A performance of Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Lord Nelson Mass” and “Mass in Time of War” will be hosted Jan. 22 at 4:30 p.m. in Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, 137 West Upper Ferry Rd., West Trenton.
The famous works will be performed by Central Jersey Choral Society, Mercer County’s second oldest arts organization, and was composed by Haydn when his home country of Austria was at war with Napoleon Bonaparte. The “Mass in Time of War” is also called the “Timpani Mass,” as the piece makes dramatic use of the kettle drums.
“However, both works heroically evoke a spirit of hope through hardship,” said the choir’s artistic director Christopher Loeffler. “I believe these Masses successfully lift the listener from the overwhelming cares of reality to a transcendent plane of noble perseverance in the face of adversity.”
Formed in 1949 at the request of the Trenton Junior Chamber of Commerce as the Trenton Community Chorus, the Central Jersey Choral Society as it has been known since 2009 has provided professional caliber classical music to the local community, performing a varied selection of high-quality works. The CJCS comprises both professionally trained vocalists as well as singers with amateur vocal experience.
Recent programs presented by CJCS have included Mozart’s Requiem and Vesperae solennes de Confessore, Brahms’ Liebesleider Walzes; Haydn’s oratorio The Creation; Mendelssohn’s oratorios Elijah and St. Paul; Pergolesi/Durante’s Magnificat, Schubert’s Mass in G; Mozart’s Coronation Mass; Te Deums by Haydn and Bruckner; Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai; Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria; Beethoven’s Mass in C Major; Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms; and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem.
Tickets are $20 in advance at cjchoralsociety.org, and $25 at the door.