Surpassed only by the Budapest Choir with Claudia Hellmann and Viktor von Halem in 1967

@@henryvonblumenthal7307 The great classic, I think reference recording with forces conducted by Ferenc Friscay on Deutsche Grammophon. It was this recording that used the 1802 version.

Me too.^^

Boom! You and I have the same DG recording. Thank you

The original was entirely by Haydn in 1798 with circumstances* dictating the unusual but very striking orchestration you outlined. The revised version had little to do with Haydn apart from him telling the publisher Breitkopf & Hartel that the organ part could be put into the additional wind parts (probably done by a local composer), whilst the Eisenstadt revision was done by Joseph Fuchs**; Haydn probably sanctioned this more regularised Fuchs’ orchestration of the mass. It’s important to be accurate in matters Haydn as he suffers more than most from annoying inaccuracies to an extraordinary degree. *Haydn’s original orchestration* Strings Organ - played by himself 3 Trumpets - hired for the event Timpani - a local player *Fuch’s normalised orchestration* Flute 2 oboes 2 clarinets Bassoon 2 Horns 3 Trumpets Strings Timpani (Optional organ). The stark and powerful sound of Haydn’s original is by far the more preferable of versions; it has an astonishingly powerful impact. * Due to the on-going war situation with France, Prince Eszterhazy made major financial cutbacks including dismissing all the wind players. ** Probably.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 Right you might be. In 1802, Haydn was getting his catalog in order. Haydn was enormously proud of the last six masterpieces. Along with the two Oratorios The Creation, and the The Seasons. Haydn at that time, said writing The Seasons, wore him out. All along with the occupation of Vienna by Napoleons forces The French, put an honor guard at his house. In reality it was house arrest. What better time, to gather and revise works. But, I stand by my original writing. Haydn, at this time was extremely ill, he, himself, did the revisions.

@@wzdavi Haydn did *not* do the revised orchestration of the mass, though he may well have sanctioned it. I am surprised that you insist on Haydn being responsible for the later normalised wind parts as your suggesting this puts you not only at odds with myself, but every Haydn scholar I know. Perhaps you can direct me to your source.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 i have the

Thank you.

Some interesting points as ever, and I am becoming very fond of the consistently fine performances of this group which I think are exceptional - I enjoyed this very much, and you’re right that Haydn would have been very pleased with this indeed. A couple of points about your comment: the original libretto for The Creation was in English, Baron van Swieten put into German, but - as a native English-speaker - I can tell you that his re-translation back into English for the original dual-language publication of the work is not a triumph, and in some cases is awkwardly clumsy, unidiomatic, and nonsensical. I am going to disagree absolutely with your point about Handel, a point that ought to be the case, but in actual fact, is not. Haydn did indeed hear lots of Handel whilst in England,* and we know he was hugely impressed, but the astonishing thing is, that there is almost nothing of Handel in either The Creation, or The Seasons, (or in any of the late masses) beyond a shared ability to use the chorus to maximum effect. In short, I can hear almost nothing that I would describe as Handelian in the two quintessentially Haydnesque oratorios. (‘Awake the harp’ from The Creation is probably the closest if you push me, but even that I would say is an isolated coincidence). The Missa in angustiis is correctly known as the ‘Nelson Mass’ (or in German ‘Nelsonmesse’) where the nickname is used; the penchant for the aberration of adding the spurious ‘Lord’ seems to be popular in the US alone, but has no authority whatsoever, and is not used anywhere else. * It’s interesting that Haydn heard some Handel at Baron van Swieten’s old-music concerts whilst in Vienna - Mozart also attended - there is no record of it having any impact on him; we know that the Baron had Mozart re-orchestrate a number of Handel’s works for these concerts, but it was only in England that Haydn was stunned by the full force of Handel and remarked on it, this was not the case with what he heard in Vienna.

