CLASSICAL MUSIC - BEETHOVEN: MISSA SOLEMNIS

A live recording of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis Op.123, a Mass in D major for four solo voices, choir and orchestra, composed between the years 1818 and 1823. 

The performance took place in the 500-year-old Gothic Amanduskirche in Bad Urach, Southern Germany, with soloists Phyllis Bryn-Julson (soprano), Marjana Lipovsek (alto), Josef Protschka (tenor) and Kurt Rydl (bass).  Michael Gielen conducts the Südwestfunk Symphony Orchestra and the Prague  Philharmonic Choir.

This deeply felt and imaginative performance of a work written towards the end of Beethoven’s career, when he was totally deaf, makes this difficult piece unusually accessible. The composer’s setting of the Mass is on the grandest scale possible, but its special message lies in its humanity, in the individual response it provokes to the meaning of the Resurrection.

The Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819-1823. It was first performed on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei were conducted by the composer. It is generally considered to be one of the composer's supreme achievements. Together with Bach's Mass in B Minor, it is the most significant mass setting of the common practice period.

Unquestionably a great work, representing Beethoven at the height of his powers, it has notably failed to reach the popularity of many of the symphonies and sonatas. Written around the same time as his ninth symphony, it is Beethoven's second setting of the mass, after his Mass in C, Op. 86, a work far less admired.

The mass is scored for 2 flutes; 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (in A, C, and B?); 2 bassoons; contrabassoon; 4 horns (in D, E?, B? basso, E, and G); 2 trumpets (D, B?, and C); alto, tenor, and bass trombone; timpani; organ continuo; strings (violins I and II, violas, cellos, and basses); soprano, alto, tenor, and bass soloists; and soprano, alto, tenor, and bass chorus. (wikipedia)