Mass in G major

Poulenc wrote the Mass in 1937 for unaccompanied mixed choir, dedicating it to the memory of his father, who had died in 1917. It followed his return to Catholicism, prompted by the death of a friend in a car accident and by a visit to the shrine of the Black Virgin at Rocamadour in 1936 — the event that opened the whole line of sacred works running through to the Gloria and the Dialogues of the Carmelites. There is no Credo. The writing is largely homophonic, with sharp dissonance used for emphasis rather than as texture.