@@elaineblackhurst1509 - Hi again Elaine - I was scrolling thro’ my email this afternoon & found your intriguing notelet … It is interesting that the Germans refer to the ‘Nelsonmesse’ in his abbreviated title - Nelson’s coffin inscription reads in English : ‘Most Noble Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount & Baron Nelson of the Nile & of Hillborough in the said County, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Bath & Vice-Admiral of the White Squadron, Baron Nelson of the Nile & Burnham-Thorpe, Lord Duke of Brontë…’ Try fitting all that into German for the titulus for a Mass !! We sometimes see names of musical compositions either abbreviated (as with this wonderful Mass) or with extra words added (the Americans are most guilty of this in cases like ‘Messiah’ which they insist on referring to as ‘THE Messiah’ for some strange reason which is beyond me ! LoL As for Handel’s ‘grand choruses’ in his later Oratorios we both know that Haydn attended the dress rehearsal (22 May 1791) in Westminster Abbey of the choral-rich Israel in Egypt (with its 18 choruses!) & 15 other anthems & a selection of grand choruses from several Handelian oratorios including Jeptha, Athalia, Judas Maccabaeus, the Handelian pasticcio Deborah, Solomon, Saul & Zadok the Priest along with some 8 anthems - said to have been sung by a choir of 120 & an 80-piece orchestra with most of the wind parts tripl’d-then the following week attended the dress rehearsal of Messiah on 31 May & the performance itself the following evening (1 June 1791) also in Westminster Abbey using the same gargantuan forces - no wonder Haydn’s head was so compleatly turn’d around !! (as you mention’d the Mozartean arrangements paid for by van Swieten in 1789/1790 of Alexander’s Feast, Ode to St Cecilia, Acis & Galatea & Messiah) were very scal’d down Mozartean re-orchestrations with many of the larger choral numbers reduc’d to CATB soli only - a much more ‘intimate’ affair in the organ-less Palffy Palais… Interestingly perhaps the van Swieten inspir’d orchestration of ‘The Creation’ Oratorio of Haydn (he added sometimes very weird instrumental suggestions’ into the German Libretto) if it could be compleatly stripp’d off in all 12 of the massive choral numbers (leaving only Canto/Alto/Tenore/Basso parts & the figured-Bass in order to reveal ‘the Handelian influence’ in these numbers begins to emerge from their orchestral overpainting -in other words Haydn’s modern 1796-1797 richly scor’d orchestration hides/masques most of the Baroque Handelian influence in the actual melodic & harmonic sequences - to list them all in more detail would have to wait for another post (this one is already far too long…we can see Handel’s drums-in-the final spaces in the final bars in the closing fortissimo cadence of the massive opening chorus from Theodora (‘and draw a blessing down’) foreshadowing Haydn’s peculiar but effective use of ‘kettle drums playing fortissimo filling in the silent final cadences at the very end of the chorus ’Allelujah’ from ‘Achiev’d is His Glorious Work’ in B-flat major / which chorus quotes Messiah in passing from Part 2 of Messiah in 6 places … Also e.g. the final cadences of Handel’s ‘The Horse & Rider He cast into the Sea’ from Israel in Egypt for Haydn’s general approach to the tonal & melodic world of The Creation … I like what the Viennese imported poet-librettist (& close Masonic friend of Haydn, Mozart, Van Swieten, Salieri, Beethoven & Rossini !!) Giuseppe Carpani later (in 1797) wrote about what Haydn himself told him about first coming across the choral music of Handel as sung by such gigantic forces as employ’d in the bombastic Handelian Westminster Festival production of Messiah in May/June 1791 : ‘Suddenly it dawn’d on me that I knew nothing about the true Science of Composition - that is, until I came across such compositional Splendours as the Great Handel was able to master -I truly felt like a young compositional student who had not compos’d a single note of music before & was forc’d to re-think my whole compositional process from start to finish & found myself questioning ev’rything I thought I knew up until that moment - like starting all over-from scratch !!’ Also what he said to young Beethoven : ‘You would have to comb through very carefully the choral masterpieces of Handel so as to discover how to create the most moving effects using the simplest means possible …’ which when done by young Beethoven caus’d him allegedly to exclaim ‘Handel is the Master of us all !!’ which is duly reflected by direct quotations (e.g. Messiah & Zadok the Priest &c. in such works as e.g. the final chorus to his own oratorio ‘Christ on the Mount of Olives’ … One final point to chew on - the original Charles Jennins English Libretto c. 1750 which had been specifically written for Handel but was rejected by him ‘as representing more than 4 hours of musick’ in other words, would have to be drastically cut down in places - did not quote the KJV of the late pointed Masoretic text (c. 960 CE) of the two creation myths in Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a & chapters 2:4b - 3:26 directly but ‘paraphrases’ a good deal of the material (but leaving the creation of trees & grasses on the ‘3rd Day’ which is way out of ‘scientific evolutionary order’ (with the ‘sun-moon & stars’ being created on the 4th day-the priestly writers of Genesis clearly did not understand any concept of ‘photosynthesis’ !!) and also the citations in the English Libretto from Milton’s Paradise Lost Book I are not direct quotes by any stretch - but likewise are paraphrases of some of its pertinent contents … likewise Josef Haydn’s ‘choral quotations’ from Handel’s Messiah & other oratorios are often only 2-5 bars long and serve as fillers or connecting bridges and are also ‘paraphrases of Handel’s Musick’ rather than literal direct quotations such as we find in the aforesaid Beethoven oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives or Mozart’s use of Handelian themes in his Requiem fragment (Sept-Nov 1791) which had stretches of material taken over more literally from ‘Funeral Musick for Queen Anne’ from 1714…. So this ‘paraphrase’ approach to ‘The Creation’ makes this whole discussion uncomfortably convoluted - but if you want more detail let me know since I have already written far too much for a single REPLY !!! LoL

