1796 – The Music part 5 - Heiligmesse; Fit for a Princess

Hob. No.	Genre	Libretto	Name	Instruments/Voices
30:5a	Incidental music	adapted from a play by Alexander Bicknell: The Patriotic King OR Alfred & Elvida – translated into German by J.W. Cowmeadow	Alfred, König der Angelsachsen Triumph of the Danes (Chorus)	3 Voices, 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, 2 Trumpets, Timpani, Strings
30:5b	Incidental music		Alfred, König der Angelsachsen The Guardian Spirit's Aria: Ausgesandt von Strahlenthrone	Soprano and wind band sextet: 2 Clarinets, 2 Horns & 2 Bassoons
Hob. No.	Genre	Key	Name	Instruments/Voices
22:10	Catholic Mass	Bb	Missa Sancti Bernardi de Offida OR Heiligmesse	S-A-T-B, Chorus, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani, Strings & Continuo (Organ)

The Bergkirche in Eisenstadt
Michael Mayr (1826) watercolor

[To P. CORNELIUS KNOBLICH, GRISSAU MONASTERY
NEAR LANDESHUT IN SILESIA. German]

Most worthy and Reverend Sir !

Your most worthy Abbot has done me an inestimable honor by subscribing to the Creation, and thus as soon as the work is printed, I shall not fail to send a copy to Your Reverence by the diligence.

Inasmuch as my present young Prince issued the moderate command four years ago that in my old age I must compose a new Mass once a year, it will be indeed a pleasure to be able to send you one of them; [snip] [NB – this is a long and interesting letter which we shall revisit some day]

Your Reverence's most obedient servant,

Joseph Haydn.
Vienna, 10^th August 1799

1782. It seems like such a long time ago when Haydn wrote the Mariazeller Mass, many of us hardly recall it. Back then, I pointed out how that Mass had far more in common with the last 6 Masses than with the ones which came before. But though the road was begun fourteen years earlier, other things learned along the way most certainly came into play, and helped to take those partially-formed ideas and use them to create the inspiration for Masses in the 19^th century and beyond.

When Haydn returned from his final stay in London, as we saw, the new Prince, Nicholas II, husband of our old friend Princess Marie Hermenegild, had invited him to get the band back together. It has been generally assumed, nearly forever, he also made it a stipulation that Haydn would write a new Mass for Marie's Name Day every year, although the truth is there is no documentary evidence for this, despite the fact of the huge number of documents in the archives which cover everything else down to purchase of broken violin string replacements. Esteemed Haydnist Karl Geiringer, in his Haydn – A Creative Life in Music, page 156, simply states:

Haydn, although not enjoying the work for his fourth Prince, may not have resented it too much because his duties were not particularly heavy. His main obligation was occasionally composing new Masses for his patron. This he did, and six masterworks were written for this purpose.

The source reference for this would appear to be the letter above. Geiringer doesn't try to make more of it than what's there, to his credit.

Demaree and Moses, in their much newer (2008) Masses of Joseph Haydn: History, Style, Performance (page 377) say:

It is widely believed that the Prince directed Haydn to annually compose a Mass for presentation in a service on the Name Day of Marie Hermenegild. (italics mine)

Is it important whether he was fulfilling a contractual obligation or undertaking to fulfill a special interest? Clearly, not everyone thinks so. It is the easiest thing to just assume the widely held beliefs are true, and publishing on that basis won't generate any blowback, so why not? Maybe the contract itself will show up one day in a farmhouse attic outside of Bucharest, but I don't think so. Meanwhile, since my interest is more in Haydn's own personality and attitudes, I will propose something different.

If the 19^th century hadn't happened, and composers and other artists hadn't achieved a level of respect which their 18^th century counterparts never imagined, we could be more comfortable with this thought: Haydn was one of Prince Nicholas' proudest possessions! This isn't just me saying something. Again, without attribution, but based on de facto daily life as described by many contemporaries;

Haydn's most important duty was to be on hand when the Prince wanted to show off his famous conductor [to illustrious guests].

