Missa Sancti Aloysii – M. J. Haydn

The bel canto chorus come together with the finest string players in Nairobi to perform Michael Haydn’s Missa Sancti Aloysii.

The ‘Salzburg’ Haydn composed more than thirty masses, mostly commissioned for various occasions. His first extant work is the Trinity Mass (MH 1), dated 1754 and probably intended for the consecration of the cathedral in Temesvar. His last work is the incomplete Requiem in B flat (MH 838). In his 43 years’ activity in Salzburg, Haydn built a stylistic bridge from early Classicism to musical ‘Biedermeier’.

The Missa Sancti Aloysii (MH 257) for three high voices was composed for the Salzburg Cathedral choirboys, to whom Haydn felt a close affinity – after all, he himself had received his musical education in a similar boys’ choir institution. As was customary at the time, they sang the treble and alto choir parts in performances of sacred music, since women’s voices were forbidden in church music performances.
The music is typified by a childlike, naïve style; each piece presents a simple, naturally – and therefore artfully – executed thought, and an honest faith that does not brood overmuch.
Thus this altogether great master, always true to the rules of his art, was able to tune himself down to the abilities of the beginners while still satisfying and exceeding the demands of the cognoscenti.
The Missa Sti. Aloysii is Haydn’s first setting of the ordinary for three-part high voice choir. It was completed on 21 December 1777, only a few days before the choirboys’ feast day. (On the same day, Anton Cajetan Adlgasser died in Salzburg; Haydn was to succeed him as organist in the Dreifaltigkeitskirche [Trinity Church]). The mass was thus composed several years before Haydn was appointed teacher at the Kapellhaus in 1782. It is chronologically close to his Missa Sancti Hieronymi (MH 254), which received its first performance a few weeks previously on 1 November 1777, All Saints Day, in Salzburg Cathedral. Both masses were composed during an exceptionally productive phase in which Haydn produced works of outstanding quality. In terms of the contrapuntal construction of the fugal sections, the melodic inventiveness and the harmonic realization, both masses – although quite different in length and scoring – must be regarded as masterworks.
The Missa Sti. Aloysii is dedicated to St. Aloysius of Gonzaga. Luigi Gonzaga was born on 9 March 1568 in Castiglione near Mantua as the eldest son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Margrave of Castiglione. At the age of ten, he became a page at the Medici court in Brescia and later at the court of Philipp II of Spain. Even as a child, his exceptional devoutness was noticed; when he was ten, he took a vow of chastity. His relative Charles Borromeo, Cardinal of Milan, exerted a strong influence over the lad. At the age of 17, he renounced his patrimony and entered the Jesuit order as a novice in Rome on 21 November 1585. He devoted himself to theological studies and to nursing the seriously ill. During a plague epidemic, he nursed the victims and ensured that the dead received a dignified funeral. As a result he became infected and died on 21 June 1591 at the age of 23. His grave is found in the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in Rome; his head was transferred to the Aloysius Basilica in Castiglione. He was regarded as a saint soon after his death, beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726. Aloysius of Gonzaga is the patron saint of the city of Mantua, of young persons and students and he is a helper in need, in the past of plague victims, nowadays of AIDS victims. In iconography the saint is represented as a Jesuit or a page, with the attributes lily, cross, skull or rosary. His feast day is 21 June, the day of his death.

The reason for the dedication of this mass to St. Aloysius is not quite clear, unlike those of Michael Haydn’s other masses which are also dedicated to saints. It is possible that there is a connection between the dedication and the saint’s patronage of young people and students. It could also have been dedicated in memory of Michael Haydn’s daughter Aloisia, who died on 27 January 1771, a few days before her first birthday. The pain of this loss remained with Haydn for the rest of his life.
In his Missa Sti. Aloysii, Haydn tried to follow the guidelines of Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, that a mass “with Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, the Epistle sonata, the Offertory or Motet, the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, no matter how festive, if the Prince himself celebrated it, is to last no longer than three quarters of an hour.” Musically the individual movements of the ordinary are concisely worked out and exemplary of Haydn’s church music style, which is characterized in a romantically exalted fashion in the Biographische Skizze: “In his diligent striving towards the re-birth of the spirit of the text in exalted form through the music, he always succeeded in turning little to much and much to everything; always and everywhere to elevate the hearts to God, evoke devout feelings and melt even the unholy, rougher heart in religious devotion.” The mass setting at hand is likewise distinguished by Haydn’s awareness of the liturgical function and the musical interpretation of the sacred texts.

From a formal point of view, the mass follows the tradition of the genre. The Kyrie is constructed in two sections, a short Adagio introduction in the Baroque fashion contrasts with a rapidly moving principal section. The Gloria is through-composed. The “Et incarnatus” section of the Credo is soloistic and slower in tempo. “Osanna in excelsis” appears at the end of the Sanctus and the Benedictus respectively in different meters (quadruple in the Sanctus, triple in the Benedictus). The Agnus Dei consists of two sections: the three “Agnus” invocations are followed by the “Dona nobis” in Rondo form.
An unusual feature of the Missa Sti. Aloysii is the repeated use of thematic quotes from Gregorian chant. The thematic material for the beginning and the end of the setting of the Gloria is taken from the Gloria intonation of the Gregorian Mass IV. The Credo begins with a thematic treatment of the Gregorian Credo intonation, which returns at “et vitam venturi saeculi.” A motivic expansion of the Sanctus from the Gregorian Mass VIII is heard in the “Dona.”