Salisbury Musical Society: Beethoven's Ninth and Haydn's St Nicholas Mass

The Salisbury Musical Society are back at Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday 20 November 2027, with a double bill that puts two of the big ones side by side: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor and Haydn's St Nicholas Mass.

The Ninth is the one most people will recognise. Beethoven worked on it between 1822 and 1824, and it was the final symphony he ever finished. It's widely seen as a masterpiece of Western classical music, and for a good reason — it was the first major symphony to bring in vocal parts. The final movement, the Ode to Joy, sets a text adapted from a poem by Friedrich Schiller, revised in 1803, with additional lines added by Beethoven himself. It's a huge piece of music, and hearing it in the Cathedral is a different experience from listening to a recording.

Pairing with it is Haydn's St Nicholas Mass, written in 1772. It's one of the relatively few choral works Haydn composed before he turned fifty, so it comes from an earlier part of his career than the Ninth. The two together give you a good look at how choral writing changed over those fifty years, from the late eighteenth-century Mass to the early nineteenth-century symphony.

The Society has a long history of taking on the Ninth at the Cathedral, and it's a piece they've returned to more than once. Critic John Cox praised a past performance, noting that 'Keri Fuge's solo voice gloriously rejoiced, legato and trills all superbly in place'. It's a work that relies on those soloists and the choir working in tandem, and the Cathedral's acoustics are built for exactly that kind of sound.

The Salisbury Musical Society has been bringing choral music to the city since 1923, specialising in major classical works performed in the Cathedral. The concert starts at 7:30 pm on Saturday 20 November 2027 at Salisbury Cathedral.