Conductor’s note

Classicism does not always have to be light-hearted

two sombre works by the brothers Joseph & Michael Haydn

by Bart Van Reyn

Summer 1798. Joseph Haydn was still recovering from the gruelling ordeal that had been the composition of *Die Schöpfung*. These were uncertain times: that year, Napoleon had won four major battles against Austria, causing enormous tension and uncertainty and posing an ever-greater threat to peace in Europe.

Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy had already tightened his belt and disbanded his Feldharmonie of woodwind players, which presented Haydn with a challenge: to compose a mass for an orchestra consisting solely of strings, organ, trumpets and timpani. The result was one of his most brilliant works; he called it *Missa in Angustiis* (Mass in Times of Distress), in which he constantly employs the timpani and trumpets to weave the dark undertone of the threat of war throughout the entire work.

By the time of the first performance, Napoleon had meanwhile suffered a heavy defeat on the Nile at the hands of Lord Nelson’s British forces. Nelson himself subsequently paid a visit to the Esterházy Palace in 1800. It is said that he met Haydn there, after conducting this powerful war mass, which has since been popularly dubbed the ‘Nelson Mass’.

An equally sombre work was performed in 1809 at Joseph Haydn’s funeral: a Requiem written by his younger brother Michael in 1771. The opening movement bears striking similarities to Mozart’s Requiem, which is hardly surprising: Mozart must have heard it as a teenager in Salzburg, where he became a colleague of Michael Haydn a year later.

Haydn wrote the work in barely two weeks, following the death of their employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg, but also, above all, overcome with grief at the death of his young daughter shortly before.