Missa Solemnis (1824)

Mass in D major, Op. 123 "Missa solemnis"   (85 - 90 minutes)


   The Missa Solemnis was first performed on  April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin.  Three parts (the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei) of the Missa were performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824, at the premier of the Ninth Symphony.

 (An Online essay about the Missa)     (A movement by movement analysis of the Missa)


What is a mass?

   1.  Kyrie     -  Opening prayer

   2.  Gloria    -   Celebratory passage praising God the Father and Christ

   3.  Credo    -    A setting of the Nicene Creed, a profession of faith. 

   4.  Sanctus  -   A doxology praising the Trinity.  Including a Benedictus in the Sanctus is optional.

   5.  Agnus Dei  -  The Agnus Dei is a setting of the "Lamb of God" litany.  


Some critics have been troubled that, as Theodor Adorno put it, "there is something peculiar about the Missa solemnis."  In many ways, it is an atypical work, even for Beethoven.  Missing is the sustained exploration of themes through development that is one of Beethoven's hallmarks.   The massive fugues at the end of the Gloria and Credo align it with the work of his late period—but his simultaneous interest in the theme and variations form is absent.

Instead, the Missa presents a continuous musical narrative, almost without repetition, particularly in the Gloria and Credo, the two longest movements. The style is close to treatment of themes in imitation that one finds in the Flemish Renaissance masters Josquin des Prez and Johannes Ockeghem, but it is unclear whether Beethoven was consciously imitating their techniques to meet the peculiar demands of the Mass text.  Donald Tovey has connected Beethoven to the earlier tradition in a different way:

      Not even Bach or Handel can show a greater sense of space and of sonority.  There is no

      earlier choral writing that comes so near to recovering some of the lost secrets of the style

      of Palestrina.  There is no choral and no orchestral writing, earlier or later, that shows a more

      thrilling sense of the individual color of every chord, every position, and every doubled third or
      discord.


History of Missa solemnis:

   Beethoven's previous religious works:

   Oratorio -  Christus am Ölberge ("Christ on the Mount of Olives")  Op. 85  (1802) 

   Mass      -   Mass in C major, Op. 86  (1807) 


   In 1818, It was announced that Archduke Rudolph would be consecrated as Archbishop of Olomouc (Olmütz) in March of 1820.  Beethoven volunteered to write a mass for the occasion.  He finished the Missa Solemnis in late 1823, four years too late for Rudolph's consecration.  

   Beethoven researched masses ranging from medieval times through the classical era including those by Palestrina, Bach, Haydn, and Mozart.  In the Credo he also used ancient music in the form of the Dorian mode which is a pattern of notes different from our modern major and minor scales. 

Sections:

Kyrie:  Perhaps the most traditional movement, the Kyrie is in a traditional ABA′ structure, with stately choral writing in the first section and more contrapuntal voice leading in the Christe section, which also introduces the four vocal soloists. (approx 11 minutes)    

Gloria:  Quickly shifting textures and themes highlight each portion of the Gloria text, in a beginning to the movement that is almost encyclopedic in its exploration of 3/4 time.  The movement ends with the first of the work's two massive fugues, on the text "In gloria Dei patris. Amen", leading into a recapitulation of the initial Gloria text and music.  (approx 17 minutes)  

Credo:  The movement opens with a chord sequence that will be used again in the movement to effect modulations. The Credo, like the Gloria, is an often disorienting, mad rush through the text.  The poignant modal harmonies for the "Et incarnatus" yield to ever more expressive heights through the Crucifixus, and into a remarkable, a cappella setting of the "Et resurrexit" that is over almost before it has begun.  Most notable about the movement, though, is the closing fugue on "Et vitam venturi saeculi" that includes one of the most difficult passages in the choral repertoire, when the subject returns at doubled tempo for a thrilling conclusion.

The form of the Credo is divided into four parts: (I) allegro ma non troppo through "descendit de coelis" (Maker of Heaven) in B♭; (II) "Et incarnatus est" (and Power) through "Resurrexit" in D; (III) "Et ascendit" (and up) through the Credo recapitulation in F; (IV) fugue and coda "Et vitam venturi saeculi, amen" (the Life of the World to Come) in B♭.  (approx 21 minutes)

Sanctus:  Up until the Benedictus of the Sanctus, the Missa solemnis is of fairly normal classical proportions.  But then, after an orchestral preludio, a solo violin enters in its highest range—representing the Holy Spirit descending to earth—and begins the mass's most transcendentally beautiful music, in a remarkably long extension of the text.  (approx 17.5 minutes)

Agnus Dei:  A setting of the plea "miserere nobis" (have mercy on us) that begins with the men's voices alone in B minor yields, eventually, to a bright D major prayer "dona nobis pacem" ("grant us peace") in a pastoral mode.  After some fugal development, it is suddenly and dramatically interrupted by martial sounds (a convention in the 18th century, as in Haydn's Missa in tempore belli), but after repeated pleas of "miserere", eventually recovers and brings itself to a stately conclusion.  (approx 16 minutes)

Music:   Mass in D major, Op. 123 "Missa solemnis"

1.  Sanctus / Benedictus  -  (16:30 - violin enters @ 5:40)  

                     Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Choir, Sir Gilbert Levine

                     Soloists: Bozena Harasimowicz,  Monica Groop, Jerry Hadley, Franz-Josef Selig

                    Violin solo in the Benedictus by Liviu Prunaru.


2.  Gloria (last 7 minutes - fugue & recap Gloria)  


                    Royal Concertegbouw Orchestra, Nicholaus Harnoncourt, cond.

                    Soloists:  Marlis Petersen,  Elisabeth Kulman,  Werner Güra and Gerald Finley.