Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Nelson Mass; Kleine Orgelmesse

It was only after the death of the Emperor Joseph II in 1790 that the way was once more open to composers to provide settings of the liturgy with full orchestral accompaniment. The removal of the Josephine restrictions of the previous ten years by the new Emperor Leopold II, followed in 1792 by his successor, Franz II, made feasible Mozart's great unfinished Requiem and the six Masses written by Haydn between 1796 and 1802. Of these the so-called Nelson Mass is one of the greatest.

Joseph Haydn was born in 1732 in Rohrau in Lower Austria, the son of a wheelwright. Unlike Mozart, he was to enjoy a long and successful life well into the early years of the next century. His father gave him all the encouragement needed to start a musical career and at the age of eight, possessed of a fine treble voice, he joined the choir of St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Over a period