También la adaptación más madura de la Misa, la Heiligmesse, concentra en el coro gran parte de la creatividad de Haydn, pero juega constantemente con la orquesta con ritmos más marcados, y destacando el texto con gran delicadeza.

La interpretación de Owen Burdick es buena aunque la orquesta produce una constante sensación de mezzoforte durante toda la obra. El coro se toma su trabajo muy en serio y los problemas de la parte más aguda obedecen a dificultades más propias de la partitura que no de su capacidad para interpretarla, pese a ligeros desajustes en los unísonos.

Los solistas aportan inteligencia y poderío al conjunto pero no destacan más allá de lo correcto.

The Heiligmesse is in no way an inferior work to the ‘Nelson’ Mass on the earlier volume – as with so many of Haydn’s works it’s really only the eye-catching nickname, which in any case really is a misnomer, that has made that mass more popular than the other late masses.

As its name implies, the Great Organ Solo Mass contains a prominent part for the instrument. It’s by no means a mere adjunct to the main menu; it’s very well worth hearing in its own right, combining lyrical and thoughtful elements. As before, all concerned give of their best, including on this occasion Dongsok Shin, who has kindly supplied MusicWeb International with information about the organ employed in this and other recordings in the series, not the digital organ at Trinity Church which replaced the instrument damaged in the 9/11 attack, but a small pipe instrument imported for the purpose – please see footnote at the end of John Sheppard’s review of the complete set.

In that review John Sheppard made the complete eight-disc set from which these individual volumes are being reissued his Recording of the Month (8.508009). He singled out Ann Hoyt, the soprano in both the masses on Volume 5, for special praise and I can only echo his comment that she is the equal of the much better-known soloists on the versions by Hickox, Guest and Bernstein. She is, however only the first among equals: the other soloists also acquit themselves extremely well, as do the choir and orchestra, and the direction is thoroughly idiomatic. I didn’t even object to J Owen Burdick’s habit of slowing at the end of each section, which was John Sheppard’s minor criticism.

In fact, my only reservation about the two volumes which have come my way is that the purchase of either will probably make you wish that you had gone for the complete set, available for an incredibly inexpensive £28.50 or so in the UK.

William Hedley also reviewed the complete set. Though he recommended it, he had more reservations than JS or myself, believing that energy and drive had been achieved at the expense of the essential Haydn elements of charm, grace and smiling benevolence. I understand where he’s coming from – both performances bounce along a little relentlessly at times – but the movements which he selects in the Heiligmesse, the openings of the Gloria, Credo and Samore....

Review By Steven Ritter ,Audiophile Audition,November 2010

Naxos has already released the complete set of Haydn masses by these forces, and is now giving the rest to us piecemeal. There have been quite a wide variety of views about these recordings in the critical world, some people feeling that these are just not up to snuff when compared to the also fairly-recent issues by Gardiner (Philips) and Hickox (Chandos); I have heard little of the latter but can tell you that his choir is bigger and fuller than the others, and although period instruments are at play they still seem closer to traditional recordings than not. Gardiner is very sprightly and his choir excellent, but the sound is much more compressed than what we have on this Naxos release.