Haydn's Nelson Mass

Sunday 9 October
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By a strange quirk of history the great composer actually knew Horatio and Emma.  After his triumph in the Battle of the Nile in 1798 Nelson returned to Naples, where his meeting with the British envoy’s wife soon resulted in the famous ménage a trois.  They tarried nearly two years before returning home, and in 1800 stayed with Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt, where Haydn was the court music director.

The genial Haydn was complimentary about Emma’s voice (though no doubt politesse played its part), and actually wrote a Cantata for her in celebration of the battle of the Nile.  Perhaps the charming story’s even true that they exchanged gifts, Nelson’s campaign watch for the gold pen with which Haydn wrote it.   He is also said to have performed in their honour the magnificent Mass in D minor he had composed in 1798, a story which soon caught on and gave the work its nickname ever since, the “Nelson Mass”. Both the Nelson Mass and the cantata, which is very rarely heard, will be performed on the 9th October.

The choir for this occasion was the specially formed "Nelson Singers" -  mainly drawn from our own choir and the choir of the Academy of St Mary’s Wimbledon. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Nelsonbach, the choir was accompanied by a professional orchestra and four professional soloists - Rachel Nicholls, Diana Moore, William Kendall and Simon Burchill. The conductor was Andrew Edwards.
 

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