Anxiety and Tranquility - Haydn and Faure - Islington Choral Society

Haydn's Mass in C, ('Mass in a time of war', also known as the Paukenmesse after the drumrolls in the Agnus Dei movement) was written at a time when Austria was at war with France and suffering the anxiety of a nation that has been at peace for over a century. Oddly, though, the work is characterised more by its easy melodies and a mood of optimism than by its dark passages.

Faure's much-loved Requiem, by contrast, never really strays from its overall mood of tranquility; its charm lies in its deceptive simplicity. Anxiety and tranquillity.