Good Shepherd Lutheran Church

Composer Franz Joseph Haydn

“Missa Brevis”

by Franz Joseph Haydn 1732-1809

Because Franz Joseph Haydn owed much to the church for providing his early musical training, it is fitting that his legacy includes thirteen masses and countless religious works.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church members and friends can hear Haydn’s beautiful “Missa Brevis” for choir, organ and chamber ensemble on Transfiguration Sunday, February 6, offered at 8:30 and 10 a.m. worship. Director of Music Peter Schmidt will conduct the Chancel Choir and orchestra, accompanied by organist Charles Pugh.

Soprano Jennifer Lopez, an accomplished vocalist who teaches operatic performance, will be the featured soloist in the mass’s lovely Benedictus. In this inspiring movement, Haydn employed the organ and a soprano soloist to convey the prayerful text: “Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” The section will provide worshipers a wonderful opportunity to enjoy Good Shepherd sanctuary’s 25-rank Wicks organ played in true Baroque style and grace.

The six-movement masterpiece is nicknamed the “Little Organ Mass” because it was composed for performance on the small Baroque organ in the chapel of the Order at Eisenstadt. Written in 1777, the mass was dedicated by Haydn to St. John of God, patron saint of the Hospitallers, a religious order that had been generous to the young musician in Vienna.

About the Music

“Missa Brevis” is very appealing and joyful, giving its listener the message right way that it is about worship, first and foremost. It sounds like Haydn, then 45 and a confident composer, was personally involved with each movement, writing from the heart and soul. Its emphasis on the choral, rather than soloists, makes it a charming and collaborative work for a choir to perform. Even though it was composed for a small ensemble and organ, the mass has an openness to it and quiet grandeur. Elements of the Baroque run through “Gloria” with its three distinct sections, while the “Sanctus” has a fugal feel to it. “Agnus Dei” gives Haydn more latitude of a symphonic tone, with a rich blend of voices, strings and prayerful themes.

In this short mass, the deeply religious Haydn expresses a personal statement of praise. It is a fitting tribute to those who helped foster his talent and make his young life more comfortable when he was far from home.

Haydn’s Early Years

Born in 1732 in the small village of Rodrau, Austria, near the Hungarian border, Franz Joseph Haydn grew up in a boisterous music-loving family of twelve children. Neither his mother nor wheelwright father had musical training. But young Joseph was singing along as his father played folk tunes on his harp and showing a talent for music at an early age. Tutoring by a distant cousin, a schoolmaster and singer, launched 5-year-old Franz Joseph on an exciting musical journey.

At age 8, he was recruited into the renowned boy choir at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, where he attended school, studied piano, harpsichord, violin and composition. The life of a choirboy was disciplined and a bit harsh, but it allowed him to expand his musical horizons while getting three meals a day and an education. While at school at age 18, he composed his first mass, its running an energetic 12 minutes long.

After his voice changed at age 18 and he left the choir, Haydn was able to launch his career in music not only with his remarkable talent but also with the contacts, patrons and influences the cultural community Vienna had to offer.

Living well as a freelance musician and composer, Haydn then was offered artistic employment that kept the energetic man busy from the 1760s to the 1790s. His appointment to Esterhazy Castle was a turning point for the composer which allowed Haydn a good salary, servants and free time to compose, experiment and refine musical forms of the symphony and string quartet.

Haydn was fortunate to be hired as royal Kapellmeister by Prince Nikolaus II, who recognized not only his talent but also his good nature and joyful approach to his life and his music. To be a court composer meant being sandwiched between the cooks, valets and other servants in a complex household pecking order. But royal employers often allowed their music masters the freedom to compose, perform with a made-to-order orchestra and to travel. Vienna, the center of music and culture of the day, was only about 30 miles from the castle.

Apart from his administrative work, Haydn was only required one annual composing duty: To provide a yearly mass to celebrate the name day of Princess Maria Hermenegild. Greatly different in character, weight and magnitude from “Missa Brevis” written twenty years earlier, Haydn’s six magnificent masses composed between 1796 and 1802 included the “Nelson Mass” (Missa in angustiis or mass in time of fear). These larger works, written by the now-famous composer to suit royal tastes, were performed in huge cathedrals and featured organ, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, timpani and strings. Compare this to the modest and heartfelt “Missa Brevis,” performed simply with chorus, organ and strings and written by a grateful student.

Haydn’s Students and Friends

Haydn was a genial and outgoing man, whose talent and kindly personality drew people to him. By the 1790s, Haydn was an established musician who generously taught and mentored up-and-coming composers, including the young prodigies Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). While both young men were known in Vienna society to be vain, moody, obnoxious and not to suffer fools, their companion and teacher Haydn was willing to put up with his talented colleagues’ eccentricities, encouraging and nurturing their creativity. The nickname “Papa Haydn” was given to him by his pupils for his warm, fatherly attitude, as well as for his parenting of Classical music structure.

Apparently these three radically different men were tireless defenders and supporters of each other’s efforts. Countless memoirs tell their words in praise of the other’s skills.

--- Haydn told Mozart’s father that Mozart, 24 years his junior, was “the greatest composer known to me in person or by name; he has taste, and what is more, the greatest knowledge of composition.”

--- In the 1780s, Mozart dedicated six string quartets to his friend and mentor Haydn, who he considered the master of that form. Legend has it, Mozart even asked his father to quickly send him Haydn’s “Missa Brevis” when he wished to study the B flat mass to quickly meet a commission for a short mass.

--- Mozart said of Beethoven, 14 years his junior: “Keep your eyes on him. Someday he will give the world something to talk about.” Ironically, Mozart’s “Requiem Mass” was performed at Beethoven’s funeral in 1827.

Haydn’s Personal Life

In each other’s company in Vienna, these friends enjoyed wine, food and making music with peers, even though they varied in their piety, prosperity, approach manners and what was considered acceptable public behavior. All three men shared women problems, if commentaries of the day are to be believed: Mozart’s wife Constanze was immature and flighty, like her husband; Beethoven was an incurable romantic who was too moody and in constant disarray to consider marriage; Haydn made the mistake of marrying beneath him to a bossy and unfriendly shrew, and they had no children. Instead, music and the company of other musicians was the light of their lives.

Haydn composed everything from symphonies and chamber music to operas and oratorios during his long and productive life, bridging the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras. Two of his most famous choral works “The Creation” and “The Seasons” celebrated God, His many blessings, man and nature in harmony – a simple declaration of his inner peace and contentment with his art.

The acclaimed composer declared humbly in his autobiography: “Almighty God gave me musical talent.” He died in Vienna in 1809 at age 77.

--- Contributed by Penny Risen