The musical mass, to be performed during the Catholic service of that name, has at all times been regarded as the most important and sublime genre of sacred music. Those composers who wrote masses sought to embody in them the world of humanity’s most profound experience: mournful-lyrical; expressively dramatic; exultantly enthusiastic, and sublimely contemplative. At the same time, the Latin/Greek texts of the Mass itself were strictly canonical, and were not subject to any variation. All the same, each composer who addressed these texts had the possibility of presenting their own musical interpretation of the subject, and so each Mass became a work with unique features.
Each Mass falls into five main sections, which are named after the opening words of the text, as follows.
1) Kyrie eleison (Господи, помилуй),
2) Gloria in excelsis Deo (Слава в вышних Богу),
3) Credo in unum Deum (Верую во единого Бога),
4) Sanctus dominus Deus Sabaoth (Свят Господь Бог Саваоф),
5) Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi (Агнец Божий, взявший на себя грехи мира).
Our “Messa Universale” is a unique programme composed of fragments of the best sacred works by composers of the 18th and 19th centuries – Bach, Vivaldi, Pergolesi, Mozart, Haydn, Michael Haydn, Schubert, Bottesini, Rossini, Puccini and Verdi. In strict accordance with the structure of the Catholic Mass, the musical pieces follow a complete line from the Kyrie Eleison to the Agnus Dei. This results in a unique supercycle of a universal mass, which offers a real parade of masterpieces.