The Galant Masters Project is currently seeking a men’s chorus, or a conglomeration thereof, with whom to partner for our upcoming publication of a Mass for Men’s Voices (TTB) by Padre Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784).
Active in Bologna for most of his life, Martini carried nearly universal respect and admiration among his contemporaries. This is particularly true of his skill as a maestro and teacher of composition at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna in the last thirty years of his life. Included among his pupils were Johann Christian Bach and the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The piece in question is a Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo) for men’s voices, in the stile antico (basically Palestrina with figured bass). The manuscript is a copy, but we’ve not yet identified the copyist. While the handwriting is very clear compared with other manuscripts we’ve prepared, this will be challenging to transcribe because the copyist’s ink bled through the paper throughout, as can be seen in the sample pages attached below.
Our commissions work essentially the same as those with living composers. The commissioning ensemble will receive a dedicatory inscription on the title page of the scores and parts and the right to the modern premiere performance. If we assemble a group of choirs for this piece, this will of course be a “Series” of premiere performances. Commissioning a new piece from a living composer and taking part in the birth of new music is a very exciting experience for choir, conductor, and audience. We’ve found that participating in the rediscovery of lost masterpieces is equally rewarding for all involved.
If this might be of interest to you, will you please get in touch with me? A ChoralNet message is fine, as is a direct email to t-tropp at GalantMusic.com or a phone call: 224.649.6001. What this will cost will naturally depend upon how many choirs would like to get involved. So we’re trying to build our coalition by around June 15, have the contracts in place by July 1, and have the edition complete by the end of this calendar year and available for performances in the spring.
The Galant Masters Project is intended to bring lost works of Galant-style sacred music to light. Scores are prepared as critical performing editions and incorporate editorial revisions in a clean and easily readable manner while retaining maximum fidelity to the manuscript sources. For more information, please see our website, www.GalantMusic.com. Nearly all of the project’s funding comes from commissions, so this is by far not the only piece available for commissioning this year – just the only men’s chorus piece. If you are interested in discussing something for your school, church, or community choir, we’d love to hear from you for that as well.
If this might be of interest to you, will you please get in touch with me? A ChoralNet message is fine, as is a direct email to t-tropp at GalantMusic.com or a phone call: 224.649.6001. What this will cost will naturally depend upon how many choirs would like to get involved. So we’re trying to build our coalition by around June 15, have the contracts in place by July 1, and have the edition complete by the end of this calendar year and available for performances in the spring.
The Galant Masters Project is intended to bring lost works of Galant-style sacred music to light. Scores are prepared as critical performing editions and incorporate editorial revisions in a clean and easily readable manner while retaining maximum fidelity to the manuscript sources. For more information, please see our website, www.GalantMusic.com. Nearly all of the project’s funding comes from commissions, so this is by far not the only piece available for commissioning this year – just the only men’s chorus piece. If you are interested in discussing something for your school, church, or community choir, we’d love to hear from you for that as well.
Thanks!
Tom Tropp
Managing Editor, Galant Masters Project
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