1 CD - 0630-17129-2 - (p) 1998

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)





Missa in angustiis "Nelsonmesse" in D minor, Hob. XXII:11
41' 31"
- Kyrie 5' 07"
1
- Gloria 12' 00"
2
- Credo 10' 29"
3
- Sanctus 2' 21"
4
- Benedictus 5' 49"
5
- Agnus Dei
 5' 45"
6
Te Deum in C major, Hob. XXIIIc:2
9' 35" 7



 
Luba Orgonasova, Soprano
Elisabeth von Magnus, Contralto
Deon van der Walt, Tenor
Alastair Miles, Baritone

Arnold Schoenberg Chor / Erwin Ortner, Chorus Master

CONCENTUS MUSICUS WIEN (with original instruments)
- Erich Höbarth, Violin - Penny Howard, Violoncello
- Alice Harnoncourt, Violin - Eduard Hruza, Violone
- Andrea Bischof, Violin - Andrew Ackerman, Violone
- Helmut Mitter, Violin - Robert Wolf, Traverflöte
- Anita Mitterer, Violin - Hans Peter Westermann, Oboe
- Thomas Fheodoroff, Violin - Marie Wolf, Oboe
- Silvia Iberer-Walch, Violin - Gerald Pachinger, Clarinet
- Barbara Klebel, Violin - Andrea Wiser, Clarinet
- Veronika Kröner, Violin
 - Eleanor Froelich, Fagott
- Annemarie Ortner, Violin - Michael McGraw, Fagott (Te Deum)
- Walter Pfeiffer, Violin - Eric Kushner, Naturhorn
- Peter Schoberwalter, Violin - Alois Schlor, Naturhorn
- Christian Tachezi, Violin - Andreas Lackner, Naturtrompete
- Irene Troi, Violin - Herbert Walser, Naturtrompete
- Mary Utiger, Violin - Christian Gruber, Naturtrompete
- Gertrud Weinmeister, Violin - Dietmar Küblböck, Posaune
- Lynn Pascher, Viola - Othmar Gaiswinkler, Posaune
- Gerold Klaus, Viola - Gerhard Proschinger, Posaune
- Ursula Kortschak, Viola - Martin Kerschbaum, Pauken
- Herwig Tachezi, Violoncello - Herbert Tachezi, Orgel

Nikolaus Harnoncourt
 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Casino Zögernitz, Vienna (Austria) - giugno 1996
Registrazione live / studio
studio
Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohr / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec "Das Alte Werk" - 0630-17129-2 - (1 cd) - 51' 19" - (p) 1998 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
-

Notes
Haydn was in London for his second extended visit to England when he learnt of the death of his employer, Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, in January 1794. Paul Anton's successor was Nikolaus II, who now summoned Haydn back to Austria as part of his plan to reorganise the Esterházy orchestra disbanded by his father. The new prince`s musical interests were directed, in the main, at sacred music, with the result that from now on Haydn`s chief task was to write an annual Mass for the name day (8 September) of the Princess Marie Hermenegild. Between 1796 and 1802 he duly obliged with six of the most impressive Masses in the whole history of liturgical music. Each Mass, moreover, han its own individual character, while together they form a unique complex of pieces: together with the oratorios The Creation and The Seasons on which the now sexagenarian Haydn was also working at this time, they constitute a synthesis of the older concertante principle (here transferred to the interplay between soloists and chorus) and the art of the late Baroque fugue, thereby creating a new and forward-looking style of church music grounded in a modern handling of the symphony orchestra.
The ‘Nelson Masss” Hob XXII:11 was the third of the six Masses to be written and follows the Heiligmesse and the Paukenmesse. Composed between 10 July and 31 August 1798, it was originally described by Haydn as a Missa in angustiis (Mass in Time of Straitened Circumstances), the title and perhaps also the darkly threatening opening of the Kyrie in D minor suggesting Austria’s fear that Napoleon might emerge victorious from the War of the First Coalition, which had started in 1792. But, in spite of the reference to a "time of straitened circumstances", it would be wrong to regard this as programme music, not least because the work was written as a festive Mass for a day of annual celebration in the Esterházy household. It received its first performance in St Martin's parish church in Eisenstadt on 23 September 1798, although on this occasion it was given without the woodwind parts, Nikolaus II having dismissed the players on the grounds of economy. Haydn made good the deficiency with a complex part for the organ, which at many points is used as a solo instrument. When the Mass was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1802, Haydn gave permission for the Leipzig firm to reintroduce the missing woodwind parts by instrumenting the organ part.
Haydn was already rehearsing his new Mass when, around 15 September 1798, news of the coalition's victory in the Mediterranean reached Eisenstadt, turning the mood of gloom and despondency into one of outright celebration: on 1 August, Admiral Lord Nelson, the commander of the English fleet, had finally caught up with the French fleet in Aboukir Bay between Alexandria and Rosetta and, in a risky manoeuvre, sailed into the bay and captured or destroyed all but two of the enemy vessels. It is said that when Haydn heard of Nelson's exploit, he added the martial trumpet fanfares at the end of the Benedictus in an expression of his delight and admiration for the English maritime hero, elevating the victorious admiral to the status of a God-sent saviour. This attempt to offer a post hoc explanation of the work's more familiar title may safely be consigned to the dustbin of musical legend, for trumpets and timpani were traditionally and frequently used at this point in the Mass. Just as in the courtly life of the time they signalled the arrival of a prince, so they served here as a symbolic way of greeting the Messiah “who cometh in the name of the Lord".
Neither in the score of the Missa in angustiis nor in its genesis is the English naval hero’s memory enshrined. Only its performing history provides such a link: in September 1800, the Mass was performed in honour of Lord Nelson when the latter spent four days in Eisenstadt in the course of a triumphal tour of Austria and Prince Nikolaus II entertained his famous guest, together with the Emperor Franz II, with magnificent banquets, firework displays, hunts and balls. While the emperor and admiral discussed their future tactics in their war against Napoleon, Haydn spent what time was left, when he was not conducting concerts, in the company of Lady Hamilton, Lord Nelson's companion, a woman who, beneath him in social rank, had to bear her contemporaries' contempt. Like many English women, she had idolised Haydn since the tune of his visits to London and now had the pleasure of inviting him to accompany her on the fortepiano (she had an attractive soprano voice), thanking him effusively when he presented her with the autograph score of a short cantata, Lines from the Battle of the Nile, that he had written especially for her: Nelson asked for Haydn's old pen holder as a souvenir and gave the composer a pocket watch in return.
Among the works performed during this visit is believed to have been the Te Deum in C major Hob. XXIIIc:2, which Haydn had written for the Empress Marie Therese. Like Nikolaus II Esterházy, the young wife of Franz II did much to encourage "serious" church music and commissioned pieces from composers such as Haydn and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, whose liturgically based works, unaffected by the widely deplored and trivialising influence of opera buffa, could serve as models of their kind. In Haydn's relatively short but richly scored and impressively unified Te Deum, the double fugue "In te Domine speravi" affords especially striking proof of its composer's sovereign command of traditional contrapuntal practices. Conversely, the C major carpet of sound at the end is a novel stylistic feature that was to inspire composers of later generations, including Anton Bruckner. The Empress Marie Therese and her family presumably heard the The Deum for the first time on the occasion of their visit to Eisenstadt in 1800. Soon after that the work fell into oblivion until it was revived by the BBC in 1958. As became abundantly clear on that occasion, the C major Te Deum is fully worthy of taking its place alongside Haydn's six late Masses as one of the elderly composer's most magnificent works.
Dorothea Schröder
Translation: Stewart Spencer

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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