# Beethoven's Mass in C Major Op.86



## JGNog (Jan 11, 2012)

My choir is singing Beethoven's Mass in C Major Op.86 for Easter. Is anyone here familiarized with this work? What do you think of it?

Here is the Kyrie and Gloria:


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

I think it is a very good work, a 'long-underrated masterpiece' as The Penguin Guide to CDs calls it. I like Gardiner's version.


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

I featured excerpts from this mass in a pair of posts here and on Blogspot - the Gloria andSanctus/Benedictus were created at the mammoth academy concert Beethoven held in 1808:
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/438-musikakademie-konzert-der-22.html

I agree it is underrated and somewhat overshadowed by the _Missa Solemnis_.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Here is an interesting download of Mass in C from a Catholic Church in Minnesota:
http://www.stagnes.net/music-recordings-cd-beethoven.html 
It is interspersed with Gregoran chant tracks and has an added prelude and recessional, but the Mass in C is all there, just pick out the appropriate tracks.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I can't believe I've been ignoring this piece. I went out Monday and fixed the problem; I now have Gardiner's version.

So far, I'm really connecting with this piece. He's brought together elements of the old liturgical style with the current sonata form of his time, yet retaining his individuality. 

Thanks for introducing me to this, JCNog!


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## Morgante (Jul 26, 2012)

One of the best masses ever.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

It is so good that nobody has posted since 2012 ?????

But seriously folks, this is a worthy work, please post some favorite recordings so I can be enticed to spend more money buying more CDs that I don't need but do want. 

At least for now I can chase the Gardiner suggestion someone made in an earlier post.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

SixFootScowl said:


> It is so good that nobody has posted since 2012 ?????
> 
> But seriously folks, this is a worthy work, please post some favorite recordings so I can be enticed to spend more money buying more CDs that I don't need but do want.
> 
> At least for now I can chase the Gardiner suggestion someone made in an earlier post.


I listened to a bunch of these when my choir was scheduled to perform it (postponed due to COVID, alas). The Gardiner is an excellent choice. Two others that are worth hearing are Best (Hyperion) and Hickox (Chandos). I was less enthused about Shaw, Chailly, Giulini, Davis, Richter, Corboz, and Beecham.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

A promising work, but not a very mature one. He had just finished his contrapuntal studies with Albrechtberger a few years earlier. One of the concluding fugues (either from the gloria or credo, I can't remember exactly) just has passages of lines continuously going up and down like
↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘
↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗
I still respect the opinions of people who find the work enjoyable though.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> A promising work, but not a very mature one. He had just finished his contrapuntal studies with Albrechtberger a few years earlier.


This is incorrect.

Beethoven's Mass in C major, Op. 86 was composed and premiered in 1807 as a response to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II, and after Beethoven had studied Haydn's Masses exhaustively on his own.

Furthermore, it is an excellent and indeed highly underrated work, unfairly overshadowed by the admittedly vastly more ambitious _Missa Solemnis_. Its smaller scale should not be held as a point against it, in my opinion.

A recentish recording of this mass I like very much is with Jansons/Bavarian Radio.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I just dialed up the Jansons video on YT. First time listening to this piece.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

There are several fine disc out there , perhaps the fact that it's not in the religious section is to blame for almost no posts.


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## gvn (Dec 14, 2019)

I personally feel that any big middle-period Beethoven work is so many-sided that I want to hear a diversity of approaches. Four favorites here, chosen to contrast as radically as possible:

1. For sheer theatricality one can't beat Gardiner. Clearly he regards it as a very _exciting_ work but not a very _great_ one; he doesn't find in it the kind of substance that might be expected in a work contemporary with the Razumovsky Quartets and the Fifth Symphony.* (I'm not complaining about his approach, merely trying to describe it as accurately as possible.)

2. The exact antithesis is Giulini: he is as totally (one-sidedly?) reflective as Gardiner is theatrical. Everything is slow, sensitive, reverential, reverent. Very similar, in fact, to his famous recording of the Missa Solemnis: anyone who likes or dislikes that performance would be likely to respond the same way to this one.

3. Then there's Beecham. Beecham obviously cherished this work for an idiosyncratic reason: it's the most Haydnesque of Beethoven's major works, and Beecham frankly preferred Haydn to Beethoven. So, one's attitude to this recording is likely to depend on one's attitude to Beecham's Haydn. (And on one's tolerance for 1950s fuzzily recorded choral sound.)

