Joseph Haydn's Missa in angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times), commonly known as the Nelson Mass, is the third in a series of six late symphonic masses and was performed in Eisenstadt in September in celebration of the name day of Nicholas II's wife, Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde Esterházy. Haydn's chief biographer, H. C. Robbins Landon, has written that this Mass is "arguably Haydn's greatest single composition."
Haydn's late sacred works are indeed considered masterpieces, influenced by the experience of his London symphonies. They emphasize soloists and chorus, while allowing the orchestra to play a prominent role. Due to the political and financial instability of this period in European history, Haydn's patron Nicholas II dismissed the wind octet shortly before Haydn was to write the Missa in angustiis for the princess's name day. Haydn was left with a "dark" orchestra of strings, trumpets, timpani, and organ. Occasionally, the organ - which Haydn himself played at the premiere - is given a brief solo passage, as if to compensate for the lack of woodwinds. But from this limited orchestration, Haydn created the stark, memorable sound that makes this mass so distinctive and powerful. Later editors and arrangers added what they felt were missing woodwind parts, but the original scoring has again become the accepted choice for many modern performances.
It has been noted that in 1798, when Haydn wrote this Mass, his world was in turmoil. Napoleon had won four major battles with Austria in less than a year. The previous year, in early 1797, his armies had crossed the Alps and threatened Vienna itself. In May 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt to destroy Britain's trade routes to the East. So the summer of 1798 was a difficult time for Austria, and when Haydn finished this Mass, its own title in the catalog of his works was Missa in angustiis (Mass for Troubled Times). What Haydn did not know when he wrote the Mass, but what he and his audience heard (perhaps on September 15, the day of the very first performance), was that on August 1, Napoleon had suffered a big defeat at the Battle of the Nile by British forces led by Admiral Horatio Nelson.
This coincidence led to the Mass gradually becoming known as the Lord Nelson Mass in the 19th century, when people wanted to associate specific events with the Mass. The use of trumpets in the Benediction is said to be symbolic of Nelson's victory. But news of the victory did not reach Austria until September, after Haydn had already completed the Mass. Thus, the Mass cannot be linked to Nelson's victory and the "tense" political situation that accompanied it; the attempt to provide a post hoc explanation for the title can be "consigned to the dustbin of musical anecdotes. Trumpets and kettledrums were regularly used in masses. In courtly life they announced the arrival of the temporal lord, the monarch or prince; in the Mass they are a symbolic welcome of the Messiah, who comes in the name of the spiritual Lord. The reference or connection to the war situation is also less obvious, given the festive occasion - the name day of the prince's wife - for which the Mass was written.
There is only a connection to Horatio Nelson in the performance. Two years after completing the Mass, Admiral Nelson visited Prince Esterházy in Eisenstadt, accompanied by the diplomat, volcanologist and archaeologist Sir William Hamilton and Lady Emma Hamilton, Sir William's wife (and Nelson's mistress). The company attended a performance of the Mass in their honor, and possibly the Te Deum in C. Anecdotes surround this visit. Nelson is said to have given Haydn his gold pocket watch in exchange for the pen with which Haydn wrote his works. Lady Hamilton, an accomplished soprano, had admired Haydn since his visit to England and now had the opportunity to be accompanied by him on the fortepiano. Haydn gave her the autograph of the work he had written especially for her, a tribute to Nelson, the cantata for soprano and keyboard "Lines from the Battle of the Nile".
Haydn's original title may also have come from his illness and exhaustion at this time, following his supervision of the first performances of The Creation, completed a few months earlier. By doctor's orders, he was confined to his rooms, but for Haydn, confinement meant that he had time to compose the mass he was to write for the name day of Princess Esterházy, the wife of his patron. Instead of the three months it normally took him to write a mass, he was able to stay at home and complete this work, one of his greatest compositions, in a little over a month. It is remarkable that a composer in his mid-60s, considered an advanced age at the time, could immediately follow a brilliant oratorio with a Mass of equally high inspiration.
The Kyrie of this Mass is in D minor, the only time Haydn sets the text in a minor key in an orchestral Mass. The strong, rhythmic D minor opening of the Kyrie establishes the tense tone of a work written "in angustiis," in a time of anxiety. The foreboding opening, with low trumpet fanfares, slashing strings, and timpani, recalls the "Dies Irae" of the Requiem of his younger contemporary Mozart. The unusual instrumentation for a mass immediately sets a somewhat ominous tone, followed by the choir and the dramatic part for the soprano.
Not surprisingly, the D major Gloria shows Haydn at his most cheerful, recalling the sunny world of The Creation, premiered a few months earlier. It is divided into three parts, two allegros that surround an adagio in B flat for the Qui tollis. In both allegros, Haydn uses the same motif with a prominent part for the soprano. The bass solo, Qui tollis peccata mundi, is a clear reference to the Tuba mirum in Mozart's Requiem and was obviously intended as a tribute to Haydn's admired colleague. After this slower section, the soprano soloist brings us back to the key of D for Quoniam tu solus, and the movement ends with a spirited fugue 'in gloria Dei Patris, Amen'.
At the beginning of the Credo, the chorus sings a strict canon in which two voices imitate each other at intervals of a fifth. The rigidity of the canon (the word literally means "rule" or "law") seems particularly appropriate for this strong statement of faith. Et incarnatus est" - about the mystery of the virgin birth - is in G major, richly harmonized, and shows the mastery that the composer had developed over the years in his string quartets. The exquisite Et incarnatus est is followed by an intense Crucifixus. As the text about Pontius Pilate is discussed, trumpets and timpani sound, as they do later in the Benedictus. The following Et resurrexit bursts with explosive energy, with a truly wonderful soprano solo in Et vitam venturi. Here, too, the choir "speaks" part of its long text, declaiming it on a single repeated note, although Haydn, who set his Mass texts from memory, seems to have inadvertently omitted the words "qui ex Patre Filioque procedit". The movement begins in B minor, then modulates and finally returns to the tonic as the soprano sings the "et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen', followed by the choir.
The opening words of the Sanctus are accompanied by a strongly emphasized messa di voce with trumpets, timpani, and organ. In the "Pleni sunt coeli" the tempo changes to an allegro. The Sanctus is followed by the remarkable Benedictus, a movement of extraordinary emotional and dramatic intensity. It was customary for these words to be set to contemplative, pastoral music, but in this Mass Haydn returns to the dark D minor tones of the Kyrie, with trumpets and timpani again playing a prominent role. A series of exchanges between soloists and chorus culminate in an almost Beethovenian climax. At the end, the trumpets and timpani repeat a powerful military rhythm as the chorus intones its text on a single note, an effect that evokes thoughts of the Last Judgment.
The Agnus Dei in G major, sung by soloists only, is followed by an extended Dona nobis pacem, which, in contrast to the usual supplication, is almost operatic in style, typical of Haydn at his most exuberant.
Despite the foreboding of the Kyrie and Benedictus, the prevailing mood of the Nelson Mass is one of jubilation, in a joyous and brilliant D major. Haydn once remarked, "At the thought of God, my heart leaps for joy, and I cannot help my music doing the same". The sparkling vitality of the Nelson Mass is the epitome of this statement.
Listen to: VocalArt Brixen
Capella Claudiana
Marian Polin, direction
Helene Grabitzky, soprano
Laura Kießkalt, alto
Benedikt Heggemann, tenor
Michael Feichter, bass
in the Cathedral of Brixen
Choral Masterworks