Haydn: Missa Cellensis

This recording opens the collaboration between René Jacobs, the Kammerorchester Basel, the Zurich Sing-Akademie and Alpha Classics that will produce four albums in total between 2025 and 2028. The first includes the Missa Cellensis, followed by three albums dedicated to Haydn's last six masses. Haydn was commissioned to write a Missa Solemnis in 1766, meaning a fully orchestrated mass with trumpets and timpani; it is the third and largest of Haydn's fourteen masses. Under its misleading name, the Missa Cellensis was known from 1766 to 1975, when a fragment of the autograph score with the title page, Kyrie I and Christe was found in Bucharest, revealing that Haydn had actually composed two Missæ Cellenses. The first of these two (1766) is recorded here. René Jacobs brings all his expertise and enthusiasm to this music he loves so much, in collaboration with soloists he regularly works with, an orchestra that is also a long-standing partner, and the remarkable choir of the Sing-Akademie Zürich.