Of Johann Michael Haydn’s two requiem settings, his incomplete late work, the Requiem in B flat major, has remained in the shadow of his so-called "Schrattenbach Requiem" in C minor, composed in 1771. Haydn, almost 70 at the time, who wrote his second "solemn requiem" on commission from the Empress Maria Theresa, could only complete the setting through the beginning of the "Dies irae." Quite similar to Mozart's requiem fragment, Haydn's torso was completed by a musician of a "kindred spirit," since an incomplete Mass for the dead had scarcely a liturgical use. In 1839 Father Gunther Kronecker, choirmaster of the Benedictine monastery, Kremsmünster, took on this weighty task, and thus he was the "Süßmayr to Michael Haydn." Stylistically, his completion of the work - borne on lyrical-cantabile melody displaying at times a folk song character - creates a bridge to the music of Franz Schubert and the Viennese Biedermeier. World premiere recording of this work, as completed by P. Kronecker.
MIDEM Classical award 2007; klassik-heute.de (10/10/10)
Johann Michael Haydn: Requiem in B flat Major
