Cäcilienmesse

This recording heralds a collaboration between René Jacobs, the Kamerorkest van Bazel, the Zürich Sing-Akademie and Alpha Classics, which will yield a total of four albums between 2025 and 2028. The first will contain the Missa Cellensis, followed by three albums devoted to Haydn's last six masses. Haydn received a commission in 1766 to write a Missa Solemnis, a fully orchestrated mass with trumpets and timpani; it is the third and largest of Haydn's fourteen masses. The Missa Cellensis was known under its misleading name from 1766 until 1975, when a fragment of the autograph score with the title page, Kyrie I and Christe was found in Bucharest, which revealed that Haydn had in fact composed two Missæ Cellenses. It is the first of these two (1766) that is recorded here. René Jacobs brings all his expertise and enthusiasm to bear on this music that he loves so much, in collaboration with soloists with whom he regularly works, an orchestra that has also been his partner for many years, and the remarkable choir of the Sing-Akademie Zürich.