In fact, Nicholas didn't much care for Haydn's music, he liked old-style Mass music and the current version of avant garde. But he really did like art, and spent as much on paintings and statues as his namesake uncle had spent on music and opera. His other 'money pit' was sexual adventurism, he reputedly had over two hundred mistresses scattered around Vienna, each of them set up with a nice apartment and an allowance. The fact is, the relationship Haydn had with Nicholas II was the least friendly and intimate of any he had with his three predecessors. But we also saw, as far back as 1783, how Haydn and Princess Marie Hermenegild began a relationship which led to them becoming close friends. This relationship hadn't faded over the years, and it was now coming to fruition. Among other things, Marie loved and understood music, and Haydn's music in particular. Where her husband saw a jewel in his crown, she saw a consummate artist who made her long, lonely days more bearable. So these are the points I am looking at:

• Haydn knew the Prince liked, if any music at all, classic, old-style Mass music.
• Marie loved and understood music, and Haydn's music in particular.
• Haydn was a devout Catholic and hadn't written any Masses since Joseph II had essentially forbade anything with ornamentation in church, and so he had a store of ideas built up for a music which was spiritually from his heart.

All of which leads me to this postulate: I believe Haydn was left to his own resources when he came back to the Prince, there was no particular Name Day stipulation for the Masses. And when he took on this obligation to produce Masses for Marie's Name Day, he did it for her, and especially for himself. Even if a contract shows up one day, and it says that Haydn is obliged to do this, I submit it was his idea, not the Prince's. That is more in keeping with his character, in my opinion.

The six Masses have generated buzz since they were first put on paper. Even simple things, like the order of composition, have been a puzzle. If they were straightforward, then this would be Hob 22:09 instead of 22:10. But the real bone of contention, which first cropped up in Haydn's lifetime, is that they are simply much too easy to listen to. Church music is supposed to be harsh, serious and not in any way entertaining. I think, however, it is vitally important to point this out; absolutely none of this criticism comes from Austrian Catholics, and in many cases, the criticism, just like that in the 1760's and '70's, is more largely aimed at Austrians in general, with Haydn as the role model due to his prominence and clear superiority. It is safe to say, German and English Protestants at the time, and throughout the 19^th century, had an entirely different view of what the attitude of a Mass should be than that shared by Haydn and his local contemporaries. As we go through and look at these works, we will also look at the various contemporary and subsequent criticisms.

It may have been Haydn's plan right from the beginning to have a Mass ready to be played on the Name Day of his friend, Marie Hermenegild. Given his history of presenting special works to Prince Nicholas I on his Name Day, the idea was probably in his head as soon as Nicholas II put the 'Mass Task' out there. Landon tells us this Mass was written in the summer of 1796 in Vienna. Since it had to be performance-ready by ~9 September in Eisenstadt, the three to four months available would have been just right, even with the other projects on the agenda.

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The Blessed Bernard of Offida

Why did Haydn dedicate his first Mass to an obscure Italian holy man rather than to Mary, his personal patron and also the Saint who Marie was named for? Here is some background, although it is not a fully complete and satisfactory answer for anyone who is adamant about the Name Day thing! Bernard of Offida was beatified on 25 May, 1795 by Pope Pius VI. He was never canonized into sainthood, so Haydn's dedication of this Mass to 'Saint' Bernard is a bit premature, 200+ years and counting premature, it seems. Bernard was an Italian Capuchin monk who lived nearly the entire 17^th century (1604-94). According to the Catholic index of saints, the qualities he was especially well known for included "frugality, modesty, industriousness, physical strength, shrewdness and tenacity". There is no way to know quite why Haydn chose 'Saint' Bernard for this dedication, but a plausible sequence is put forward by Landon. At this time, Haydn, waiting for the house in Gumpendorf to be modified, lived in the Neuer Markt (New Market Square) in the inner city. As it happened, the Capuchin Monastery was also in the square, and having one of their number beatified was likely to have been a big deal. Even though Haydn was still in London in May, 1795, upon his return he was very likely to have gone to church there, or engaged in conversation with one of his neighbors, enough to have heard about, and been impressed by, this honored man, whose traits were so congruent with his own. In addition, the Capuchins had set aside days to honor their own dead, and Bernard's day was 11 September, which Haydn knew would be very near the date the Mass would be celebrated. In whatever way the actual sequence of events transpired, the end result was as we find it today, Missa Sancti Bernardi de Offida. It is also possible that Marie Hermenegild knew of and openly admired the saint. As for the alternative name, Heiligmesse, 'Heilig' is German for 'Holy'. 'Sanctus' is Latin for 'Holy'. There is an old German language Mass setting which was very popular in Vienna, and Haydn appropriated this very familiar and popular Sanctus and reset it as his own. Thus, Heiligmesse.

