Messa_di_Santa_Cecilia
Messa di Santa Cecilia
Composition by Alessandro Scarlatti
The Messa di Santa Cecilia (mass of Saint Cecilia) is a religious work by Alessandro Scarlatti, written in 1720 for five soloists (SSATB), choir and orchestra, commissioned by and dedicated to cardinal Francesco Acquaviva of Aragona.
Scarlatti was sixty years old at the time and composed at the beginning of the 18th century, in a modern style of the period, characterised by brio and seduction,[1] which culminated in the great masses of Bach and Beethoven and "seems to foretell Haydn's last masses".[2] This remarkable work, "coronation of all his church music",[3] almost contemporary of Bach's Magnificat (1723), has nothing to envy to it, "both in terms of musical interest and stylistic synthesis of early 18th century trends".[4][5]