Search - Gian Carlo Menotti, Louis Vierne, William Ferris :: Menotti: Missa O Pulchritudo; Vierne: Messe Solenelle

The acclaimed William Ferris Chorale celebrates its 35th Anniversary this season with this release of two of its finest performances. Gian Carlo Menotti is best known for dramatically engrossing operas such as The Consul, Amahl and the Night Visitors, and The Medium. For his Missa "O Pulchritudo", Menotti applied his operatic skills to create an unusually compelling setting of the Catholic Mass (much as Verdi did with his Requiem). In addition to its gorgeously alluring music, Menotti's Mass setting is notable for a key textual change: in place of the traditional Credo movement, Menotti sets a passage from the Confessions of St. Augustine that begins, "O Beauty, ever ancient ever new, late have I loved You." William Ferris and the William Ferris Chorale performed the Missa at the request of Gian Carlo Menotti, who was present for the performance. This is the only currently available recording of Menotti's Missa "O Pulchritudo". With its sweeping melodies and harmonic grandeur, Louis Vierne's Messe Solennelle has been called a triumphant counterpart to Fauré's Requiem. This recording shows off not only the expert direction of William Ferris and glorious singing of the William Ferris Chorale, it also features two magnificent pipe organs: a rare, fully restored E.M. Skinner, and a tracker action Visser-Rowland.