Joseph Haydn, Nelson Messe - Missa in Angustiis D minor.
Joseph Haydn, Nelson Messe - Missa in Angustiis D minor
Michel Piquemal & Orchestre Lamoureux
1.Kyrie 0:00
2.Gloria 4:46
3:Credo 15:33
4.Sanctus 25:30
5.Bendictus 27:56
6.Agnus Dei 35:12
The Missa in Angustiis ("Mass for troubled times") or "Nelson Mass" (Hob. XXII:11), is one of fourteen masses written by Joseph Haydn. It is one of the six masses written near the end of his life which are now seen as a culmination of Haydn's liturgical composition.
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 for Troubled Times". What Haydn did not 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 British 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 Palais Esterházy, accompanied by his British mistress, Lady Hamilton, and may have heard the Mass performed.