Gregorio Ballabene's Forty-eight-part Mass for Twelve Choirs (1772)

Neither Spem in alium, the widely acclaimed ‘songe of fortie partes’ by Thomas Tallis, nor Alessandro Striggio’s forty-part Mass is the largest-scale counterpoint work in Western music. The actual winner is Gregorio Ballabene, a relatively unknown Roman maestro di cappella, a contemporary of Giovanni Paisiello, Joseph Haydn and Luigi Boccherini, who composed in forty-eight parts for twelve choirs. His Mass saw only a public rehearsal and was never performed liturgically despite all of Balla...