Mass in G Major

In August 1936, at the shrine of Rocamadour, the wealthy, worldly Francis Poulenc experienced a powerful resurgence of Catholicism. From then his music and life would unfold along parallel tracks: sacred and secular—or, as he was himself once described, “part monk and part rascal.” Composed in 1937, just a year after Poulenc’s spiritual reawakening, the Mass in G Major is the first large-scale product of this epiphany. “My religion is that of…St. John of the Cross or St. Theresa of Avila,” Poulenc once explained. “I like an austerity that smells of orange-blossom or jasmine.” It’s that collision and contradiction—heady sweetness and sobriety—that we hear in the composer’s unaccompanied Mass. The “Kyrie” has a guttural intensity; this energetic, “rough and direct” spirit continues through the highly rhythmic “Gloria.” The “Sanctus” enters another world in a shimmering haze of bell-chimes, the massive closing cries of “Hosanna” bursting with joy. The fragile beauty of the “Agnus Dei” sees the music’s gaze shift heavenward—the Christian soul represented by the solo soprano, soaring high above.