For a few days midway during the recent Valletta International Baroque Music Festival was the Rome-based Sicilian music director Vincenzo Di Betta. His visit was linked to the presentation and launching of a CD featuring the Messa de Morti à 5 Concertata, 1653 by Padre Bonaventura Rubino (c. 1600-68), a conventual Franciscan and composer from Lombardy who was very active in southern Italy and Sicily.
The Mass was composed around 1653 and the interesting thing about this work is that the only extant printed copy of the now-lost manuscript score is preserved at the Mdina Cathedral Music Archives.
Di Betta was present and spoke at the Mdina Cathedral Archives during the press conference launching the CD.
The discovery of this work by Rubino goes back several years. Actually, as far back as the mid-1970s when Paolo Emilio Carapezza, a Sicilian musicologist, with the full collaboration of Mgr Ġwann Azzopardi, was greatly involved with the project, ‘La Sicilia ritrovata a Malta’.
The aim was to study the music archives in a quest for works by composers active in Sicily and in Malta, whether Sicilian or otherwise.
That was when the Rubino-printed score, which is also from the 17th century, came to light. During the 1990s, the Calabrian musicologist Nicolò Maccavino, of the Conservatorio di Reggio Calabria, studied, transcribed and edited the Mass, which was in due course published by Casa Alfieri of Palermo in 1999.
For a number of years, things remained static until Giuseppe ‘Poppi’ Alfieri, head of the family publishing house, gave Di Betta a copy of the edited Mass.
Di Betta’s first encounter with Rubino had been with the latter’s Vespro dello Stellario composed circa 1645 for the coronation of the popular statue of Our Lady, still known by its Spanish name of La Inmaculada Reina, venerated in the church of St Francis of Assisi in Palermo.
Needless to say, the Sicilian maestro was greatly intrigued by this rare find and a wish to revive this Mass brewed in his mind for quite a long time.
Plans were also announced to perform works by Sicilian and Maltese composers which still have not had a modern performance
When he had at his disposal the right vocal and instrumental elements, he finally found the opportunity.
It was at the church of St Francis of Assisi that Di Betta directed the first modern performance of the Messa de’ Morti a 5. The performance took place on November 3, 2012, during the concert season presented there by the Associazione Antonio il Verso.
The work was so well received that Di Betta sought other opportunities to familiarise more music lovers with it.
The scene moved to Rome, where he is Maestro di Cappella at the well-known church of Santa Maria in Campitelli. However, the first modern performance in Rome took place two weeks later on November 16, at the church of Santi XII Apostoli.
It was performed by the Cappella Musicale di Santa Maria in Campitelli, the Studio di Musica Antica Antonio il Verso di Palermo and the Ensemble La Cantoria.
The third performance happened in March 2013, three days before, Rubino’s Mass was recorded and later released under the Tactus label.
The collaboration of the Mdina Cathedral Archives was crucial, as custodian of the only extant printed version of the original (lost) manuscript score.
Now, as announced during the local launching of this CD, it was announced that the Mdina Cathedral Chapter, the Valletta International Baroque Music Festival, Ensemble La Cantoria and Cappella Musicale di Santa Maria in Campitelli will collaborate in a performance of the Mass during next year’s edition of the baroque festival on January 18 .
Plans were also announced regarding the annual production, and performance of an edited work from the Mdina Cathedral Music archives.
These will be works by Sicilian and Maltese composers which still have not had a modern performance.The conference was called by Mgr Azzopardi, so well-known for his connection with the archives, while Mgr Carmelo Zammit was also present.