Midnight Mass for Christmas

Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Christmas mass, the Messe de Minuit, stands fully in the French tradition of celebrating the happy message of Christ's birth with exuberant cheerfulness. Composed around 1694, this midnight mass incorporates ten old French Christmas carols, giving it both a dance-like swing and special tonal colors. For this edition Andreas Gräsle has transcribed the orchestral writing for organ. His distribution of the parts between manuals and pedals allows the distinctive tonal and dynamic gradations of the work to be transferred to the organ in an ideal way. So this version with reduced scoring offers a delightful alternative to the original version. The vocal parts (for soloists and choir) are identical with the edition of the original version, so that the vocal score and choral score of that version can be used.