Luogo e data di registrazione		Stadtpfarrkirche "Maria Himmelfahrt", Bad Tölz (Germany) - 9/11 September 1996
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Stephan Schellmann (Tritonus)
	Assistant Engineer		Nikolaus Radeke (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - SK 62 823 - (CD) - durata 74' 46" - (p) 1997 - DDD
	Cover Art		Madonna con le sante Caterina da Siena, Rosa da Lima col bambino e Agnese da Montepulciano (1748) by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) - Santa Maria del Rosario, Venezia. Courtesy: Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin
	Note		-

Teresa Mass This is the fourth of the six great masses that Haydn wrote upon his return from England in the autumn of 1795. To show its position more graphically, the following table will perhaps be of use: - Missa Sancti Bernardi de Offida (Heiligmesse) in B flat major, 1796 - Missa in tempore belli (Paukenmesse) in C major, 1796 - Missa in angustiis (Nelson Mass) in D minor, 1798 - Missa (Theresienmesse) in B flat major, 1799 - Missa (Schöpfungsmesse) in B flat major, 1801 - Missa (Harmoniemesse) in B flat major, 1802 As the table shows, our Mass is called in Austria the Theresienmesse (Theresa Mass), because it was assumed that Haydn had composed it for the Empress Marie Therese (not to be confused with Marie Theresa, who had died lang before; Marie Therese was the daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and the wife of the Austrian Emperor Francis II, for whom Haydn wrote “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser”; today this melody is known as the national anthem of Germany). Recent research has, however, shown beyond a doubt that the Mass was written, like the other five, for the Name Day of Princess Maria Hermenegild, the wife of Haydn's patron Nikolaus II Esterházy. In fact Haydn did compose a work for the Empress: the great Te Deum of 1799 (the same year as the Theresienmesse), and this is why, no doubt, the other major work of 1799 was ascribed to Marie Therese. Haydn was very fond of his Princess, and Maria Hermenegild saw that relations between her arrogant, imperious husband and his Kapellmeister (who was now “Doctor of Oxford” and not disposed to be treated like a servant) were kept serene. She did a great deal to make Haydn's old age comfortable, and saw to it that he had his favourite wine (Malaga) served to him from the Princely cellars, and that his doctor's bills were paid. In return, as it were, Haydn wrote for her some of his most inspired music: in Princess Maria, the world has a lot to be grateful for. In 1799, Prince Nicolaus's band was slightly retluced in size but Haydn, like Bach or any other 18th -century composer, made do with the available forces, which were substantial enough: he scored his new Mass for two clarinets, two trumpets, kettledrums, strings, organ, four soli (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and hoir - it was a good deal more than Bach often had at his disposal! Apparently the bassoons, which would have been part of the basso continuo, received their “own” part at the last minute; since they were once part of the original performance material of the Mass, still at Eisenstadt Castle. In 1799, the Princess's Name Day fell on Sunday the 8th of September. The night before, Eisenstadt Castle was host to a celebration in her honour. “At six in the evening”, writes a contemporary in his diary, “there was Turkish Music in the square, then a French play. At the end a decoration with the portrait of the Princess. The Frenchmen rolled across [the stage] like an army, with caricatures using grenadiers, fifes and drums; the players also dressed in Hungarian costume; they stuttered as they read off their speeches and congratulations [to the Princess]. The spectacle wasn't finished till 11.30.” The next day, probably at 11.00 am., the Mass was first performed in the “Bergkirche” (Church on the Hill), a few minutes on foot from the Castle. Afterwards there was an immense banquet in the Great Hall of the Castle. Our diarist reports: “At 3.00 we saw the table in the Great Hall, fifty-four strong. A lot of toasts were drunk, which were always announced by trumpets and drums from the gallery and by the thunder of cannon in front of the Castle. The Prince also drank a toast to Haydn's health, and everyone joined in. The banquet went on till 5 o' clock, but the spirit wasn`t really cheery despite eighty dishes and all sorts of wines.“ That evening there was a grand ball. The Kyrie of our Mass is in three parts: a solemn, slow introduction, in the manner of the Salomon Symphonies, but more extended, leads to a strict fugue, the theme of which is clearly based on material from the introduction (again something we encounter in the Salomon Symphonies, especially Nos. 98 and 103). This middle section moves in a stately, contrapuntal fashion to the dominant, where the four soloists announce the “Christe eleison”, rather like a second subject in sonata form. The fugue is then taken up again, to arrive slowly at a big fermata, whereupon a shortened version of the slow introduction concludes the Kyrie. As will be clear when hearing the music, Haydn has worked out a highly interesting and effective marriage between symphonic style, sonata form, fugue and overall tripartite form (A-B-A), while the middle section also neatly subdivides into three parts. The Gloria is also separated into several sections: 1) the opening “Gloria in excelsis”, with a stirring orchestral accompaniment, in particular the fanfares after “benedicimus te” and “adoramus te” which lead to a wonderful sort of recapitulation (“glorificamus te”) in which the violins dance across the texture in semiquavers, the clarinets, trumpets and drums punctuating the whole with flashes of colour. 