4. Among recent recordings that I've heard, I've enjoyed Jansons most (on DVD--is the CD the same performance?). I'm not sure that Jansons had as much innate talent as either Gardiner or Giulini or Beecham, but he gives me the impression that he really loved & admired this work, treating it as though it truly is a perfectly standard middle-period Beethoven masterpiece. Of the various recordings known to me, this may be the none that offers most of the kind of constantly shifting interplay one customarily hears in Beethoven's symphonies & quartets--light & shade, tragedy & triumph, conflict & conquest intertwined. On the other hand, it doesn't offer (or even attempt) the singleminded intensity of Gardiner & Giulini (in their very different ways).

Did Bernstein ever perform this Mass? He might have done it particularly well; he was at home in both Haydn and Beethoven.

* Chronological position:

Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" (Op. 55; 1803)
Piano Sonata No. 21, "Waldstein" (Op. 53; 1804)
Piano Sonata No. 23, "Appassionata" (Op. 57; 1805)
Leonore/Fidelio, first two versions (Op. 72; 1805-1806)
Symphony No. 4 (Op. 60; 1806)
Violin Concerto (Op. 61; 1806)
String Quartets Nos. 7-9, "Razumovsky" (Op. 59, Nos. 1-3; 1806)
Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op. 58; 1807)
Coriolan Overture (Op. 62; 1807)
*Mass in C Major (Op. 86; 1807)
*Symphony No. 5 (Op. 67; 1808)
Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" (Op. 68; 1808)

AFTERTHOUGHT

Does anyone have Segerstam (on Naxos)? I imagine the Mass might suit his style well, but on listening to samples, I was rather doubtful about the quality of the chorus, so I've been hesitant to buy it.


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## Caroline (Oct 27, 2018)

wkasimer said:


> I listened to a bunch of these when my choir was scheduled to perform it (postponed due to COVID, alas). The Gardiner is an excellent choice. Two others that are worth hearing are Best (Hyperion)


Shared thoughts - Gardiner and Best on Hyperion.



Knorf said:


> This is incorrect.
> 
> ...Beethoven had studied Haydn's Masses exhaustively on his own.
> 
> ...


Important points here and good to see another suggestion for Jansons/Bavarian Radio and will pursue myself next for this ostensibly under appreciated work.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

wkasimer said:


> I listened to a bunch of these when my choir was scheduled to perform it (postponed due to COVID, alas). The Gardiner is an excellent choice. Two others that are worth hearing are Best (Hyperion) and Hickox (Chandos). I was less enthused about Shaw, Chailly, Giulini, Davis, Richter, Corboz, and Beecham.


On a cursory review of clips, the Hickox seemed pretty nice. I can get Gardiner for $4.25 as a download though.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Rogerx said:


> There are several fine disc out there , perhaps the fact that it's not in the *religious section *is to blame for almost no posts.


Well that is a good place it could be but since it also qualifies as vocal music and the thread seems to be gaining some momentum I will not request moving it. Though if someone else wants to make that request, have at it.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SixFootScowl said:


> On a cursory review of clips, the Hickok seemed pretty nice. I can get Gardiner for $4.25 as a download though.


The Gardiner IMO is an amazing performance as a whole (except for the _Dona Nobis Pacem_, that for me he does a bit too fast), and I really recommend it.

The _Agnus Dei_ (including the _Dona Nobis_) with Giulini is moving and just right for me.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Allerius said:


> The Gardiner IMO is an amazing performance as a whole (except for the _Dona Nobis Pacem_, that for me he does a bit too fast), and I really recommend it.
> 
> The _Agnus Dei_ (including the _Dona Nobis_) with Giulini is moving and just right for me.


Ok, downloaded it for $4.25 by going past the first to tracks of the album and just downloading the Mass:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7924622--beethoven-messe-in-c


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

SixFootScowl said:


> Ok, downloaded it for $4.25 by going past the first to tracks of the album and just downloading the Mass:
> https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7924622--beethoven-messe-in-c


The Credo of this mass has many changes of time and I think that this can be off-putting to some, but I also think that many would agree that all the other movements are pure gold. I love some touches of dynamics that Beethoven does in this opus, for example the choir whispering _Miserere_ in the last movement.


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