Missa in angustiis

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The "Lord Nelson Mass" or Missa in Angustiis ("Mass for troubled times") is one of twelve masses written by (Franz) Joseph Haydn, six of them near the end of his composing career. The final six masses constitute a magnificent oeuvre, though not fully recognized as such until fairly recently. Into them, Haydn poured everything he had learned in a lifetime of composing, and he found new inspiration from the sacred texts.

[edit] Background

Haydn's chief biographer, H. C. Robbins Landon, has written that the Lord Nelson Mass "is arguably Haydn's greatest single composition." Because of a shortage of musicians at the court at that time, it is scored for just strings, trumpets and tympani. Later arrangers added wind parts, but the David Willcocks recording makes an excellent case for Haydn’s original scoring.

Though in 1798, when he wrote this mass, Haydn's reputation was at its peak, 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 of 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt to destroy Britain's trade routes to the East.

The summer of 1798 was therefore a terrifying time for Austria, and when Haydn finished this mass, his own title, in the catalogue of his works, was "Missa in Angustiis" or "Mass in Time of Distress." What Haydn didn't know when he wrote the mass—but what he and his audience heard (perhaps on the very day of the first performance September 15) was that on Aug. 1, Napoleon had been dealt a stunning defeat in the Battle of the Nile by English forces led by Admiral Horatio Nelson. Because of this coincidence, the mass gradually acquired the nickname "Lord Nelson Mass." The title became indelible when in 1800, Lord Nelson himself visited the Esterhazys (accompanied by his British mistress, Lady Hamilton), and heard the mass performed.

For Haydn, however, writing the mass in the late summer, the mood in Eisenstadt was one of foreboding, to the point of terror, and this is what we hear as the great work opens. He chose to write it in the key of d minor, which is seldom used but may have an intriguing provenance. In 1788, Haydn had attended the first Vienna showing of Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni." From contemporary accounts, we know it made a great impression on him, and in Don Giovanni, the most memorable scene portrays the unrepentant anti-hero being dragged down to the underworld. Here, according to Landon, the listener hears, "perhaps the first time in music history, the presence of real fear, nay terror." This music is all in d-minor. It is easy to imagine that when Haydn, ten years later, wished to evoke this emotion in his music, his ears were still ringing with Giovanni's terrible d-minor fate.

[edit] Compositional sections

The text, slightly altered, is taken from the Latin Tridentine Mass of the Catholic church. It includes the following sections.

The first movement of the mass communicates just such an atmosphere of terror and confusion. The text, "Lord, have Mercy; Christ, have mercy," is most frequently set as a a pious, even submissive plea, but in this mass it becomes a nearly profane expostulation, such as one might utter when presented with a disaster of incomprehensible magnitude. Anguished confusion permeates virtually every note of the first "Kyrie" movement.

The movement that follows, the Gloria, is the exact opposite of the first. It's a song of exultant praise, directed to the same creator whose world, in the first movement is so fraught with perils. Haydn's treatment is utterly without irony. The vision of the Gloria is as elemental and complete as the dark vision of the Kyrie. The world may be beset with dangers and terrors, but it is at one and the same time a glorious world of diverse miracles, and the soprano, alto, and chorus compete in the joyful praise. "We praise thee, we magnify thee, we adore thee, we glorify thee..."

Haydn starts the Credo movement with a canon, as the altos and basses repeat exactly the music sung by the sopranos and tenors. The repeating voices in canon are an ingenious way of providing reinforcement for the statement of belief. Then comes the most dramatic section of the Credo. It is introduced by a lovely soprano solo set to the words "et incarnatus est—and he was made incarnate." What follows is the central drama of the New Testament--the idea that God took on human form and lived on earth—the Christmas story and all that follows it..

But because every birth on this earth foretells a death to come, this section also leads through the terrible events of the crucifixion, and the music reflects that agony, as the trumpets and the tympani play echoes of their motifs from the dark Kyrie. In response, in one of the most transcendent moments in the mass, a trio of soloists assures us that the birth and death were not futile but were in fact for our benefit--"pro nobis, pro nobis, pro nobis," repeated three times, perhaps to invoke the power of the Trinity. This assurance seems to transform the mood from one of agony and despair to one of acceptance. It is an extraordinary moment. The “et resurrexit" is predictably fast paced and joyous and leads the Credo to an amost delirious conclusion, led by glorious writing for the violins, and proceeding to a magnificent "Amen."

In the “Benedictus,” Haydn chooses to focus on just part of the text: “In the Name of the Lord." Together, the soprano soloist and chorus imagine for us the sort of Pomp and Circumstance that would surround such a messenger. Near the end, the trumpets and tympani suddenly enter to create extraordinarily grand music, suggestion a magnificent procession. Some people have interpreted this section as a martial tribute to Lord Nelson himself, but we believe now that Haydn did not have Nelson in mind but a far greater power.

The "Agnus Dei movement" is a personal address, a prayer, appealing to a personal god through Jesus for a personal blessing--"miserere nobis." Haydn in this section emphasizes the intimacy involved by setting the entire petition for the four soloists, not the chorus.

That movement, and the Mass as a whole ends in a very glad setting of the "famous last words" of the mass--"Dona nobis pacem--grant us peace." We have been transported from the greatest depths of despair in the first movement to a great and certain joy.

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