2) The Moderato (“Gratias”) is reached by a modulation to the dominant of C, and the movement itself begins in C major, with a famous solo for the alto, to which the other solo voices are joined, one by one. From C major we modulate to C minor and the entry of the choir with the words “Qui tollis peccata mundi”; the trumpets and drums enter, while the basic movement is a never-ending series of triplet quavers in the violins. 3) Vivace,“Quoniam tu solus sanctus”, back in the tonic, B flat major: a predominantly homophonic beginning turns into another fugal passage (“amen”) and back to a kind of recapitulation of the beginning of this section, with extended passages for the soloists: there is a startlingly chromatic modulation back to the tutti which Haydn repeats (bars 317 et seq.). Like most of the first parts of Haydn's credos, this one begins forte in a very four-square, solid four-four, as if Haydn felt that the Nicene Creed needed to be shouted from the rooftops by every believer. The strings soon settle into semiquavers which carry the momentum from bar 3 to the end of the section. It is a remarkable tour de force, for the intensity is carried from first to last, and even the piano interjections only serve to heighten the tension. The middle section is in B flat minor, and covers the “Et incarnatus est” to “passus et sepultus est”. The whole is allotted only to the solo voices. Towards the end the trumpets in their low register with soft timpani contribute a rather sinister, metallic sound to Christ`s death and burial. The third section (Allegro) begins with the “Et resurrexit” in G minor - a favourite device of Haydn's late masses - and winds its way back to the tonic major, where, for the words “judicare” Haydn brings in his trumpets and kettledrums fortissimo; later the tempo changes to 6/8 and there is a tightly-knit fugue (“Et vitam venturi”) with strong accents (sforzati) at the beginning of the theme's second bar. The Sanctus, with its subdued Andante beginning, leads to a swift section beginning at the words “pleni sunt coeli et terra”. Like all Haydn's Sanctus movements (and because of the liturgical requirements of the Mass), this is the shortest of the six basic sections. The Benedictus is in the key of G major: towards the end of his life, Haydn was most interested in the relationship of keys by thirds, as Beethoven was to be a few years later. It will be noted that the character of Haydn's late Benedictus movements is very often “popular“ and serene - in this respect that of the Nelson Mass is something of an exception: in many ways this is the most Austrian of all the movements in this Mass, the one that (say) the North Germans could never have composed. The tonal organisation of the rest of the Mass is typical: from the submediant major (G major) we move, for the Agnus, to G minor, which is the relative minor of B flat, and from there back to the tonic for the “Dona nobis pacem”. The Agnus Dei is a sort of huge, slow introduction, rather severe in content, while the “Dona nobis pacem”, with its fanfares for brass and timpani, makes a martial and rather aggressive conclusion to the work. Note how beautifully Haydn manages the juxtaposition of the solo voices with the choir, and how, almost imperceptibly, the material is treated contrapuntally (bars 101 et seq.), so that the purely homophonic sections stand out. At the end there are alternating B flats and Fs for the kettledrums which sound Beethovenian (bars 198/99) and give the final bars an almost symphonic richness and strength. Nelson Mass On August 1, 1798, Horatio Nelson finally caught up with the French fleet, which he had been hotly pursuing, in the bay of Abu Quir, a fishing village on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. And at Abu Quir, named for “Father Cyrus”, a Coptic saint, Nelson blew the French fleet out of the waters in a daring and brilliant strategic coup which thrilled the Allies, desolate as they were over Napoleon`s series of brilliant victories. Napoleon had, in fact, been within a few day's marching distance of Vienna in the Spring of 1797, and in Eisenstadt, as this great offensive against the Austrian armies in Italy had begun, Haydn had composed a mass entitled Missa in tempore belli. In that famous work, the timpani in the Agnus Dei had rumbled forth the ominous advance of the French armies into Styria - they actually reached Graz on the night of April 10, 1797. Now it was a little more than a year later. Napoleon had disappeared across the Mediterranean, and no one was sure what his final strategic aims were - Egypt, perhaps even a passage to India. Nelson's great victory on August 1, 1798, was a turning point in the long war; it was to be the first of three brilliant Nelsonic victories - Copenhagen and Trafalgar being the others - which would go down in history. As Nelson was chasing the French across the Mediterranean, Haydn was sitting down to compose another war-time mass, the private title of which he had entered in his “Entwurf” ur Draft Catalogue as Missa in angustiis, or “Mass in time of straitened circumstances”. Haydn began this mass, as the autograph informs us, “In Nomine Domini”, on July 10, 1798, at Eisenstadt and he finished it, “Laus Deo”, on August 31. The news of the great victory of Abu Quir had not yet reached Austria by the time the mass was first performed, at Eisenstadt on September 23, 1798. Two years later Nelson, Sir William Hamilton and Lady Emma Hamilton travelled back to London overland, via Leghorn, Ancona and Trieste, arriving in Vienna towards the