Special Music Sunday – March 15, 2015
10:00 a.m.
Missa brevis St. Joannis de Deo
(Kleine Orgelmesse)
by Joseph Haydn
(1732-1809)
Please join us on Sunday, March 15 at the 10:00 a.m. service the St. Mary’s Adult Choir, soloists and string trio will sing the Missa brevis St. Joannis de Deo by Joseph Haydn.
Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer who spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Hungarian Esterházy family. He is well-known for his instrumental music, particularly the symphonies and string quartets which were new forms of composition in the Classical Period. His church music includes fourteen settings of the Latin Mass, ranging from his first small-scale masses (Missa breves) of 1749/50 to later large-scale festive mass compositions (Missa solemnis) written in the 1790s. The Missa brevis St. Joannis de Deo was most likely composed for the monks in the Order of the Brothers of Mercy in Eisenstadt. The work is dedicated to their patron saint, John of God (Joannis de Deo), Johannes Cuidad (1495-1565), a Portuguese monk. The autograph copy of this mass has no date, but it is believed to have been composed c. 1775. The Mass is often referred to as the “Kleine Orgelmesse” (Little Organ Mass), because of the extended organ solo in the Benedictus. As you continue on your Lenten journey, please join us at St. Mary’s on Sunday, March 15 for a service of musical and spiritual refreshment.
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