Merry settings of the Mass

However much we (well, I) moan about Radio 3, there are still some gems to be heard there. And gosh, some of them even make it to the listings! And (wait for it) - some even make it to the listings before the work is broadcast! (Interesting to compare a Radio Times of 2008 with one of 1968 (for example), when you knew what you were going to hear, and when,  and could therefore make the necessary arrangements to be there in front of the wireless at the appointed time. Not any more you can't, most of the time.)

But despite the moans, today there was Michael Haydn's "Oboe" Mass, the Missa Sancti Hieronymi (MH 254).  Utterly delightful (and listed in Radio Times.)  I had not heard it before. You can hear it on iPlayer for another six days, then you'll have to go out and buy the recording, which is on the Ambronay label, AMY011.  And it is well worth the effort.

Like Charpentier's Messe de Minuit (which I'm going to devote a post to sometime in the future, if I remember, so that I can bore you senseless with musings about the pronunciation of Latin in different countries at different times, and how some people get really het up about it, like, for instance, your actual Bishops), or Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle, which is neither, although it is a Mass setting,  or Mozart's early settings of the Ordinary, this is joyous music that gladdens the heart and sets the feet tapping whether you will or no.