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Nuova Arcadia Choir
Rome Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Pier Giorgio Dionisi
Soprano: Rossana Cardia
Mezzosoprano: Olivia Andreini
Tenore: Delfo Paone
Baritono: Alessio Quaresima Escobar

F.J. Haydn: Nelson-Messe per soli, coro e orchestra

Although locked up within the walls of his quiet industriousness as an artisan of music, Haydn does not fail to express the worries caused by the Napoleonic wars at this Mass in D minor, written in 1798. The subtitle of Nelson-Messe is indicative, because on 1 August 1798 the English admiral Nelson had temporarily won the Napoleonic army to Aboukir. This state of mind is formally concretized with some underlining trumpets and tympanum rollers, aimed at drawing attention to a highly dramatic reality.

W.A. Mozart: Messa dell'Incoronazione per soli, coro e orchestra

The occasion that determined the creation of this score (composed in 1779) is not very clear, even if most of the Mozartian biographers agree that the title Coronation recalls the traditional celebrations for the anniversary of the Coronation, which took place for provision of the Pope in 1751, of an image of the Virgin which was venerated at Maria Plain near Salzburg and which according to tradition had saved the city from the horrors of war in 1744. In this mass the Salzburg genius captures a formal unity realized not only through the choice of precise instrumental forms within each section, but reaffirms, almost by tightening the entire architecture of the piece, the same theme that then gives the start to the musical discourse and concludes it.