The Pater noster and Ave Maria of 1880 and the ‘Libera me’ from the composite Messa per Rossini (later the bases from which Verdi developed the full Requiem) are clearly enough established in the canon, if rarely performed or recorded. The remaining five works, notably the Messe solenne, are all pieces dating from his late teens and twenties, student works that owe their emergence (mainly from the archives of the Busseto Philharmonic Society) thanks to the diligence of Professor Dino Rizzi, who provides an informative note.
Though in these youthful pieces there are few if any indications of the mature opera-composer to come, they provide a fascinating view of the young Verdi’s development. As the pupil of Busseto choirmaster, Ferdinando Provesi, untraditional and anti-clerical in that role, the young composer was led towards operatic models, with choral writing echoing Rossini ensembles.
The Messe solenne, sketched out in 1833 when Verdi was 20, but revised and performed only two years later, is sadly incomplete. The aim was to write a Missa brevis, setting only a ‘Kyrie’ and a ‘Gloria’, but two sections are missing from the ‘Gloria’, the ‘Qui sedes’ and ‘Quoniam’, leaving only the opening ‘Gloria in excelsis’, the ‘Qui tollis’ and the final ‘Cum sancto spirito’.
The very opening of the first ‘Kyrie’ sounds transition-like, a clearing of the throat before the main argument is put in an almost Beethovenian style. That brief movement is very square, and the lyrical setting of the ‘Christe’ in compound time is conventional too, but then in the second ‘Kyrie’, even briefer than the first, the natural vigour of the young Verdi emerges positively in sharply rhythmic choral writing.
The three movements of the ‘Gloria’ are similarly variable in their inspiration, with chirpy woodwind writing in the ‘Laudamus te’ of the opening section (a baritone prominent), and echoes of Bellini and Mozart in the ‘Qui tollis’ (with soprano solo). That last, like the ‘Christe’, was newly written for the 1835 performance, reflecting Verdi’s studies in Milan. Generally throughout these student pieces – including the two early Tantum ergo settings and the separate Qui tollis – allegros are more striking than slow passages. Most Rossinian of all is the Laudate pueri, an ensemble piece with two tenor soloists and a bass joining the chorus, in which after a jaunty flute solo, there is a full Rossini-like crescendo.
If none of this music brings the sort of insights that, say, Berlioz’s youthful inspirations so often do, it is consistently enjoyable, warmly and incisively performed under Chailly by the Milan choir and orchestra as well as a splendid line-up of soloists, all fresh and clear. The soprano, Cristina Gallardo-Domas (best remembered for moving Sister Angelica in Antonio Pappano’s EMI set of Puccini’s Trittico, 3/99), is the lovely soloist in the Ave Maria, written in 1880, heightening its anticipations of Desdemona’s Willow song and Ave Maria in Otello. Equally the a cappella setting of the Pater noster, which precedes it, anticipates the last act of Otello. It makes one wonder why these two pieces for contrasted forces, designed to got together, are so neglected.
Less surprising is the neglect of the ‘Libera me’, when in fact it is a draft for the great ‘Libera me’ in the Requiem. It is true that most of the ideas are already fully worked out, but the changes in detail make all the difference, notably the striking fortissimo chords with bass drum which introduce the ‘Dies irae’ in the later version. Here, too, the beautiful, sensitive singing of Gallardo-Domas enhances an apt and welcome supplement to a rare collection. Excellent Decca sound, though the unaccompanied chorus in the Pater noster is rather distant.'