# Beethoven's Missa Solemnis



## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

I just listened to a favourite recording of mine, Beethoven's 'Missa Solemnis' conducted by Otto Klemperer with the New Philarmonic Orchestra (EMI, 1965).










Here I am reeling from the ecstatic experience that Klemperer manages to render. This seminal Beethoven work may well be his greatest. He spent four agonising years working on it, polishing it further and further, spending sleepless nights on intricate details. Beethoven's majestic fugues at the end of the Gloria and Credo are a tapestry of genius of equal intensity to Bach's contrapuntal writing but with a modern spiritual touch. The choral writing is shouty as ever, as if Beethoven is expecting your full and undivided attention. Beethoven aimed to achieve spiritual enlightenment from a humanistic and natural perspective rather than through dogmatic church teachings. This is so evident in this Missa that is an embodiment of human endeavour and struggle for knowledge and spiritual fulfilment.

Klemperer's attention to detail and overall structural integrity of this piece shows his meandering study of the work's vision. After intricate fugal and wonderful music of the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo, in comes one of the most beautiful solo violin pieces in the Benedictus, whereby the violin dances around the voices with the flute. It feels as if the gates of heaven open to the listener encompassing his soul for eternity.

The Agnus Dei lingers in melancholy with the repeated 'miserere' that hypnotises the listener. Bach's finale in his Mass in B minor is a platonic idealistic peaceful ending. In contrast, Beethoven's Dona Nobis Pacem with its words of peace to all humanity concludes this magnificent work with a touch of agitation with march-like trumpets and warring timpani. This agitation in the ending finally ends in a satisfying but short cadenza. The lingering feeling of the finale mirrors Beethoven's own experience of the Napoleonic wars whereby for humanity to achieve lasting peace, the trumpets and timpani of war need to be suppressed and controlled with enlightened modern thinking and philosophy. 

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is a treasure to behold for life.

Beethoven's own words inscribed in the original manuscript hold true...

"From the heart - may it return to the heart!"


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