Requiem in C minor
Soloists: Soprano, alto, tenor, bass
Chorus: S-A-T-B
Orchestra: 4 trumpets (2 higher clarini and 2 lower trombe), timpani, 3 trombones, violins 1, violins 2 and bassi (cello, basses, bassoon, organ)
Program Notes by Martin Pearlman
Michael Haydn, Joseph's younger brother, is perhaps best known today for his minor works, particularly his pleasant but light-weight symphonies. While those pieces are sometimes heard today, it is rare to hear his more serious religious vocal music. It was in that genre, however, that he was particularly admired by Mozart and his father and by many others in his day, and that well after his death he was praised by as eminent a composer as Schubert. According to one of his contemporaries, "All connoisseurs of music know, and have known for some time that as a composer of sacred music Michael Haydn ranks amongst the finest of any age or nations . . . In this field he is fully his brother's equal; in fact, by the seriousness of his concept he often surpasses him by far."
Michael Haydn's Requiem in C minor is one of his most powerful works and arguably deserves a place among the finest choral music of its time. It was written in 1771 on the death of the Prince-Archbishop Siegmund of Salzburg, but it almost certainly expresses a more personal grief, as well. Earlier in that same year, his beloved daughter Aloysia Antonia died before reaching her first birthday. His friends reported that he was devasted and that a melancholy settled over him from that time on. Then, after his patron and benefactor, the archbishop, died on December 16, Haydn seems to have composed his Requiem at a furious pace. The completed score is dated December 31, 1771, a mere two weeks later. Three years after his own death, this requiem was performed at the funeral of his famous brother, Joseph Haydn.
The work is in the dark key of C minor, and its use of four trumpets and three trombones -- the only winds in the piece -- gives it a profoundly somber and ceremonial color. Scholars have often pointed to similarities between this work and Mozart's Requiem written some 20 years later. In the opening movement of both works, for example, the violins suddenly shift to syncopated rhythms at the first entrance of the chorus; a few bars later in both works, the words "et lux perpetua" are set to almost the same melodic line; and both composers then go on to set the words, "te decet hymnus" with a chant line in the top voice. These and other parallels are probably not a coincidence, for Mozart almost certainly would have heard Haydn's work in Salzburg.
Michael Haydn worked for most of his life in that city, alongside Leopold Mozart and, for a time, his son Wolfgang. He was hired at the Salzburg court as a composer and concertmaster in 1762, when the younger Mozart was only 6 years old, and he remained in that position until his death some 43 years later, initially working for the Prince-Archbishop Siegmund Graf Schrattenbach and later for his successor the Prince-Archbishop Colloredo.
The influence of Michael Haydn on the young Mozart has long been recognized. When Mozart was only 11 years old, he collaborated with Michael Haydn and the organist Adlgasser on the oratorio Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, each of them composing one of its three parts. Mozart also studied his older colleague's compositions, copying a number of them out in manuscripts which have survived to this day. By his mid-twenties, Mozart left for Vienna to build his career, but Michael Haydn was less ambitious. He preferred to remain in the more provincial atmosphere of Salzburg and even turned down an offer to be assistant music director at Esterházy. Nonetheless, Mozart remained in touch with him after moving to Vienna. One account tells us that, in 1783, when Michael Haydn was ill and unable to provide music for the archbishop, Mozart composed two string duos (K. 423 and 424) for him to present to his employer as his own. About the same, Mozart composed a slow introduction to one of Haydn's symphonies, creating a hybrid work which long confused Mozart scholars. It entered the canon as Mozart's Symphony No. 37 (K. 444), but it is, aside from the introduction, a work by Michael Haydn.
Boston Baroque Performances
Requiem in C minor
May 1 & 2, 2009
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Martin Pearlman, conductor
Soloists:
Hyunah Yu, soprano
Ann McMahon Quintero, mezzo-soprano
Kerem Kurk, tenor
Kevin Deas, bass-baritone