice and piano, choir, string quartet, string quintet, orchestra strings, symphony orchestra, wind ensemble and couplet, with more than 80 works.
Alessio Boileau, founder of the publishing house, and Pau Casals had a professional relationship in the 1930s, when the former worked on engraving and stamping scores for the Maestro’s orchestra. It was a circumstance that frequently, in the summer, they traveled together by train to Sant Vicenç de Calders. During the year they met in social gatherings with other well-known composers of the time at the publisher’s headquarters: profession and friendship united them. The Spanish Civil War interrupted, however, this contact.
In the first years of the 21st century, the relationship that both characters had had was partly recovered between Marta Casals Istomin (widow of Casals) and Yolanda Guasch (granddaughter of Boileau), with the collaboration of Núria Ballester (director of Pau Casals Museum).
issa de Glòria is a piece written for four voices (soprano, tenor I, tenor II and bass) and harmonium or organ, and dated in 1892, when Casals was 15 years old. It is an ambitious project for a young man who has only just trained in music. Despite being a work of youth, you can already glimpse the greatness and impressive musical intuition of Casals.
At this time Casals was studying at the Municipal Conservatory of Music in Barcelona, with Josep García as cello teacher and Josep Rodoreda as harmony teacher.
The work collects the ordinary of the Catholic mass and uses a language with influences specific to the time, with bel canto reminiscences especially in the solo interventions, but also with the knowledge of the tradition and rhetoric specific to the choral masses of the 18th and 19th centuries. The young Casals, however, brings his own language, with moments of great melodism and intimacy, and others of grandiloquence, such as some of his mature choral works, which can also be heard in this program.
The writing of the harmonium/organ is very pianistic in many moments, a fact that could also allow us to offer it on this instrument.
The revised version that we will offer, we have adapted it to the usual formation of sopranos/contraltos/tenors/bass. We have corrected the text problems it presented and some specific writing errors, and at the same time we have maintained the essence and originality of a unique work of the musical genius we all know.