Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis"

Beethoven regarded the Missa Solemnis as his greatest work, and who is going to argue with him?

Try Klemperer or Levine for an alternative view.

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There are many great snippets there, but seemingly no grand purpose arching across the work. And it often seems to stray into no man's land, where it just doesn't make sense...you can't always predict where the music will go. Often times, it seems to be mere grandstanding, without sense of direction.

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Sorry, but you are wrong. I'm not a musicologist, but even I can recognise that this is a work of true genius, and there is certainly an over-arching purpose to this work, and a total absence of "grandstanding". Remember, this is Beethoven you are talking about.

One of the things I find most interesting about the Missa Solemnis is the unresolved tension in the work between the divine and the human. It is not a work of unquestioning devotion, like the Bach B minor Mass, but rather an earthy, human response to these issues, by someone who is struggling intellectually and emotionally to reconcile the remote world of the spiritual with hard reality. The Missa Solemnis is the most "human" of all the great masses. It has nothing in common with "prog rock". Prog rock is shit, while the Missa Solemnis is one of the world's greatest intellectual achievements.

I do agree that, like all late Beethoven, it is not the easiest work to comprehend, and it takes a long time to appreciate it (not that I claim to fully understand it). But like all great works of art, it demands more of our attention before it starts to make sense, and rewards concentration and persistence.

Ross

As far as prog rock goes, I still have a great respect for much of it, and no one will ever convince me otherwise. Catch you later!

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

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as my familiarity increased, so did my sense that it wasn't nonsense

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I'm sure Beethoven will be very relieved.

Ross

Prog rock - Consistently recognized as genius by the most self-congratulatory, self-promoting, over-schooled and under-educated generation in history.

Cheers,

John Schmidt
"90% of everything is crud" - Theodore Sturgeon

Ross:
I'm sure Beethoven will be very relieved.

Snappy for Ross.

Vuk.

Try the 'Mass in C' and let us know what you think.

On the subject of the Missa Solemnis, another of those 'facts' that I'm not sure whether it is true or not, but I believe that Furtwangler considered the work too great to conduct. I'm certainly not aware of any performances on CD.

David

Beethoven spent some 6 months researching the libraries of church coral music and the works of Bach and Hadyn before he started Missa Solemnis. And it took him 4 years, during which period he also wrote the late sonatas and the 9th symphony. So that creates a context. Beethoven drew on this rich heritage and then added his magic at the peak of his powers. So you can think of it as a musical culmination of everything to that time! Not surprising it demands a little of the listener...

The work's 5 "movements" are based on the classical mass structure - Kyrie, Gloria (praise God), Credo (Statement of Belief), Sanctus (the Sacrement), Agnus (Pardon). Those of us with a traditional Church of England (Episcopalian) or Catholic background will recognise this. So this sets the major programme for the work - "big picture" of the structure. The people of that time would be totally "steeped" in the "procession" of the mass and understand/be able to recite the words of the Mass.

Within the movements, the structure can be thought of as a series of meditations (fugues) around the text, phrase by phrase. You have to approach the work by following the text. So taking the Credo, "born of the virgin" "crucified under Pilate" "raised on the 3rd day" are only a few lines apart in the libretto (text) but give rise to quite separate musical meditations based on the context.

Each of these musical meditations is generally a distinct fugue. The Fugue structure comes through not only in the instrumentation, but in the singing, where phrases and words are repeated and overlayed in various keys. And sometimes the same phrase (idea) is developed musically in more than one way, successively, to express a different feeling about the idea.

Similarly, the solo in the middle of the Sanctus is while the Sacrement is being administered.

And the tumultuous passage in the Agnus is the congregation pleading for forgiveness, in increasing levels of earnest desire.

So I really recommend following a "movement" through on the libretto, and relating the music to it. I think it'll make sense. Probably a little easier if you did Latin at school, in parts its easy to get a little lost and then you have to "resync", but after a time or 2 you'll get the "map" of the work. If you're really keen, it could be worth marking the elapsed timeg within the movement against the libretto.

I've got the Shaw/Atlanta (Telarc) version which I find very satisfying....

From what I understand, Beethoven was also not very religious, and this work represented an inner conflict of is own. I'll give the work yet another listen (I've heard it about six times since my original message was posted), and I'll try to follow the libretto at the same time. Perhaps it will make further sense, even if I can't relate to it personally. Catch you later!

-=> Mike Hanson <=-