Händel & Haydn – Krig och fred

Händel: Dettingen Te deum, Haydn: Nelsonmässan Tonight’s concert features two different works, both connected to the battlefield and British military victories over France.

During the War of the Austrian Succession, King George II personally led an army of Englishmen, Hanoverians and Austrians against the French at Dettingen am Main on 27 June 1743.

George II was no brilliant strategist, but he was a brave and energetic soldier.

It was the last time in history that an English monarch personally led troops in the field. Despite the English being in a poor starting position, the French were defeated and forced to flee.

News of the victory at Dettingen was received with great enthusiasm in London, and the court composer George Friedrich Händel began writing a special ceremonial Te Deum on 17 July 1743.

On Sunday 27 November 1743, after the king had finally returned to London, the piece was performed at the morning service in Chapel of S:t James´s palace, conducted by Händel in the presence of the royal family.

When Haydn was employed at the Esterházy family’s court in 1761 as deputy Kapellmeister, the ageing Kapellmeister Gregor Werner was still responsible for the court’s church music.

When Werner died five years later, Haydn succeeded him as Kapellmeister and also took over responsibility for church music.

By then, he also had a new Prince Estarházy as his employer, who was not particularly interested in church music.

This part of the court’s musical life was allowed to decline, which was a disappointment to Haydn, a devout Catholic.

When Haydn wrote Nelsonmässan in 1798, he was at the height of his fame.

Despite this, his world was in chaos: in less than a year, Napoleon had won four major battles against Austria.

In 1797, his armies had marched across the Alps and were threatening Vienna.

In May 1798, Egypt was invaded to cut off England’s trade routes to the east.

The summer of 1798 was therefore an unsettled time in Austria, and in his own catalogue of works Haydn called the piece “Missa in Angustiis” (“Mass in Troubled Times”).

What he did not know – but learnt on the very day the mass was first performed – was that Napoleon had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of the Nile, beaten by British armies led by Lord Nelson.

Because of this, the work became known as Nelsonmässan.

The title was firmly established when Lord Nelson and Lady Hamliton visited Palais Esterházy in 1800 and heard a performance of the piece.