Pope Receives Musical Gift on "Name Day"

(March 20, 2010) The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household organized a celebratory concert in the Vatican for the feast day of Pope Benedict XVI's namesake, St. Joseph, featuring the music of Joseph Haydn. The Pope, who was baptized Joseph Ratzinger, attended the concert in the Clementine Room of the Apostolic Palace, which featured a work of Spanish composer José Peris Lacasa. He presented his version of Joseph Haydn's "The Last Seven Words of Christ on the Cross," which Peris Lacasa calls "In the Manner of Haydn." The Henschel String Quartet and mezzosoprano Susanne Kelling performed the work. Of Kelling, the Pontiff said afterward that she put her "extraordinary voice at the service of the holy words of the Lord Jesus." At the end of the concert, the Holy Father, who was accompanied by his brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, commented in German, Italian and English, that the work of Haydn is a "sublime" example of "how it is possible to unite art and faith." Noting how the composer had taken inspiration from the Gospel, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on how "on the hard cross, God pronounced in Christ the most beautiful and true word of love -- Jesus -- in his total and definitive surrender.” The Pontiff said that “here is hidden a universal law of artistic expression: the ability to communicate a beauty that is also good and truth, through a sensitive medium - a painting, music, sculpture, etc.” Perhaps I have gone a bit far with this reflection," the Pope quipped, "but it's the fault, or maybe the merit, of Franz Joseph Haydn."