Koor & Orkest Anima Eterna . Jos Van Immerseel

As well as a seasoned symphonist and composer of a vast amount of chamber music, Haydn was also someone for whom religious music played an essential role. The six late Masses, which he wrote at the end of his active career, received a reasonable reception on the concert stages. The eight Masses he wrote just before that, however, hardly ring a bell with many music lovers. As far as the 1766 'Missa Cellensis' (or 'Missa Sanctae Ceciliae') is concerned, this is in any case by no means justified. Joseph Haydn had been appointed by Prince Nicholas Esterhazy as Kapellmeister at the Esterhaza Palace when he wrote the 'Missa Cellensis in honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis'. This miss, for four solo vocalists, chorus and orchestra, was clearly written for the more extensive ensemble the new Kapellmeister had in mind: in addition to the strings we now also hear two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and two trumpets. It is a large-scale cantata mass intended for the great pilgrim church at Mariazell. As a composition it is Haydn's first grand religious work. It was probably a very pious nineteenth-century copyist who gave it the title 'Missa Sanctae Ceciliae'.