Missa pro Defunctis by Michael Haydn (1737-1806)

Today I'm going to introduce you to a piece that I only just recently discovered. I've heard a lot of classical music in my life, obviously, but on Monday evening I was introduced to a work I'd never heard before by a composer I don't know much about. That's pretty rare these days.

The composer in question is Michael Haydn, the younger brother of the somewhat more famous Joseph Haydn. It seems that Michael might have had the problem that younger siblings tend to: he followed someone who was great at his craft and while being great himself, was a bit overshadowed by his brother.

Joseph and Michael attended the same singing school when young and it appears that the teachers admired Michael's singing more and found him the brighter student of the two, though it was really Joseph's abilities that paved the way for Michael to be able to pursue music as his career.

Michael Hayden ultimately ended up the music master in Salzburg, a position he held for 43 years (must have been a family thing to have these long-standing positions...Joseph held a position with the Esterhazy family for nearly 30 years).

One of my students actually introduced me to this work. The Missa pro Defunctis, written in 1771, is a Requiem Mass (one of the few I don't know! Shame on me!). In listening to it, the first thing I was struck by was that it had some similarities to Mozart's Requiem, which was written in the 1791. Mozart knew Michael Haydn and was present at the first three performances of the Missa pro Defunctis. It is considered to be an "important model" for Mozart's work.

The work was written for the death of Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach. However Michael Haydn had recently lost his infant daughter and many historians believe the real motivation for writing the work was his own personal bereavement.

You can find this work on Youtube. Here are some links to listen to!

I. Requiem aeternam
II. Dies irae (My favourite movement of all Requiems -- here I think Haydn actually gets the right feel for it!)
III. Domine Jesu Christe, IV. Hostias et preces and V. Sanctus
VI. Benedictus and VII. Agnus Dei

Stabat Mater by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-1594)

I'm going to kick off this off with one of my absolute favourite pieces of music.

Palestrina was born in a small town near Rome (called Palestrina) sometime around 1525 or 1526. Like many composers of his time, his exact birth date is still somewhat of a mystery. He was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance and is sometimes credited with saving polyphonic music (polyphonic means "many voiced") from being banned from the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent. It's a romantic notion, but alas no solid evidence of this has been shown.

Suffice it to say, the beauty and clarity of his polyphony has survived the ages. Johann Fux, an Austrian composer and contemporary of Bach, codified and created the "rules" of such polyphony and for many centuries, students have studied the works of Palestrina to gain a better understanding of that perfectly serene, perfectly clear music he wrote.

The Stabat Mater Dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother stood") is a hymn about the sorrows of Mary.

I was introduced to it (which was my first exposure to Palestrina) when I was a freshman in college. The choir I was in was singing a piece from the Renaissance and the conductor played it as an example of Renaissance-style singing (the beauty of no vibrato!). I was instantly in love with the work and asked the conductor to make me a copy of the recording (on cassette tape back in the early 1990s!). I listened to it a lot throughout my college years.

Many years later, I was determined to find it on CD. I knew who the work was by. I knew the name of the work. But I couldn't find THE recording. I found many other ones, but none had the spark this particular recording did. What was so different? Ornamentation. Most performances of Palestrina's works are entirely without ornamentation, but some musicologists believe that, like other music of the era, not everything sung was written into the music. Andrew Parrott and Tarverner Choir put out a recording that included ornamentation.

It is, by far, my favourite recording of the work. Lucky for all of you, someone has uploaded this fantastic version to youtube!