The Messa di Gloria was the only major piece of sacred music written while Rossini was still an active opera composer.

[2] The "Kyrie" is divided into three portions, the first a dotted-rhythm "Kyrie eleison" for chorus in E-flat minor, the second, a more lyrical E-flat major "Christe eleison" for two tenors with the first minor-key section rounding out the prayer.

The "Gloria" portion takes up the vast majority of the work and is split up into operatic-style "numbers", soprano soloists alternating with tenors, basses, etc.

The high point, emotionally, comes at the "Qui tollis", which begins with a slow portion for chorus and tenor, then concludes with a brilliant cabaletta ("Qui sedes"), showing off the extreme upper end of the tenor's range.

[citation needed] In his 1995 study of the Messa di Gloria, Jesse Rosenberg agrees with contemporary reports that Rossini was helped in the composition of the concluding "number" of the Messa, a four-part double fugue setting of "Cum sancto spiritu", by another Italian composer more versed in counterpoint, Pietro Raimondi.