Pál Németh - Michael Haydn: Missa Hispanica (2000)

Michael Haydn's output in terms of sacred music is so vast and little known that the jury is still out as to what true "gems" are to be found there. Hungarian conductor Pál Németh has managed to stumble upon just such a nugget in Haydn's Missa Hispanica, recorded for the first time on Hungaraton. This is just one of some 35 mass settings the younger Haydn left to posterity. The Missa Hispanica was well known in its own day by its curious nickname -- curious, as no one really knows why it is called "Hispanica." Written in 1786, it might have been for the Spanish Court, but if so, was not performed there as the documented premiere was held in 1792 in Kremsmünster. Whatever his intention in composing it, Haydn's Missa Hispanica is a colorful and inspired piece of work, opening with a vibrant and harmonically adventurous "Kyrie" followed by a sprightly "Gloria" and so on down the line until the concluding "Dona nobis" arrives, just short of an hour later.

The performance, by Németh, vocal soloists the Debrecen Kodály Chorus under Lajos Szücs, and the period instrument band Capella Savaria, is not quite up to the measure of the piece. Recorded in the Reformed Church of Széchenyi-kert in Debrecen, the big room provides warmth and resonance for the chorus and singers par excellence, while assuring that Haydn's busy string parts are inaudible whenever there is singing. The winds manage to sneak through, which is not to the best advantage of the music given the cheekiness of the oboes and the garbled strains of some of the horns. The opening movements come off better than later ones, with the whole group sounding as if it is nodding off to sleep during the long "Et resurrexit" movement due to Németh's sometimes-sluggish choice of tempi. Haydn does not give the soloists much to do in this mass, but soprano Maria Zádori makes the best of the short stretches of solo passages accorded to her, and the Debrecen Kodály Chorus is, in general, a good ensemble even in passages that are moving a tad too slowly. Hopefully this will not be the last recording of Michael Haydn's Missa Hispanica, but even if it is, it adequately transmits the fine qualities of this unjustly neglected work, and enthusiasts of Haydn, despite its flaws, should welcome thisHungaraton recording.