North United Methodist Church
To Present Haydn’s “Harmony Mass”
At Its Two Services on Sunday, May 20

INDIANAPOLIS, May 3 - Some of the world’s greatest classical music was originally composed for places of worship rather than concert halls.

One such piece, the “Harmony Mass” by Franz Joseph Haydn, will be presented at both the 8:30 a.m. and the 11 a.m. services on Sunday, May 20 at North United Methodist Church, 3808 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis.

North’s 41-member choir, the Cathedral Singers, and its Chancel Quartet will be joined by a 26-piece orchestra, primarily drawn from members of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, for the performances.

Mark Gilgallon, the church’s director of music, will conduct.

Organist Heather Hinton will be featured as a soloist with the orchestra for the prelude and postlude. They will play the first and last movements of Haydn’s “Organ Concerto No. 1 in C Major.”

The “Harmony Mass” will be sung in the original Latin, with translations either printed in the bulletin or spoken in English by the congregation before the choir sings each movement.

The setting will be arguably one of the most beautiful churches in the Midwest. The church dates back to the mid-1800s, and the current building was dedicated on May 10, 1931. Charles Hopson, one of America’s foremost church architects, designed the building in an English Gothic style. Its sanctuary has 12 stained glass windows and a unique ceiling of stenciled tiles.

The term “Harmony Mass” brings to mind simultaneous singing in different parts, such as the four-part harmony used by barbershop quartets. That’s not the case for this piece, however. “Harmony” actually comes from a German word in the composition’s original title, “Harmoniemesse” in B-flat major. “Harmonie” is the German term for a wind band ensemble, and this composition was called that due to the prominence of wind instruments in it.

Haydn was born on March 31, 1732. He composed the “Harmony Mass” in 1802, and it was his last major work. He was from Austria, and he is known as the “Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet.”

He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a teacher of Beethoven, the older brother of composer Michael Haydn, and a devout Catholic. For much of his career he was the most celebrated composer in Europe, but his life was not without challenges.

His father was a wheelwright and his mother was a cook. Neither parent could read music, but Haydn’s father taught himself to play the harp and the family sang together and with their neighbors. The family lived in a small town, and when his parents noticed that Joseph was musically gifted, they sent him away to train as a musician around the age of 6. He never again lived with his parents, and he remembered being frequently hungry and humiliated by his filthy clothing at that stage of his life.

Eventually he became a choirboy at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. He wasn’t always properly fed there either, and later he struggled as a freelancer. Finally he caught the eye of some members of the aristocracy, who offered him fulltime employment as a music director. Eventually he worked for almost 30 years for the wealthy Esterhazy family in Hungary, which is where his musical style developed and he wrote over 200 works. Later he visited Vienna, where he became friends with Mozart, and he became very popular and financially secure in London, where he got to know Beethoven. He was in fluctuating health when he wrote the “Harmony Mass,” his sixth mass for the Esterhazys, in 1802, and he died on May 31, 1809, at the age of 77.