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It has been a long time since we saw a troupe of actors on hand to entertain the Esterházy's, way back when the Mayer Troupe wrapped up their season in 1788. So it was like old times for a while, when, on 1 July 1796, the acting troupe of a promising young actor named Johann Karl Stadler was hired on to provide the entertainment every "Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday between 1 September and 15 October". By all appearances, this was quite the talented troupe, performing a wide repertoire of current plays in German, as well as several German operas (by Ditters, Cimarosa and Wenzel Müller among others), even including Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. The plays also spanned a range of drama, comedy and musical. Unlike earlier times, Haydn didn't have to write the music for most of them, although it is believed his Esterházy Band played it. They would be supplemented by locals though, since there weren't enough of them to provide the range needed for an opera.

The only recording I know of 
"King Alfred...", fortunately excellent!

The feast of St. Mary, 9 September, fell on a Friday in 1796. Customarily, the Name Day celebration would have then been held on Sunday, the 11^th. There were no diarists there to detail the festivities, but on Friday there was a play by the Stadler Troupe, Alfred, König der Angelsachsen, in a German translation by J.W. Cowmeadow. While we don't know if the day began with a performance of the new Mass at Eisenstadt chapel, Landon says there is no evidence for it, but others take it for granted (with no evidence), but we DO know it contained the première presentation of this drama about Alfred the Great. What sort of stage music is Haydn writing at this point in his life?

Since this was actually a spoken drama play, it isn't overwhelmed with music like Il distratto was. Landon makes no mention of whether there was other music, such as an overture, or entr'actes and incidental music by someone else as part of the package, but since making assumptions appears to be okay here (see above), I will assume there was at least an overture and finale music for each of the five acts. But the pièces de résistance are the three Haydn works, which are very representative of his late style, and not easily mistaken for his earlier works. The first piece we would hear is The Triumph Chorus of the Danes. While we haven't yet heard the Mass in Time of War, it is being composed as you read this, and the choruses of this piece sound like they came right out of the Mass. The trumpets and timpani dominate above all. The drumming itself is an interesting evolution, alternating between the relentless, steady rhythm and bursts of really aggressive rolls as climaxes approach. It is a work for full orchestra, which Haydn didn't have available to him in Eisenstadt, but the general surmise, which postulates a small orchestra attached to the acting troupe, supplementing the Eisenstadt Band, possibly along with some mercenary musicians, is more or less verified by this work, not to mention the requirements of such as Mozart's Magic Flute, which had substantial music of its own.

The centerpiece of the play, though, had to be the wonderful aria/'duet', Ausgesandt von Strahlenthrone (The Guardian Spirit's Aria). It is an unusual duet, one part sings and the other only speaks. The heroine, Elvida, has the spoken text. But the Guardian Spirit displays her otherworldliness with a beautiful aria, which demonstrates, at the least, Haydn's appreciation for the talent of the original singer, since it has some real range. The entire is accompanied by a Harmonie sextet consisting of 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons & 2 Horns. It is really quite excellent. The third and final piece has never been published, probably due to the fact it can't be performed in a concert or recording because it is so intimately entwined in the fabric of the play. It is a duet (Der Morgen graut…) for two tenors, Alfred and Odun, but it abruptly breaks off in the middle of a musical and lyrical phrase in order to blend into ongoing action.

Alfred, König der Angelsachsen was Haydn's final piece of stage music, with the exception of the aria, Fatal Amour. Another product of this same time period, this is a concert aria, a French vaudeville actually, which was Haydn's one and only effort to set the French language. Unfortunately it suffers precisely the same fate as Der Morgen graut…, it is inseparably part of the play it is in, thus it has never been performed or recorded. Too bad, it would be interesting to hear Haydn setting French.

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Section	Sub section	Tempo	Key	Meter
Kyrie	Kyrie eleison	Adagio – Allegro moderato	Bb	3/4
Gloria	Gloria in excelsis Deo	Vivace	Bb	4/4
	Gratias agimus tibi	Allegretto	g – Bb – Eb – c - Bb	3/4
	Qui tollis peccata mundi	Più allegro		3/4
	Quoniam tu solus sanctus	Vivace	Bb	4/4
Credo	Credo in unum Deum	Allegro	Bb	2/2
	Et incarnatus est	Adagio	Eb	3/4
	Et resurrexit	Allegro	c – g - Bb	3/4
	Et vitam venturi	Vivace assai	Bb	3/4
Sanctus	Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus	Adagio	Bb – c – Bb	2/2
	Pleni sunt coeli	Allegro	Bb	3/4
Benedictus	Benedictus	Moderato	Eb	2/4
Agnus Dei	Agnus Dei	Adagio	bb	3/4
	Dona nobis pacem	Allegro	Bb	3/4
Instruments:	S-A-T-B, Chorus, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns (not in very first version), 2 Trumpets, Timpani, Strings & Continuo (Organ) (plus extra Soprano & Bass soloist in the Et incarnatus est.

