Luogo e data di registrazione		Stadtpfarrkirche, Bad Tölz (Germany) - 31 august & 1 September 1995
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Stephan Schellmann (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - SK 68 255 - (CD) - durata 62' 14" - (p) 1996 - DDD
	Cover Art		Mariae Himmelfahrt" (ca.1748/50) by Paul Troger (1698-1762) - Dom zu Brixen, Italy
	Note		-

Missa in Tempore Belli and other sacred works Haydn was in the midst of his triumphal second visit to London when, in the early summer of 1794, he received a letter from his Prince, Nikolaus II. The fourth reigning Esterházy under whom Haydn was to serve, Nikolaus, had become head of the family after the death of Prince Paul Anton II in January 1794. Paul Anton, with little interest in music, had dismissed the famous Esterházy band on his succession to the title in autumn 1790, and had only kept Haydn on as nominal Kapellmeister. Prince Nikolaus II, by contrast,was keen to cultivate music at the court again. The new Prince,who had a passion for church music, proposed to Haydn that he return to Austria, reconstitute the band, choir and soloists, and compose, once a year, a mass to celebrate the name day of his wife, Princess Maria Josepha Hermenegild. Furthermore, this was the only actual composing that Nikolaus expected of his famous Kapellmeister. Haydn thought the proposal over and, despite the large amount of money he was earning at this time in England, finally opted for security in his old age: he was now over sixty and knew that, should he become too old and feeble to compose, the Esterházy family would support him. That is exactly what happened: Haydn scarcely wrote anything after his Harmoniemesse of 1802 and lived out his remaining seven years in comfortable retirement, with the Esterházys paying his doctors” bills and sending him his favorite wine. Apart from the oratorios, the Trumpet Concerto, the late string quartets and piano trios, Haydn's last six masses must be counted as the major works of his post-London years. Whereas the last symphony had been written both for and in the English capital, these late masses are, in some respects, enormous symphonies to the glory of God - a miraculous fusion of various stylistic elements. Perhaps for the very last time in music history, fugue and canon merge imperceptibly into the Viennese symphonic frame, wedding Handelian counterpoint and Haydnesque form in some mysterious way. It is now thought that the Missa in tempore belli [Mass in Time of War] is the second of these six masses. Although the autograph manuscript is dated Eisenstadt 1796, the first performance did not take place in Eisenstadt but at the Church of the Piaristes in Vienna on December 26 of that year. Haydn conducted and the church was reportedly packed. The first performance at Eisenstadt, with two new singers just engaged from Preßburg (now Bratislava, Slovakia), took place, according to an Esterházy official's diary, on Friday, September 29, 1797: “a new Mass in C by Haydn was performed; both [Preßburg] women sang and both were very successful." Some time later, Haydn enlarged the orchestra, adding a flute part in the “Qui tollis”, additional clarinet parts (these parts exist in authentic manuscript parts, corrected by Haydn, in the Hofburgkapelle - the Imperial Royal Chapel - in Vienna) as well as supplementary horn parts doubling the trumpets; in our new recording, we include the flute and clarinet parts but have omitted the doubling horns, which may be regarded as optional. The title of the mass is self-explanatory. Austria was engaged in a disastrous war with the French, and Napoleon was winning battle after battle in Italy. In August 1796, the Austrian Government issued a proclamation calling for general mobilization and prohibiting any talk of peace until the enemy was pushed back within his old boundaries. It is quite likely that Haydn was just then composing the Agnus Dei, with its sinister solo timpani part (incidentally, using a much slowed-down version of a French army drumroll) - hence the German subtitle for the work, Paukenmesse or Mass with Kettledrums. The Kyrie begins with a solemn, slow introduction, in which the timpani thud quietly and then very loudly, as if to signal the nature of the mass. The quick section is monothematic but in sonata form, whereby the beautiful melody with which the soprano begins also appears in the dominant for the alto solo. Gloria and Credo are each written in three sections. In the Gloria, the middle section is an extraordinary slow movement with solo violoncello, solo flute and solo bass voice (“Qui tollis”), to which the choir is later added. The third section (“Quoniam”) is again quick. The Credo has as its middle section a slow movement of great beauty and intensity ("Et incarnatus est”), with solo clarinet writing of rapt poignancy, whilst the final section of the Credo, subdivided into two parts, ends with a glorious fugue on the words “Et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen”. The Sanctus is in two parts, a stately opening followed by a thundering, quick movement at the words “Pleni sunt coeli”. In keeping with its liturgical function, the Sanctus is always short. The Benedictus is a rather ominous sounding Andante in C minor, which gradually slips into C major and ends with the repetition of the words (first heard at the end of the Sanctus) “Osanna in excelsis”. The Agnus Dei was, from the outset, justly celebrated. The kettledrum solo, which enters quite unexpectedly at bar 10, is a stroke of genius, and the big climax, with the trumpets raging, is quite terrifying in its intensity The mass ends with a powerful, fanfare- driven “Allegro con spirito”. It is almost as if Haydn had altered the words from “Grant us peace” [Dona nobis pacem] to “We demand peace.” The Motet O coelitum beati seems to be the Latin “contrafactum” (a translation that fits the music exactly) of a lost Italian aria of about 1762 or 1763, when Haydn composed several Italian operas for the Esterházy court at Eisenstadt. Since there exist other “contrafacta” of arias from extant Italian operas by Haydn in this period, it is assumed that this Latin motet begins with such an aria in G. Of this soprano aria there at one time existed three manuscript copies. Of the following choral Allelaja in C, with trumpets, four solo voices, choir and strings with organ and continuo, there is only one manuscript extant - a Viennese copy of the 1760s - now privately owned, which includes the opening soprano aria followed by the chorus. The Salve Regina in G minor is one of Haydn's most admired “smaller” church pieces from his pre-London years. In 1766, Haydn's predecessor, the Princely Esterházy Chapel Master, Gregor Werner, died. Haydn was promoted from “Vice Capellmeister” to “Capellmeister” (the spelling with “C” was customary at that time), and took over Werner's duties, foremost of which was the composition and production of church music. Up until Werner's death, Haydn had composed very little church music at Eisenstadt - the major exception being the Te Deum for Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy. One may then understand why from 1766, church music suddenly begins to figure so prominently in Haydn's oeuvre, beginning with the massive Missa Cellensis in honorem B.V.M. of 1766 (later retitled Missa Sanctae Caeciliae). The present Salve Regina was written in 1770 or 1771: the autograph was originally dated 1770 but the date was later changed (almost certainly by Haydn himself) to 1771, and that is also the date of the authentic copy in Joseph Elßler's hand (Haydn's personal copyist) in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. This work is scored for “Quattro voci ma Soli,” in other words, for four solo voices (without choir), solo organ and strings, and the prominent character of the organ part suggests that Haydn may have played it himself, probably in the Chapel of Eisenstadt Castle. The Salve Regina, although relatively compact, shows a brilliant sense of formal integration and interthematic connection: notice, for example, how the material shortly before the end (“O clemens”) subtly returns to the thematic stuff of the opening Adagio. The ending, in other-worldly pianissimo, is original, simple and touching. Haydn was devoted to the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and here - as in the previous Salve Regina in E major of 1756 - he once again displays the great depth of his devotion. © 1996 H. C. Robbins Landon