Mass, Op. 36

Charles-Marie Widor is best known for the Toccatta, the finale from his Fifth Symphony for Organ, but the real heart of his compositional oeuvre lies in the ten Organ symphonies and there is much to be discovered in the rest ofhis compositional output. This Mass was originally written in 1878 for a choir of Baritones the Chorus of the seminary next door to St Sulpice in Paris, the church where he was temporary Organist for sixty-four years andmixed Chorus and two Organs. Although Widor lived in Paris during the years of the radicalism of the decades following World War I, he retained a conservatism in composition and musicianship that is evident in thispowerfulMass.The entire work has been transposed one half step lower ‘to avoid the awkward key of F sharp major’.