We are now ready, finally, to hear the Mass for St. Bernard of Offida for the first time. Getting back to my theme, just for a moment, of unsubstantiated assumption, in referring to Demaree & Moses' The Masses of Joseph Haydn, they begin coverage of this Mass with a general statement on the influence which Haydn's final six Masses had on the sacred music of the 19^th century, which is quite valid. However, they refer to the letter which Nicholas II sent to Haydn in London, and say that the specific instruction that Haydn should compose the Masses for Marie's Name Day originated here. The letter no longer exists, and the reference to it, which I have discussed before (turning down the King) and reprinted below, most certainly does not make that demand. So it goes.

About half a year after Haydn's arrival in London, a letter was sent him from Naples from the then-reigning Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy (who was at the time traveling in Italy) which contained the news that the Prince had named Haydn as his Kapellmeister and wished to re-establish the entire Kappel. Haydn received this news with greatest pleasure. He had always had a hearty affection for the Esterhazy princes, who had assured his daily bread, and (what he especially liked) given him great opportunity to develop his musical talents. Of course, Haydn saw that his income in England was large and far surpassed that in his fatherland. Besides it had become easy for him there to command an imposing salary anywhere. He had been since the death of Prince Anton a fully free person. Nothing bound him to the princely house except his love and his gratitude. It was these that met every objection and moved him to accept the proposal of Prince Nikolaus with joy and, as soon as his contract in London was ended, to return to his fatherland.⁸

Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn pg. 171 –
A.C. Dies (Vernon Gotwals translation)

Anyway, I think my point is made.

If, indeed, the Heiligmesse was not played actually on Friday the 9^th, it is no surprise, since customarily Name Day Masses were played on the Sunday following, in this case, the 11^th. Since we have no knowledge otherwise, we will join the 'assumers' in this case and say it was. The first performance, according to Demaree & Moses was at the Bergkirche at Eisenstadt. This is not the Schlosskapelle, the chapel at Eisenstadt's palace, but actually the main public church in the city. Haydn's original score for this Mass was actually intended for performance in the Schlosskapelle, and therefore is necessarily sparse on instrumentation. Shortly thereafter, and certainly by the time it got to Vienna, Haydn had added horns, and bolstered the clarinet parts. Also in the original, Haydn had the clarinets doubling the oboes whenever they didn't have something to play (they were tacet). Bolstering all the winds for the larger venue at the Bergkirche was not difficult, given the 'opera orchestra' available, something else Haydn didn't know about much in advance. With the singers also on hand, and the rented trumpets and timpani, it must have been a splendid performance, and one which pleased not only its intended dedicatee, Marie Hermenegild, but also the Mass-loving Prince.

	The long, narrow Schlosskapelle didn't have the 'large' acoustic of the Bergkirche.
	The small choir and organ loft of the Schlosskapelle
	The much roomier loft in the Bergkirche. The organist sits right in the front, center, facing the altar, not a usual position and much better than in the Schlosskapelle.

There were several advantages to be had at the Bergkirche. Not least was the far more spacious choir loft. As we see in the pictures here (the places haven't changed significantly in the intervening 200+ years!), the choir loft is much larger, and set in a way which allows the soloists to step forward and maximize the acoustic advantage from being on the front edge. The organist, who was almost certainly Haydn himself, sits where he can see the service as he plays. The orchestra is divided like on a stage, with chorus members behind on raised platforms. You can see that the Schlosskapelle offers none of these things.

Is Haydn's style for this Mass a whole new revolution in sacred music, as has been said? In truth, the answer is no. If you listened to the Mariazellermesse from 1782, his last Mass before the Big Mass Blackout resulting from Joseph II's austerity regulations, you can see it is almost like an unbroken continuation of its predecessor. Clearly Haydn has gained everything in the way of self-confidence for this, his first major work post-London. These works, music which he loved and for a purpose he also loved, are graced with all his accumulated skill and art.