end of August 1800. En route, Lady Hamilton, a gifted singer, was given the newly issued score of Haydn`s The Creation. On September 3, 1800, Haydn was at Eisenstadt conducting the music for the annual autumn season there, a season which culminated in a mass on the Princess's name-day each year. On September 3, 1800, Haydn wrote to his publishers Artaria in Vienna: “[...] One more thing. My Princess, who has just arrived from Vienna, tells me that Mylady Hamilton is coming to Eisenstadt on the 6th of this month, when she wishes to sing my Cantata Ariadne a Naxos: but I don't own it, and would therefore ask you to procure it as soon as possible and send it here to me.” The Nelson-Hamilton party arrived at Eisenstadt on September 6, 1800. We are told: “[...] During the four days of their splendid entertainment at Eisenstadt by the Prince and Princess Esterházy, the triumphal tourists feasted daily at a table where a hundred grenadiers, the shortest of whom was six feet high, acted as servitors. The concerts and balls equalled the cost and the effectiveness”. We know from the records in the Esterházy archives that Haydn`s great Te Deum was performed during these festivities, as well as the mass of 1798 which subsequently bore Nelson”s name. Moreover, Haydn composed a new cantata for Lady Hamilton, entitled Lines from the Battle of the Nile. The text was written by one of the Nelson-Hamilton entourage, Cornelia Knight, and she had it printed in Vienna. Nelson gave a copy, with his signature, to the National Library in London. Miss Knight has left us memoirs, in which she records a dinner with the Hamiltons, Nelson and Haydn, whose conversation, she notes, was “modest and sensible”. We have another record of the meeting too: it comes from the reliable hand of Georg August Griesinger, Haydn`s later biographer: “[...] Haydn found a great admirer in Mylady Hamilton. She paid a visit with Nelson to the Esterházy estates in Hungary, but paid little attention to their magnificences and never left Haydn's side for two days. At that time Haydn composed an English song of praise for Nelson and his victory. Mylady Knight, Hamilton's companion, wrote the text.” When Artaria heard about it, they asked Haydn to give it to them for publication. Parenthetically, the first edition of the cantata was arranged by Lady Hamilton herself when she returned to London. Nelson gave Haydn his watch as a keepsake, and Haydn gave Nelson a pen which he had used for composing. So much for this brief historical survey The mass itself has two exterior features which immediately commend it to the Haydn scholar: the one is the unusual key of D minor and the severity of the two movements in that key, Kyrie and Benedictus. The other is the curious scoring which includes, apart from the usual vocal parts and strings, three trumpets, kettledrums and an organ which varies from continuo to solo instrument. This brilliantly original orchestration owes its existence to a highly mundane fact, namely that in 1798 Prince Esterházy decided to economise in a war-time inflationary period and reduce the size of his orchestra by eliminating the so-called “fürstliche Feldharmonie”, or princely wind band, which meant pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons and horns. In point of fact, the Esterházy band at the time of the Nelson Mass contained only a choir, string players and an organist. A kettledrum player could always be found among the local Eisenstadt musicians, but the three trumpet players necessary for the Nelson Mass were recruited from Vienna. They were needed so often that in the end Haydn persuaded his thrifty Prince to engage them full time. Haydn wrote: “Inasmuch as, for some years now, the 3 trumpeters have been paid per performance, which amounted to an annual sum of 111 Fl., in my humble opinion it would be something of a saving to pay them each a cash annual salary of 25 Fl. and two measures of corn; they, for their part, should be obliged to attend all the performances which are scheduled, in the church and otherwise.” When in 1800 Haydn's orchestra was once again enlarged to the full size, one of his assistants added wind instruments to the score of the Nelson Mass. And when Breitkopf & Härtel decided to print the score, Haydn suggested to them that they might “orchestrate” the solo organ part with wind instruments. They followed Haydn's suggestion but unfortunately worked from a bowdlerized copy of the work, so that the Breitkopf & Härtel score, which appeared in May 1803, falsified many of Haydn's clear intentions. Although Haydn had no objections to other people adding wind instruments to the work, it is interesting that he did not do so himself. When he delivered copies of the work, as he did to the Monastery of Klosterneuburg and the Cathedral Church Archives of Grosswardein (now Oradea Mare in Romania), he invariably sent the original version, with the three trumpets, drums and concertante organ. As for the inner content of the work, one of the principal factors we must bear in mind is that the Nelson Mass follows immediately upon the wildly successful first performance of The Creation in April 1798. In a sense, Haydn's new mass fulfilled three not quite simultaneous functions: it was the composer's personal prayer of thanks for a monumental task brought to a thrillingly successful conclusion; it was the annual mass for the name-day of his Princess, celebrated in September 1798 in the Stadtpfarrkirche (parish church) at Eisenstadt; and thirdly, it was Haydn`s belated thank-offering for the great victory at Abu Quir, and as such it quite rightly bears the name of England's greatest admiral. © 1997 H. C. Robbins Landon