Rediscovered Mass

Giacomo Puccini, whose operas probably earned him more money than any other serious composer ever made,* began by writing church music, including a Mass at the age of 21. Italian experts who heard his Mass performed in 1880 liked it pretty well. True, they felt it suffered a bit from "overabundance," and, at a time when the trend was to disembodied church music, they raised their eyebrows because some parts did not seem musically "chaste" enough. But they praised its "spontaneous melodies," predicted a fine future for its composer. Thereupon, the Mass fell into obscurity. It was not until last week, in Chicago's Grant Park, that it got its second performance.

For three quarters of an hour, Conductor Alfredo Antonini led his forces through Puccini's composition; there were 185 voices of the Swedish Choral Club, a 75-piece orchestra and three male soloists. Lovers of La Boheme and Tosca recognized in the youthful sacred work hints of those later sensuous operas. Listeners familiar with the composer's Manon Lescaut got a bit of a turn at the end: the peaceful Agnus Dei of the Mass was note-for-note identical with Manon's madrigal.

Proudly present for the performance was Father Dante del Fiorentino, a Brooklyn priest who knew Puccini intimately for years. While collecting material for a Puccini biography last year, he found one of the two known copies of the Mass in the family of Puccini's music secretary (the other is in a museum), then worked hard until it was published and performed. The Mass cannot easily be used in sacred services (a 1903 papal encyclical, among other things, generally forbids the use of orchestras in church). But Father del Fiorentino will see to it that the church benefits; his share of the royalties (including those from a radio performance on Mutual early this week) will go toward rebuilding the church in the little town of Torre del Lago, where Puccini lived for many years.

*He left an estimated $4,000,000 when he died in 1924.

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