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Michael Haydn: Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini
Jenni Harper (soprano), Marko Sever (organ), Emily Owen (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), St. Albans Cathedral Girls Choir, Lawes Baroque Players, Tom Winpenny
Largely upbeat, though not without its more reflective moments, Michael Haydn’s mass enjoys a spirited performance here, though a more robust choral sound would have been welcome.
Michael Haydn: Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini
Jenni Harper (soprano), Marko Sever (organ), Emily Owen (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), St. Albans Cathedral Girls Choir, Lawes Baroque Players, Tom Winpenny
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Largely upbeat, though not without its more reflective moments, Michael Haydn’s mass enjoys a spirited performance here, though a more robust choral sound would have been welcome.
About
Michael Haydn’s colourful and inventive music is uplifting and expressive in equal measure, but his music has been eclipsed by that of his elder brother Joseph, and by Mozart. Sacred music is central to Michael Haydn’s oeuvre and was considered by some contemporary critics as superior to Joseph’s. Encompassing a broad range of textures and styles, parts of the Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini demonstrate Haydn’s music at its most exhilarating and energetic, and his supreme gift for empfindsames (‘sensitive’) lyrical writing is also to be heard in the Vespers.
Contents and tracklist
- Jenni Harper (soprano), Marko Sever (organ), Emily Owen (soprano)
- St. Albans Cathedral Girls Choir, Lawes Baroque Players
- Tom Winpenny
- Marko Sever (organ), Jenni Harper (soprano), Emily Owen (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano)
- St. Albans Cathedral Girls Choir, Lawes Baroque Players
- Tom Winpenny
- Jenni Harper (soprano), Emily Owen (soprano), Helen Charlston (mezzo-soprano), Marko Sever (organ)
- St. Albans Cathedral Girls Choir, Lawes Baroque Players
- Tom Winpenny
Awards and reviews
February 2021
Largely upbeat, though not without its more reflective moments, Michael Haydn’s mass enjoys a spirited performance here, though a more robust choral sound would have been welcome.
February 2021
Listeners familiar with Mozart’s Salzburg sacred music will not be surprised by the style of his elder contemporary...Haydn deploys the choral voices [in the Mass] in unison with a pair of soprano soloists in music of graceful charm, perhaps taken a little carefully but accompanied vividly by the one-to-a-part strings and trumpets of the Lawes Baroque Players.
