Veronica Simeoni, Simone Alberghini - Taralli: Cantus Bononiae Missa Sancti Petronii (2022)

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Veronica Simeoni, Simone Alberghini - Taralli: Cantus Bononiae Missa Sancti Petronii (2022)

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Bologna and San Petronio, patron saint and protector of the city, represent an inseparable union, a spiritual and civil unity that goes beyond the only meaning linked to religion. The Basilica named after him, symbol of the city, wants to revive the spirit of reconstruction promoted by the saint, when he found it devastated by the barbarian invasions and was the main protagonist of both material and intellectual rebirth, going as far as laying the foundations of what would be the first university in the world. A celebratory event organized by the 'Messa in Musica' Association that with the same spirit involved the major institutions of the city, the Municipality, the Basilica and the Teatro Comunale, led to the commissioning to the composer Marco Taralli (already on Tactus’, Requiem - In Memoriam, tc.950006) a great mass for solos, choir, children's choir and orchestra, to honor the patron saint of Bologna. The texts of the mass are completed by inserts from Liber Paradisus, the famous Bolognese 1256 text with which slavery was abolished for the first time in history.

The score, completed in January 2021, had its world premiere at the Teatro Comunale on September 22 and was the subject of a recording by the historic record company Tactus. The premiere performance in the presence of the audience is scheduled during the liturgical celebration that will be presided by the Archbishop of the Diocese of Bologna, His Eminence Cardinal Matteo Zuppi. The rite will be celebrated by Monsignor Stefano Ottani and Monsignor Oreste Leonardi. An occasion to offer the city a composition that will remain a perennial patrimony of Bologna and its Basilica.

"The composition of a Mass - explains composer Marco Taralli - is the answer to the need to give voice to the sacred part of our soul with a contemporary language, able to excite even in the third millennium. The form is the classical one (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei) with the text in Latin and in closed numbers, in the most genuine tradition of the Masses of the 18th and 19th centuries. Why Latin? It is a language that has been generating vibrations for 3,000 years, for 2,000 as a sacred language. It has a strength from which it is impossible to escape. This Ordinarium was accompanied by a Proprium written specifically for San Petronio in Bologna. To write it, Davide Rondoni was involved, who extracted three texts (in Italian) from the 'Liber Paradisus'. They will be heard in three moments: in the Offertorium, during Communion and for the exit song. To the two solo voices of central timbre (mezzo-soprano and baritone) I have placed a four-part mixed choir, which in its vocal mass evokes the people, and a choir of white voices, obviously more ethereal in color.

The orchestra is deliberately small (the woodwinds are one, with two clarinets, two horns, a trumpet, a trombone, two percussion instruments and strings adequate for this ensemble). I tried to give a sense of essentiality while remaining faithful to a principle: music, even sacred music, must be able to express, narrate, tell. I tried to set to music the soul of Bologna, which is work, understood as pure work, not necessarily aimed at a result, that work which is beautiful as such. Because work is beauty".