Like so many things Rossinian, the Petite messe solennelle, one of the most original and engaging of all settings of the Mass, is an elusive work. For that reason we must be grateful that Bavarian Radio and Ariola-Eurodisc were present in the Baumburg monastery chapel on July 16th, 1972 when Wolfgang Sawallisch led a superb performance from the keyboard with the Munich Vokalsolisten, Kari Lovass, Brigitte Fassbaender, Peter Schreier and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The records (RCA SER5693/4, 10/73) are no longer in the catalogue though I often see the set in specialst shops in London.
Since 1972 there have been two further recordings, neither ideal, and now we have a new recording from Philips, very much a specialist company where Rossini is concerned. The new set has much to be said in its favour, though it is not without its controversial aspects. Though Sawallisch's tempos in the Baumburg performance were generally measured, they seemed right individually and as a whole. The Heltay (Argo) and Scimone performances, by contrast, are more variable. Both have some blank patches rhythmically in numbers from the Gloria and both are rather quick at times: Heltay, more damagingly, in the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, Scimone, most obviously, in the big double fugues which round off the gloria and the Credo. The brilliant ''Cum Sancto Spritu'' is marked alla breve and Scimone's spanking pace is laudable. The problem is, he has also opted for a richer, more resonant acoustic than usual and for a choir 24 rather than the eight, plus four soloists, (a dozen voices symbolic of the 12 apostles) which Rossini originally had in mind. The result is, in some respects, very splendid; but even the extra-ordinarily accomplished Ambrosian Singers sound rushed in places. As is often the case when pointing is sacrificed to simple pace, the music comes to lack real buoyancy and lift.
Scimone is excellent in the opening and closing movements of the work; the choir is first rate and the reading has an appropriate blend of grace and expressiveness, and restraint. This is very evident in the playing of Craig Sheppard who shapes the lovely and ingenious ''Preludio religioso'' most beautifully. (Swallisch was rather quick; Heltay opts for the harmonium which Rossini offers as alternative.) That said, the piano sound on the new recording can seem muffled and underpowered at moments when something grand and incisive is called for. Better that, though, than the naively intrusive left-hand figurations which occasionally surface on the Argo set.
Rossini was inspired to write the Petite messe solennelle, in part, by the brilliant young Marchioso sisters, so it's as well that Katia Ricciarelli and the splendid Margarita Zimmermann are aware, in some degree, of the essential eloquence of the ''Qui tollis peccata mundi'. Kari Lovass's darker voice and Sawallisch's slower tempos brought added intensity to the ''Crucifixus'' and ''O salutaris'', notably in the highly-charged sequential passages (the patterned minor thirds in the ''Crucifixus'', for instance). Scimone's preference for fluent tempos can lead to an underpointing of the music's sostenuto element but Ricciarelli's experience is sufficient to give the music presence. Zimmermann is very fine in the Agnus Dei. Samuel Ramey is very adequate, less mannered than Sawallisch's Fischer-Dieskau though not necessarily preferable to Argo's Malcolm King. In the ''Gratias'', the bass's wittily syncopated three-note counterpoint to the contralto's solo entry is instrusively loud and rhythmically inert in the new performance.
The tenor's role in the Mass is a problematic one, for it requires an artist of culture, style and natural restraint. Of tenors on extant sets only Peter Schreier on the Sawallisch set has these qualities. Tear, with Heltay on Argo, is hectoring and crude, confusing this subtly nuanced ''Domine Deus'' with the much more public and extrovert ''Cuius animam'' from the Stabat mater. And AB found Pavarotti unusually coarse in this number on the very unsatisfactory La Scala set on Decca. Carreras is never coarse, but he makes less than one might have hoped of the expressive rises, the major and minor sixths, of the ''Domine Deus''; he also hustles his solitary climactic high A near the end of the ''Gratias'' and he's inclined to croon in the Sanctus.
None the less, the new set enjoys substantial advantages over its immediate rivals. It would still be worthwhile trying to track down the Sawallisch, but this rather grand, very cleanly recorded new set is a more than acceptable introduction to this, quite the most original and affecting sin of Rossini's remarkable old age.'