@@theophilos0910 Read with great interest and appreciation. As I am away for a few days, a proper response to your thoughtful post will have to wait a drew days, but in the meantime, I have much to think about - though on first reading, I think I can agree with much of what you say.

​​​@@elaineblackhurst1509eh. Never liked that comment by Beethoven about Handel, which if I recall was like a death bed comment. We will never know his real state of mind at the time. Also of all the composers who are even in the conversation as "the greatest", all of them but one have one thing in common. They all lived long lives and were able to master their craft and reach their peek of abilities. In other words, if your a talented musician and live 60 or 70 years relatively healthy, your probably going to have some incredible music and while some may say they were the best, you must factor in the years spent perfecting their craft because it gives them a huge advantage over someone like Mozart. To me mozart had mastered everything of his time , and very easily was on his way of mastering "effect with simplicity " in his music. Nobody was better than Mozart at the age of 35. The fact that Beethoven spent practically his whole life studying and even shaking his head in awe of some mozart works, shows the major respect he had for him. It's just hard for anyone to fully acknowledge mozart was better than Handel and on his way to eventually passing bach had he simply lived as long as they did. So maybe living to 74 years old, over twice as long a mozart, is the reason Beethoven may have had that crazy moment on his death bed.. ironically, it's not dissimilar to the thought that everyone was afraid to write a symphony after Beethovens 9th because they were so "intimidated" , and thought they wouldn't measure up but little did they know Beethoven spent over 20 years writing it. Another example how age and years impact the perceived greatness.

@@beethovenlovedmozart I’ve written extensively elsewhere about the handful of comments allegedly, purportedly, or actually from Beethoven regarding Handel, either viva voce, from the Tagebuch (diary) 1812-1818, notebooks, or miscellaneous reports; most are taken out of context, misquoted, or simply snippets of information presented as ‘profound’ insights. Beethoven clearly admired Handel, and with good reason from what little he knew of his music; Baron van Swieten had been promoting Handel in Vienna from the 1780’s, but it is doubtful that they had access to much of the incomplete English edition of the works by Samuel Arnold 1787-1797, and the Chrysander complete edition did not begin publishing until 1858 and took until 1901 to complete, so the comments we often see about Beethoven owning ‘…a complete Handel edition’ are utter nonsense. It is notable too that Haydn was relatively cool about the Handel he heard at the Baron’s old music curiosity concerts in Vienna (including the abominations visited on Handel by Mozart), but he was overwhelmed when he heard the same composer in London - Beethoven had the Vienna experience, not the London one. It is inconceivable that Haydn did not pass on his rapt enthusiasm for the impact Handel had on him to Beethoven whilst they were together; Carpani in his biography (Le Haydine) reports that Haydn on hearing Handel in London exclaimed ‘Quest’è il padre di tutti’, and that Haydn ‘…was struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies and had known nothing up to that moment’. Ferdinand Ries reports that Beethoven rated Handel and Mozart highest followed by JS Bach, though my point about how much Handel Beethoven actually knew is relevant - I suspect it was relatively little and included a number of keyboard works, many of which do not show Handel at his best compared to the operas for example, of which the Arnold edition contained only five (there are over forty in total). Haydn is notably absent from Ries’ list, and indeed gets some digs, largely because Beethoven himself could never quite bring himself to acknowledge the composer properly for a number of reasons (often non-musical); to counter this though, Beethoven himself in his Tagebuch notes that he kept portraits* of Handel and Bach, Mozart *and* Haydn in his room, basically to keep himself grounded. Regarding the evidence of Beethoven stating ‘Handel was the greatest composer that ever lived’ and a few similar comments; they were almost all made to Londoners; this particular quotation was made to Edward Schulz who visited Beethoven in 1816 and 1823 (Potter and Schulz being two others who made similar observations). It was Maynard Solomon who first noted the predominant nationality to whom these remarks were made, I think, and we must consider that Beethoven was knowingly bigging-up a composer whom he knew from Haydn remained a national institution in England, and possibly did so with a view to attracting patronage, commissions, subscribers, and other forms of support (once again Haydn is relevant here as he had told Beethoven to go to England to make a fortune unimaginable anywhere else, advice he would probably have followed had his hearing not deteriorated). I think you are mistaken about the deathbed comment which I understood to be ‘There is the truth’, and Beethoven was referring to the Handel scores he possessed. All that said, it is clear that Beethoven felt he could learn much from Handel, and whilst preparing the choral section of the 9th symphony, he studied him carefully, but so too did he the choral works of JS Bach, Mozart, and Haydn, and in summary, whatever he said, I’m not entirely convinced Beethoven really believed Handel to be the greatest of all composers. * It is not certain these portraits ever existed, which means of course that we cannot believe the veracity of every word written or spoken; it appears from the drawings made of Beethoven’s room by Hoechle just three days after his death, that busts of himself were the only composer memorabilia to be found there.

