Eloquence Classics

The Creation is Haydn’s masterpiece, based on a lifetime of experience and reflecting the happy confidence of the eighteenth century. Although there are moments that presage the nineteenth century, it has none of the agonising of the Romantic period. Three years from the end of the eighteenth century it is a summation and celebration of that century’s ideals by one of its greatest figures. The story is unfolded by three soloists, whose names, taken from Milton, were supplied by the Baron Van Swieten: Gabriel (soprano), Uriel (tenor) and Raphael (bass).

Haydn’s Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo is a short mass in the Viennese tradition, although it is thought that it was composed for the Convent Chapel of the Eisenstadt Chapter of the Brothers of Mercy (Barmherzige Brüder), with which order Haydn had long been on friendly terms (the Viennese Chapter had given the first Vienna performance of his Stabat Mater in 1767). St. John of God is the patron saint of this order, to whom the Mass is dedicated; the Order’s hospital at Eisenstadt, and the tiny Chapel in which this Mass was first performed, still exist and are in regular use.

These recordings by Karl Münchinger were the only two of Haydn’s sacred works recorded with the Wiener Philharmoniker and received wide critical acclaim on their first release and have long been out of circulation in their CD transfers on Decca’s ‘Ovation’ series.