Maurizio Guernieri
Missa Simplex
Short instrumentation: 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 0, pno, str
Duration: 23'
Choir: mixed choir
Instrumentation details:
piano
violin I (6 players)
violin II (6 players)
viola (4 players)
violoncello (3 players)
double bass (2 players)
Missa Simplex
Printed/Digital
Translation, reprints and more
Maurizio Guernieri
gemischter Chor (Missa Simplex)
Available digitally
Type: Chorpartitur
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Work introduction
he Missa Simplex, which already in the title betrays the desire for communicative ease, was composed with the intention of writing a sacred work, in a short form and easy to perform both for solo voices and in chorus. The central point in the composition of this mass was the choice of a language that reached immediacy through the reference to musical contemporaneity by means of a musical writing made of simple diatonic themes inserted in a rhythmic context that goes from the obstinate repetition of many pop music at moments of contemplative stillness. Here the voices, to which the instruments act as a counterbalance, are those of the people who express themselves through collective rituals.
Two versions of Missa Simplex have been composed: the version for voices, strings and piano and a previous version for voices and piano; both represent two complementary views on the same work and both can be performed in concert.