notes: Nelson Mass

1771. Michael Haydn, 34 at the time, is an established figure in Salzburg cultural life. It is December, and in the city the news of Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach's death spreads like wildfire. The devout composer immediately gets into his quill and pens a mass for the dead before the year is out.

It is an extraordinary work by the composer who has always stood somewhat in the shadow of his big brother. Michael Haydn already had a reputation for being somewhat corny when he was alive, but with this Requiem he proves to be ahead of his time. The opening movement in particular, 'Requiem Aeternam', seems like future music. Indeed, the way Haydn has the various voices enter in phases there, inspired his fellow townsman and acquaintance Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart twenty years later, when the latter put the opening measures of his iconic death mass on paper.

Although there is a personal tragedy behind this particular flurry of inspiration. After all, with his work Michael Haydn not only wanted to honour the late church father, the composition became just as much a work of mourning dedicated to Haydn's own daughter Aloisia Josepha. His only child had died at the beginning of the same year, just before her first birthday.