Messe solennelle (Berlioz)

Messe solennelle is a setting of the Catholic Solemn Mass by the French composer Hector Berlioz. It was written in 1824, when the composer was twenty, and first performed at the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris on 10 July 1825, and again at the Church of Saint-Eustache in 1827. After this, Berlioz claimed to have destroyed the entire score, except for the "Resurrexit", but in 1991 a Belgian schoolteacher, Frans Moors, came across a copy of the work in an organ gallery in Antwerp, and it has since been revived.

Elements of Berlioz's Requiem and Symphonie fantastique appears in the Messe solennelle in somewhat altered versions. Themes from the Messe solennelle occur in the first half of his opera Benvenuto Cellini.

Scored for soprano, tenor, (prominent) bass, mixed chorus, and large orchestra, its movements are:

Berlioz was still composing his mass late in 1824, when he made arrangements to have it performed at the Church of Saint-Roch. He felt he needed a conductor for the large forces required. His teacher, Jean-François Le Sueur, was co-director of the Chapel Royale, where Henri Valentino, a violinist at the Chapel, but also one of the two chief conductors of the Paris Opera orchestra, had recently applied for the conducting post at the Chapel. Berlioz approached Valentino, who examined the score and agreed to conduct the performance, despite grave doubts concerning the forces at his disposal. The parts were being copied by choirboys from Saint-Roch when Berlioz celebrated his 21st birthday on 11 December. The concert was scheduled for 28 December, and the church sent invitations on behalf of the choirboys to newspapers, friends and likely patrons. The general rehearsal was scheduled for 27 December. Berlioz described it in his memoirs:

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