Talk:Messa (Puccini)

Date of composition
Al pereira asks (and I quote) "where damn you found that iit was begun in 1976?" Of course it was 1876 I wrote, not 1976, and that date comes from the programme notes of Claudio Scimone's recording with José Carreras (released 16/09/2002, Apex 0927486922). You will see the same information recycled at the website of the Brighton Orpheus Choir. Grove confirms the Credo was performed two years before the rest of the mass, which he had therefore been working on for while by 1880. Now Al, if you have any evidence to show that this is incorrect, I would ask you produce it, instead of making more and more hasty edits that you cannot or will not back up with reference to sources. Meanwhile I suggest you confine your editing to moments when you are in a suitably calm frame of mind. (Incidentally, there is no such English word as "uncorrectly". It might be a good idea to use a spell-checker while you edit.) Flapdragon 01:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Article title
See Al's Talk page for more his vehement opinion on why this entry must be shown at Missa and not either of the usual titles, Messa di Gloria or Messa a Quattro Voci. Flapdragon 01:15, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * That's incredible. You don't want to accept the info published in the most important Puccini's catalogue but quote some programme notes! However, if for some reason you don't like the above Schickling's catalogue (personal tastes...) please go to Julian Budden (do you know him? he also wrote the three essential books about the operas of Verdi), Puccini. His Life and Works, p. 10 and read «For three quarters of a century the existence of this mass was known only to scholars, until in 1951, the priest Dante Del Fiorentino (who in his youth as curate at Torre del Lago had known Puccini and had since emigrated in America) made an edition of the music, which was published under the erroneous title of Messa di gloria.»
 * As regards the Credo, it was composed in 1878 (not 1876) as a separate composition (there is no evidence that it was thought as part of a larger composition). Then, two years later, it was inserted in the Messa.
 * 1976 was a typo of mine, 1876 was an error of you.
 * I suggest you confine your editing to things you know.
 * Ah, and use a spell-checker while you use Italian words: it is Messa not Missa, like you wrote in my talk.
 * I have already posted the citation from the catalogue here but I realize that you prefer to read it twice. So I copy it again, for you, adding also the ISBN, since I suppose that without ISBN you could answer me that it is "original research" or the book doesn't exist, unlike your programme notes, right? Here it is: Dieter Schickling, Giacomo Puccini – Catalogue of the Works, Bärenreiter 2003. ISBN 3-7618-1582-4
 * This is my last answer. Honestly, I don't want to waste my time anymore by helping who doesn't want. --Al Pereira(talk) 06:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right, I don't need help from someone who it seems has yet to grasp the basics of Wikipedia editing, such as providing sources and remaining civil. Once again, I urge you to read your welcome message, and edit in a calm frame of mind. And no, you keep mentioning Schickling's catalogue but you still have not provided the text of the citation you claim asserts that "Messa" is the usual name for this piece, something which is clearly untrue. You don't seem able to distinguish between that simple fact, and the opinion that the title is erroneous. That opinion may be valid, but the title is still what the title is, whatever you and Mr Budden think it ought to be. I note that unlike you he doesn't dispute what the title is, and that we have yet to see any evidence that anyone but you believes the title is "Messa". I also note that you have not yet got round to correcting the errors you introduced into the article ("uncorrectly", lower-case initials for "quattro voci" which is incorrect in English), and would ask you for the sake of Wikipedia to do so as soon as possible. Meanwhile I am asking for arbitration from an administrator to get this sorted out. Flapdragon 16:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Please, ask for an arbitration. The lower-case are correct since this is an Italian title. On it.wiki we use upper-case for English titles. I didn't quote from Schickling simply because he always calls the "Messa".... "Messa". Always, from the title (p. 69) to the end of the Chapter (p. 73). The reason is simple: it's a lot of time the musicologists, like the ones you call "you and Mr Budden", know that the correct name is Messa: a lot of time. Since you seem to like it so much, I quote only for you also the most important book about Puccini published in Italy, by Michele Girardi (Michele Girardi, Giacomo Puccini. L'arte internazionale di un musicista italiano, Marsilio, Venezia 1995. ISBN 88-317-5818-7 - see also www.puccini.it): title of the chapter: Le composizioni per orchestra e la Messa (p. 28) then: La migliore composizione di Puccini, al di fuori della produzione operistica, è senza dubbio la Messa a quattro voci con orchestra, chiamata erroneamente Messa di gloria dai curatori della prima edizione a stampa (1951). (p. 30). --Al Pereira(talk) 17:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, I forgot: "Istituto", not "Instituto". The word Instituto doesn't exist in Italian. --Al Pereira(talk) 17:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, but you've made both those points already and there is no dispute about them, namely that there are people who consider "Messa di Gloria" incorrect, and that Istituto is spelled Istituto. Well done on picking that up. What you can't show, because it's patently untrue, is that the work is usually called "Messa". I notice Girardi calls it "Messa a quattro voci" in the body of the article, and incidentally he refers to it elsewhere as the "Messa a quattro". Still, it's good that you are starting to actually quote some sources. You have failed to remove the misleading statement that it was "once entitled Messa di Gloria", implying no longer, when that is no less the case now than it ever was. On the point about capital letters, I'm afraid you're wrong. This article is in English and the convention in English is to capitalise such letters. Believe me, I know a great deal more about such matters than you clearly do. If you have a problem with writing according to English-language conventions perhaps you would be happier staying on the Italian Wikipedia, where I am sure your erudition has been a blessing. Think of all the useful work you could have done in the time you have wasted on this. I see Italian WP doesn't yet even have an article on the mass in question. Flapdragon 18:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you want to insist on your point? ask for an arbitration.
 * But firstly go here: where do you read upper-case in the Italian titles? Do you know the reason? the English-language conventions regard English words, not Italian words. Not that strange!
 * And the point isn't that there are people who consider "Messa di Gloria" incorrect, but that "Messa di Gloria" is incorrect. Stop. This isn't an opinion, this is a fact. Like the difference between a Sinfonia and a Concerto is a fact. If you call Beethoven's 9th Symphony a "Concerto", this is just wrong, nothing else than wrong. For the same reason this is not a Messa di Gloria, but a Messa. Obviously, like you can say "Sinfonia" or "Sinfonia in D", "Quartet" or "String Quartet" etc, you can also say "Messa" or "Messa a quattro voci" (lower-case... and not "Messa a quattro", like you say, which doesn't mean anything); they are both correct. The choice of the title of the article ("Messa" or "Messa a quattro voci") in this case depends only by the conventions of en.wiki. But here I see only one article about a Mass entitled in this way. On the countrary, I see that some titles include the key, which as you perfectly know, in the case of Puccini's Mass is A flat. All these titles can be right, except for "Messa di gloria", because this isn't a "Messa di Gloria". Please, accept this fact and stop wasting my time. --Al Pereira(talk) 19:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm certainly no expert in the field, but wouldn't the proper title be whatever Puccini called it? Is there any indication in the historical records of what he titled the work? 68.88.194.48 05:47, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

A Messa in the Opera project??
?? --Al Pereira(talk) 17:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Fr. Eduard Perrone, graduate of the Palestrina Institute in Detroit before it closed in the late 1960s, conducted an orchestral Mass using Puccini's Messa di Gloria setting at Assumption Grotto Church in Detroit, with orchestral members from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and others, including a full choir. The first performance was at the Midnight Christmas Mass on Dec. 25, 2023, followed by two more performances on the following two Sundays.  Fr. Perrone acknowledges that Puccini's Mass setting contains many elements of Italian romantic operatic music, some of which clearly anticipate features of his later operas. I. Slornikov (talk) 14:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

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