The Tradition of the Catholic Liturgy in Zakaria Paliashvili’s Mass

Abstract

The Mass, one of the most significant genres of early European professional music, emerged within the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages and subsequently became a subject of creative exploration for composers across various countries and historical periods. The Georgian compositional school’s approach to this genre presents a unique case study. This paper examines the Mass by Zakaria Paliashvili (1871–1933), the only Mass composed within the context of modern Georgian professional music.
Paliashvili, a founder of the national compositional school as well as a conductor, public figure, and educator, represents a distinctive voice in Georgian musical development. The authors investigate the Georgian composer’s interest in the Mass genre, rooted in his Catholic upbringing, and explore the circumstances that made Paliashvili’s Mass both the first and only example of
the medieval Mass genre’s transformation within Georgian musical tradition. While the Requiem – a specific variety of the Mass – gained significant attention from Georgian composers in the second half of the 20th century, with vocal, instrumental, and vocal-instrumental requiems composed by G. Kancheli, B. Kvernadze, G. Bzvaneli, G. Japaridze, I. Gejadze, E. Chabashvili, and V. Kakhidze, Paliashvili’s traditional Mass remained an isolated phenomenon. Created during the early stages of Paliashvili’s career, the Mass genre found no prospects for further development due to the restrictions imposed on liturgical services under the Soviet regime. Paliashvili’s primary artistic focus, like that of many other founders of national schools, centered on synthesizing European and traditional Georgian musical elements. This study examines the artistic, aesthetic, historical, cultural, and political-social circumstances that prevented the further proliferation of sacred music genres rooted in Catholic tradition within Georgian professional music following Paliashvili’s pioneering work. The analysis reveals how political and ideological constraints shaped the trajectory of sacred music composition in Georgia, making Paliashvili’s Mass both a remarkable achievement and a singular occurrence in Georgian musical history.