Haydn Masses Nos 1 & 11; Ave Regina
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Joseph Haydn
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Chaconne
Magazine Review Date: 9/1999
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 63
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN0640
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Mass No. 11, 'Missa in angustiis', 'Nelsonmesse' |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Collegium Musicum 90 Collegium Musicum 90 Chorus Joseph Haydn, Composer Mark Padmore, Tenor Pamela Helen Stephen, Mezzo soprano Richard Hickox, Conductor Stephen Varcoe, Baritone Susan Gritton, Soprano |
| Ave Regina |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Collegium Musicum 90 Joseph Haydn, Composer Richard Hickox, Conductor Susan Gritton, Soprano |
| Mass No. 2, 'Missa brevis' |
Joseph Haydn, Composer
Collegium Musicum 90 Collegium Musicum 90 Chorus Joseph Haydn, Composer Pamela Helen Stephen, Mezzo soprano Richard Hickox, Conductor Susan Gritton, Soprano |
Author: Richard Wigmore
Pinnock’s Gramophone Award-winning version of the Nelson Mass has held sway for more than a decade. Without being eclipsed, it at last has a worthy challenger in this exciting new recording. Hickox’s virtues in this repertoire, and the panache of his choir and orchestra, will by now be familiar to most readers of these columns. His performance of what is at once the most stressful and the most exultant of Haydn’s Masses has all his accustomed dramatic energy and concern for the meaning of the text. Even more than Pinnock he underlines the disquiet, even the edge of terror, in the Kyrie. The fast sections of the Gloria and Credo both have an exhilarating verve, with sharply etched string playing and marvellously incisive choral attack: the ‘Et resurrexit’ has a blazing conviction, and the vision of eternal life inspires a thrilling climax, with the steely valveless trumpets rightly allowed their head.
In general Pinnock tends to be broader and weightier, both in movements like the opening of the Credo (altogether sturdier than from Hickox) and the ‘Dona nobis’ and in slow sections such as the ‘Et incarnatus est’ and Agnus Dei. But, abetted by the pure, tender singing of Susan Gritton, one of the loveliest sopranos in this repertoire today, Hickox is no less moving in the ‘Et incarnatus est’, and, with Gritton and the mezzo, Pamela Helen Stephen, distils a true sense of supplicatory humility in the Agnus Dei. Elsewhere Gritton is radiant in the ‘Benedictus’, where Hickox stresses the music’s inexorable march-like tread, and brings a wonderful dramatic urgency to the coloratura of the Kyrie. In the ‘Qui tollis’ Stephen Varcoe may lack the depth of tone of Pinnock’s David Wilson-Johnson, but more than compensates with his thoughtful phrasing and his feeling for the words. Chandos’s recording is up to its usual standard, slightly more distant than Archiv’s for Pinnock, though with an equally well-judged choral-orchestral balance.
Whereas Pinnock couples the Nelson Mass with the glorious late Te Deum, Hickox, as usual in this series, offers rare early works: the F major Missa brevis, composed while Haydn was still in his teens, and the Ave regina probably dating from the 1750s. The composer himself had a soft spot for the Mass; and on rediscovering it late in life he told one of his biographers: ‘What specially pleases me in this little work is the melody, and a certain youthful fire.’ It is music of guileless rococo charm, with insouciantly florid parts for the two women soloists; a high point, as so often in Austrian eighteenth-century Masses, is the gently lyrical ‘Benedictus’. The Ave regina, for solo soprano and chorus, is suaver and more Italianate in style, one of the fruits of Haydn’s studies with Nicola Porpora. Both the ornate opening aria and the touching final aria with chorus are sung with delicacy and restraint by Susan Gritton. Coerced at knifepoint to recommend a single version of the Nelson Mass, I should now, by the narrowest of margins, choose Hickox, for his more palpable sense of physical and spiritual elation, and for the beauty and intensity of Gritton’s contribution, surpassing even Pinnock’s excellent Felicity Lott. But your choice may well depend on the coupling. In any case, one or the other should be in every Haydn lover’s collection.'
In general Pinnock tends to be broader and weightier, both in movements like the opening of the Credo (altogether sturdier than from Hickox) and the ‘Dona nobis’ and in slow sections such as the ‘Et incarnatus est’ and Agnus Dei. But, abetted by the pure, tender singing of Susan Gritton, one of the loveliest sopranos in this repertoire today, Hickox is no less moving in the ‘Et incarnatus est’, and, with Gritton and the mezzo, Pamela Helen Stephen, distils a true sense of supplicatory humility in the Agnus Dei. Elsewhere Gritton is radiant in the ‘Benedictus’, where Hickox stresses the music’s inexorable march-like tread, and brings a wonderful dramatic urgency to the coloratura of the Kyrie. In the ‘Qui tollis’ Stephen Varcoe may lack the depth of tone of Pinnock’s David Wilson-Johnson, but more than compensates with his thoughtful phrasing and his feeling for the words. Chandos’s recording is up to its usual standard, slightly more distant than Archiv’s for Pinnock, though with an equally well-judged choral-orchestral balance.
Whereas Pinnock couples the Nelson Mass with the glorious late Te Deum, Hickox, as usual in this series, offers rare early works: the F major Missa brevis, composed while Haydn was still in his teens, and the Ave regina probably dating from the 1750s. The composer himself had a soft spot for the Mass; and on rediscovering it late in life he told one of his biographers: ‘What specially pleases me in this little work is the melody, and a certain youthful fire.’ It is music of guileless rococo charm, with insouciantly florid parts for the two women soloists; a high point, as so often in Austrian eighteenth-century Masses, is the gently lyrical ‘Benedictus’. The Ave regina, for solo soprano and chorus, is suaver and more Italianate in style, one of the fruits of Haydn’s studies with Nicola Porpora. Both the ornate opening aria and the touching final aria with chorus are sung with delicacy and restraint by Susan Gritton. Coerced at knifepoint to recommend a single version of the Nelson Mass, I should now, by the narrowest of margins, choose Hickox, for his more palpable sense of physical and spiritual elation, and for the beauty and intensity of Gritton’s contribution, surpassing even Pinnock’s excellent Felicity Lott. But your choice may well depend on the coupling. In any case, one or the other should be in every Haydn lover’s collection.'
Haydn Masses Nos 1 & 11; Ave Regina
Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music.
Gramophone Digital Club
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £8.75 / month
Subscribe
Gramophone Full Club
- Print Edition
- Digital Edition
- Digital Archive
- Reviews Database
- Full website access
From £11.00 / month
Subscribe
If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.