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François Joseph Gossec
(1734-1829)
Requiem
Grande Messe des Morts (1760)
edited by Wolfgang Kiess
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This pocket score has a
gray cover
with black print. |
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| size of the pocket score: | 22,4 x 16,6 cm |
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| all trade prices without tax! |
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| price of the pocket score: | No.07P/540 | EUR 29,07 |
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| From this work we have made the complete performing material! |
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| price of the full size score: | No.07D/540 | EUR 72,67 |
| (size: A4, 29,7 x 21cm, 252 pages, spiral binding) |
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| You can only buy the full size score by lending the complete performing material. |
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| price of the choir music book: | No.07C/540 | EUR 7,30 |
| (S, A, T, B, size: A4, 29,7 x 21cm, 39 pages, cover) |
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| The minimal order quantity of the choir music book is 20 copies! |
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| lending fee for the orchestra material: |
| | 1 performance | EUR 510,- |
| | 2 performances | EUR 726,- |
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| Score extracts for the soloists and one further full size score are inclusive the lending fee! |
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| For further information please contact us! |
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It is the merit of the Viennese musicologist Hartmut Krones to have identified Gossec's requiem as a model for Mozart in "Ein Französisches Vorbild für Mozarts Requiem", Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 1/1987. Gossec's requiem is a milestone in the history of music just as J. S. Bach's b minor mass or Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and definitely a must for every academic library.
Gossec divided the latin requiem text into 25 movements. He omitted the Kyrie and some strophes of the sequence. The requiem is scored in a very progressive style for the full classical orchestra, but trumpets and trombones play only in the Tuba Mirum. There, they form together with the clarinets and horns doubling the trumpets (and as reported bassoons presumably doubling the tenor and the bass trombones) a second remote orchestra. The fortissimo entry calling for the Last Judgement was the most remarkable and overwhelming effect noted by the listeners. Some arias are clearly operatic, such as the Exaudi or the Inter Oves for the soprano, or the Spera in Deo for the tenor. Nevertheless, Gossec showed also his skills in counterpoint by his great choral fugues, the Et Lux Perpetua and the Amen fugue.
The orchestration is in general early classical with the strings only in most movements; the use of clarinets in 1760 was still new, but the most remarkable progress compared to the baroque period is the orchestral bass part. Although indicated as "Basse continue", there is no figuration for an organ accompaniment. And Gossec's requiem is definitely a symphonic one, profiting from a large orchestra and a choir of corresponding size. It remained for more than 50 years a standard in this genre and still in 1814 it was played for the anniversary of Gretry's funeral. But it is very remarkable that with Napoleon's defeat of 1814/1815, Gossec's revolutionary requiem had been replaced by the royalist opuscule of his fellow turncoat Cherubini, the musical busybody of the last Bourbon kings...
Gossec's requiem served as model not only for Mozart, but also for Berlioz, and although not played any more through the romantic period it was still noted for its noble simplicity and perfection. But the first performance in the era of modern musicology took place at a Dutch-Flemish music festival in Berlin in 1911 (!), and two decades later it could be heard at the Würzburg Mozart festival (Germany) in 1932. One can hardly imagine that in Vienna, the musical heart of Europe around 1800, where Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert lived, this famous masterpiece was not performed before 1992 - and even then only the first 18 movements!
Among the extant sources we have used both the original score edition from 1780 and a manuscript score copy preserved at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris. The autograph at the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels dates from Gossec's own revision in 1814. Four recordings have been issued, the original version by Koch-Schwann on a double CD (313041, Liège radio symphony orchestra on modern instruments, with the Symphonie à Dix-Sept Parties, but no more available), a terribly mutilated version - without the fugues, to be squeezed onto a single CD - by Capriccio (10616, Capella Coloniensis on period instruments, not available in Europe), and the abridged version (????) by Erato (CD 2292-45284-2, Musica Polyphonica on period instruments). The Naxos recording (double CD 8.554.750-751, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana on modern instruments, with the Symphonie à Dix-Sept Parties) skips the 24th movement, the Lux Aeterna (and you may find some possible inspirations of the booklet text in this page...)
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Dr. Heinz Anderle is the scientific adviser of the music publisher Wolfgang Kiess. He is the promotor of the present series of works.
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| Requiem "Grande Messe des Morts", score | |  |
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| Requiem "Grande Messe des Morts", choir music book | |  |
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