The two Mozart discs virtually complete Harnoncourt’s cycle of the Masses, with, by my reckoning, only K275 still to come. All of the works here, composed between 1773 and 1776, contain a fair amount of workaday rococo bustle, and all but two (K167 and K262) are tailor-made to Archbishop Colloredo’s demands for maximum brevity in the setting of the Ordinary. There is nothing memorable in the pastoral naivety of K140, whose authenticity is in any case disputed. But each of the other Masses contain sections that rise well above routine efficiency. The festive K167, imposingly scored for four trumpets (two high, two low), has a fine, extended Credo in several movements, including a delicious minuet setting of ‘Et in spiritum sanctum’. The Credo of the more intimate K192 is also striking, unified by a recurrent four-note motto (the one later used in the finale of the Jupiter Symphony) which Mozart works in varied, often polyphonic, textures.
Even by Mozart’s normal Salzburg standards K258 and K259 are ultra-compact, the latter scampering through the Gloria in no time. High points here are the gravely contemplative Agnus Dei-Dona nobis pacem of K258, with its serene plagal close (a far cry from the jubilant endings to most late-eighteenth-century Masses), the florid organ obbligato in the Benedictus of K259 (hence the Mass’s nickname) and the touching Agnus Dei of the same work, with its foretaste of the Countess’s ‘Porgi amor’ in Figaro. The so-called Missa longa, K262, is the most expansive of these Masses, and in many ways the most impressive, with its rich scoring (including trumpets, horns and trombones), its elaborate, full-dress fugues and its dramatic settings of the ‘Qui tollis’ and ‘Crucifixus’. As in K167, ‘Et in spiritum sanctum’ is set as a dulcet minuet, the kind of blurring of the divide between ballroom and church that even in Mozart’s own day outraged sober-minded critics.
Anyone familiar with Harnoncourt’s previous recordings of this repertoire will know what to expect here: provocative, highly individual readings, short on grace and suavity, long on rhetoric and drama. Phrasing and articulation can sound overemphatic, as with the lunging strong beats in K140’s innocuous Kyrie and the exaggerated marcato entries in several of the fugues; and some listeners will find the brutal stabbing accents in, say, the ‘Crucifixus’ sections of K259 and K262 impossibly overdone, an incongruous infusion of Mannerist violence into rococo decorum. But for those in sympathy with Harnoncourt’s urgent, forceful manner, his minute shaping of the orchestral and choral lines and his constant heightening of the music’s dramatic and disruptive elements (as, for instance, in the Kyrie and the edgy, disquieting Benedictus of K258), the rival period-instrument versions under Peter Neumann will seem more than a little tame by comparison. As ever, Harnoncourt is admirably served by his orchestra and his chorus, firm and homogeneous if rather softer-grained than comparable English choirs. Among the soloists, Barbara Bonney and Dorothea Roschmann both give pleasure with their fresh, pure tone and refined sense of phrase; the others, with limited opportunities, do well enough, though Gilles Cachemaille tends to obtrude in ensemble passages.
The trump card in Harnoncourt’s new recording of Haydn’s Nelson Mass is soprano Luba Orgonasova: a thrilling voice with a dark Slavonic glint, comfortably able to ride the ensemble at key moments, yet capable of real delicacy and tenderness. Alastair Miles, gravely sonorous in the ‘Qui tollis’, is also impressive. In both the Mass and the glorious Te Deum Harnoncourt’s direction is spacious and weighty with the familiar bold contrasts and sharp, even aggressive, articulation. This approach is often effective in these particular works – the canonic opening of the Credo in the Mass is marvellously craggy and incisive, and the broad, powerful Dona nobis pacem avoids any hint of frivolity. But there are predictable eccentricities: the closing fugue of the Gloria, with its exaggerated staccatos, sounds almost finicky, while the Benedictus suffers from lurching tempo fluctuations; and careless editing in the Agnus Dei (bar 20, 1'18'') results in the omission of a whole beat. Puzzlingly, too, Harnoncourt eschews Haydn’s original scoring of the Nelson Mass (three trumpets, timpani, organ and strings) for the version with added wind that, although published with the composer’s approval, tends to compromise the uniquely stark sonorities of the original.
Despite the individuality and conviction of Harnoncourt’s performances, my vote in both works would definitely go to the Gramophone Award-winning Pinnock, whose readings have no less drama and excitement but seem that much more naturally shaped and paced. Pinnock scores, too, in his choice of Haydn’s original version, and in the greater impact afforded his choir in the recorded balance.'