Sehr gerne Hanna. Wünsche einen schönen Sonntag!

TU ES UN GRAND HOMME 👨

I have been fortunate enough to hear a number of Haydn’s masses performed in the proper sacred liturgical context in Anglican cathedrals across England where a small number of Haydn’s settings are in the repertoire of almost all of them. Haydn’s masses work extremely well when used in conjunction with the sublime language of Cranmer’s 1549 Book of Common Prayer (revised book 1662) which remains one of the absolute glories of the English language regardless of any faith or none. The Anglican church’s unfortunate preference today for anything but the BCP is as unfortunate as some of the side-effects of the Second Vatican Council; fortunately, the Cathedrals, larger churches, and chapels across England still retain some of the past treasures, along with one of the finest and longest unbroken choral traditions anywhere, and that includes using Haydn’s mass settings regularly in the wonderful surroundings as mentioned.

As a liturgical musician in the Catholic Church, I can't agree more. I am forever thankful for the too-brief pontificate of Benedict XVI where things seemed to be getting a little better: if nothing else, the Sistine Choir improved, and he had orchestral Masses by Haydn and Mozart performed liturgically at papal Masses in St. Peter's Basilica.

I was privileged to sing the Missa in Angustiis as a part of three masses this summer (August 2023) in Austria: in the Pfarrkirche in Mattersburg; in the Stephansdom in Vienna on Sunday; and in the Haydnkirche in Eisenstadt during the service on Mariahimmelfahrt. In all three instances the churches were full and appreciative of the choir and orchestra from the Classical Music Festival under the direction of Dr. Richard Zielinski.

A bit sniffy aren't we? Haydn's boss disbanded the wind section at the time he wrote it, they were probably from the army anyway and they were at war. Haydn just put them back, probably for the Nelson visit. No idea what you meant about cartoon voices, this is not Tom and Jerry. Is baroqueist a word?

@@petercrosland5502 From what I have read over the past 40 years or so it was editors who added the wind parts. Per Martin Pearlman, Music Director of Boston Baroque: "Despite the distinctive sonority of this Mass, there were some attempts made to "normalize" its orchestration by adding woodwinds and horns. Indeed Haydn made some suggestions to editors about how they might do this, but he did not supervise their work. An early edition published by Breitkopf during Haydn's lifetime, based on a pirated version that was full of errors, not only added a full complement of winds but also eliminated the organ solos and simplified the trumpet parts. In that form, the Mass became extremely popular. Although it is still often heard in this "normalized" version, Boston Baroque's performance follows the leaner, original orchestration of Haydn's manuscript." I too, prefer the original version. I have always found that in contrast to the wonderful woodwind writing of Haydn's other late masses, the added woodwind parts in this mass are feeble and prefer the more powerful organ version. Leonard Bernstein's performance without the woodwinds is excellent.

South Tyrol, Italy