Haydn's Paukenmesse or Missa in tempore belli (''Mass in Time of War''), written in 1796, was the first of the series of six masterpieces which Haydn in virtual retirement wrote for the name-days of the Princess Esterhazy, wife of his patron. Austria was still at war with Napoleon, and the most memorable passage in the whole work, reason for the nickname Paukenmesse (''Drum Mass''), comes when the Agnus Dei gives way to the ''Dona nobis pacem''. There a sinister drumroll suggests threatening gunfire, followed by a blazing trumpet fanfare of a call to victory. It was an effect which Beethoven a generation later was going to crib in one of his own supreme masterpieces, the Misa solemnis, and it is surprising that this earlier model has not been revived more often, whether in concert or on record.
When that very effect and much else in the musical invention so clearly looks forward to the nineteenth century, there is a good case for having a performance on the scale of this new issue rather than that adopted in the Argo series made in Cambridge, of which the rival version listed above was the last to be recorded. As one would expect, Sir Neville Marriner draws a lively performance from his distinguished force, tending towards more extreme speeds in both directions than George Guest. He uses a smoother style with the Dresden orchestra's bigger string section generally sweeter above and more resonant below than the St Martin's Academy.
Those are formidable qualities, but that said, it is the earlier performance with its brighter, clearer, better-focused recording and fresher performing style that is the more immediately convincing. The subdued opening of the Kyrie, in its way as strikingly atmospheric as the trumpets and drum of the ''Dona nobis pacem'', immediately presents in the Dresden performance a disconcertingly muffled image with the orchestra bass-heavy and the choir set back. Next to it the St John's performance clears the air amazingly with precise images of the performers, who with the clarity of focus sound more devotional, not less. That opening is the least satisfactory part of the Dresden recording. Almost at once the bright tones of the soprano soloist, Margaret Marshall, are allowed to cut through effectively, but even the soloists are more believably balanced in the St John's performance and present a no-less-distinguished team. I am disconcerted too to find that—whether or not through some quirk of the recording—the vibrato of each is often made disconcertingly prominent, particularly with the bass, Robert Holl.
There are passages such as the ''Miserere'' in the Gloria movement where a bigger choir conveys a hushed beauty of a quality impossible with the St John's Choir, but balanced as the singers are, I generally find it hard to recognize the incisive qualities which have made the Leipzig Radio Chorus one of the most admired in Europe. Paradoxically even in the great moment of the drum beats and trumpet fanfares it is the St John's performance which sounds the more sombre and threatening. In the Dresden recording the trumpets are allowed that prominent moment of glory, but generally they recede back into a relatively thick orchestral ensemble. On the still-splendid Argo issue, they blaze out thrillingly at many points. One final point of preference: where Argo provide a fine fill-up in Michael Haydn's Ave regina, HMV have none with Side 2 lasting barely 15 minutes.'