At the end of his 1955 book, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, Landon postulated this idea; the late Masses are choral symphonies:

… he continued the symphonic form under this new guise: for the late Haydn masses are in their fundamental construction symphonies for voices and orchestra using the mass text. It was the deeply religions Haydn's ultimate aim to extend and perfect the purely orchestral apparatus of the symphony by means of the text of the High Mass, embodying as it does the central mysteries of the Christian religion.²

Symphonies of Joseph Haydn pg. 596 – H.C. Robbins Landon (1955)

Later on, a musicologist named Martin Chusid⁶ developed a theory, further championed by Landon in Chronicle & Works vol. 4¹, which tried to give support for this idea by breaking each Mass down and applying structural labels to it intended to demonstrate how each Mass was, in fact, a set of three symphonies. Chusid went through the Masses and found analogous structures to a symphony throughout each of the Masses. And indeed, the rise and fall of the drama, expressed through dynamics, tonal shifts and other musical devices, is there to hear, although I think Chusid's analogies are often a big stretch. In his theory of 'Chromatic Completion', Ed Green⁷ cites Chusid's structural divisions to demonstrate how the Heiligmesse satisfies his own theory, which (very briefly here) states that Haydn, and a few others of the most successful composers such as Mozart, employed a technique of withholding a crucial, necessarily satisfying to the ear and mind, tone until the most critical dramatic moment. It is a highly interesting concept, and I commend it to you because even if you have only the most rudimentary theoretical knowledge Green explains it so you can understand it. However, in reading Green's paper, I don't see where the validity of his idea depends on the validity of Landon/Chusid, it is just a handy example.

Marie Hermenegild Esterházy
Johann Georg Weikert

Haydn's genius is not found in the formal similarities with the symphony, but in the small details. These reveal how Haydn moves the listener from one tonal event to another. He accomplishes this by means of rhetorical gestures, both textual and musical, which he develops and manipulates to create and foil the listener's expectations⁴. In other words, the techniques he uses in all his other works are also used here, albeit at the highest level of mastery. The implication of Landon's statement above, and of Chusid's later work, is that Haydn wrote three symphonies in related keys and then superimposed the Mass text on top of them. Whether he did this with specific intent, or whether it was unconsciously done, is the real nut of the issue.

Of course, the word 'symphony', itself, can be a cause for confusion. "Symphonic Mass". Chusid takes it literally as being a piece of music. Landon seems to intend it that way also. But 'symphony/symphonic' is also a group of instruments, and these (as well as nearly all other Viennese Masses in the 18^th century) are intended to be played by far more instruments than Masses anywhere else, save possibly Venice. Bruce MacIntyre avoids this very issue by giving a much different name to his seminal book on the subject, The Viennese Concerted Mass in the Early Classic Period⁵. I'm not entirely sure at this point what Landon's original intention was, maybe he just couldn't accept the idea that Haydn was done with symphonies and just move on, just like he couldn't handle the idea that the so-called Sturm und Drang period was over until the Paris Symphonies were composed. But we have seen Haydn move on throughout his career, and I believe he did so here too. The Heiligmesse is NOT the natural progenitor of Beethoven's 9^th symphony! There is more to this story, and five more Masses to go, so we haven't got to the end of it, by any means.

Next time we will also look at a Mass, in C Major this time, and this one contains all the drama you could hope for.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

1 - H.C. Robbins Landon - Joseph Haydn: Chronicle & Works vol. 4 - Indiana University Press - 1977
2 - H.C. Robbins Landon - The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn - Rockliff Publishing & Universal Editions - 1955
3 - Robert Demaree & Don Moses - The Masses of Joseph Haydn - Classical Heritage Press - 2008
4 - Eric Johnson - F. J. Haydn's Late Masses: An Examination of the Symphonic Mass Form - Choral Journal - February 2002
5 - Bruce MacIntyre - The Viennese Concerted Mass in the Early Classic Period - UMI Research Press - 1984 - 1986
6 - Martin Chusid - Some observations on liturgy, text and structure in Haydn's late masses - 1970 - in Studies in Eighteenth-century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer on His Seventieth Birthday edited by H.C. Robbins Landon
7 - Edward Green -  The Technique of Chromatic Completion in Haydn’s Late Masses -  Extract from Doctoral Thesis -  Chromatic Completion in the Late Vocal Music of Haydn and Mozart: A Technical, Philosophic, and Historical Study. (New York University, 2008).
8 - Joseph Haydn; Eighteenth-Century Gentleman and Genius - A translation with introduction and notes by Vernon Gotwals of the Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn by G. A. Griesinger and the Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn by A. C. Dies - The University of Wisconsin Press • Madison, 1963
9 - H.C. Robbins Landon -  The Collected Correspondence & London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn - Barrie and Rockliff, 1959