What are you listening to?

[Jared]

on my first listen to this set... and it's (predictably) very good indeed... it's a while since I listened to any Mozart Orchestral works, and it's refreshing to get back to them and give the Symphonies another run through...

[mcq]

Why bother?
Herreweghe recorded one of the finest Missa Solemnis ever for HM about a decade ago. It is both, a noble and extremely beautiful performance, superbly recorded and gloriously sung by the Collegium Vocale as in this new November 2011 Alpha recording. So one wonders...why record it again?
This new recording doesn´t differ greatly from the previous one, so Herreweghe does not evince new thoughts on the work. It is also very well played and sung, but it also leaves a little something of dejá vu.
I have only gone through it twice, but I can tell you that if you own the first recording, you don´t need the second one, in fact i´d say that I find fresher and more spontaneous the HM. If Herreweghe tried to damage HM by rerecording one of his finest performances there I´m afraid it backfired on him.

I have to say that I've been rather more impressed with Herreweghe's recent version of Missa Solemnis than Jose.  No, there are no new insights to be gleaned when listening to the 1989 and 2012 recordings side by side.  But what you do hear is, to my mind, a reiteration of Herreweghe's  deep and profound understanding of Beethoven's greatest and, yet, most elusive masterpiece.  Arguably Beethoven's most difficult work, for both the listener and interpreter, it represents the man at his most personal, making no concessions to a contemporary audience, but, rather, presenting something more inward, a reflection on his life and work and an intensely private meditation on the reality of failing health and the immanence of death.  In all of Herreweghe's recordings, there is a unifying sense of sensuousness and delicacy in the way he approaches the music at hand without sacrificing anything of the underlying ripples of tension that inform the music.  His approach to Beethoven is similar to Frans Bruggen's in the way he lingers over each and every phrase with a loving devotion.  It is exactly these qualities he brings to the Missa Solemnis.  I have always loved his earlier version for Harmonia Mundi for the sense of humility that is imparted to the listener.  A conductor like Karajan may concentrate more on the incandescent rage and fury that is also a part of this music, but Herreweghe seems to view such things as symptomatic of a transitory human frailty that hide some greater, more intangible fear.  

Of all of Beethoven's works, Missa Solemnis is arguably one of his most difficult to assimilate because, I believe, it addresses the emotions directly rather than the intellect.   Judging by the relative paucity of recordings of this work in the catalogue, it appears to be just as much of a hurdle for conductors as it is for listeners.  Personally speaking, it is a work that I have struggled with.  Perhaps of all Beethoven's works, it demands the closest and most sustained listening.   It is also one of most troubling and profoundly upsetting pieces of music I know.  This is a work that confronts directly the immanence of the afterlife and the transitory nature of our earthly existence.  It is a work that, simultaneously, offers a deeper creative understanding of life yet, at the same time, makes the listener feel infinitesimally small as one grasps its spiritual implications.  As I chart my relationship to this music over the last 25 years from an initial resistance to an all-consuming obsession, I find myself only beginning to understand it, if only in an intuitive way.  There is a very famous story related by one of Beethoven's closest friends about how the man's personality changed utterly when he was writing Missa Solemnis into a state of oblivion of everything earthly.  And when you hear a great performance of this work, it is exactly that state of emotion into which the listener is transported.  

Missa Solemnis was the product of three years of sustained study of the masterpieces of vocal polyphony of the Renaissance.  Unlike those earlier masters, Beethoven was more concerned with an emotional responses to the words expressed in the Latin text rather than something designed for liturgical performance.  Every shade of meaning of the words in the text is evoked in the music, which is something that Monteverdi in particular pioneered.  Listening to Missa Solemnis, you realise how much more profoundly an artist of a secular background, albeit one possessed of a rare genius, is capable of coming to terms and truly engaging with the profound implications of the sacred text in such a way that renders more religiously dogmatic interpretations simplistic in comparison.  And, in the case of Beethoven, here is a man who really penetrated to the heart of things in a way that can utterly freeze you in your seat.  Like all of the great music, this work has the power to clarify the mind and engage you with things of deep and lasting significance.  You are instantly struck by the sheer breadth and depth of human emotions that Beethoven could evoke in his work.   Here is terror and awe and supplication and entreaty evinced in the most visceral of human terms, beyond transitory contemporary mores of what is deemed "acceptable" language with which to praise the Almighty.  This is not a consoling work, nor is it a work to lull us into a sense of security.  It is very much engaged with the concept of the fragility of human souls caught in a state of fear and trembling as they consider the material things they have valued in their lives and what they have sacrificed at the expense of the things that truly matter, that only become visible at an advanced state of their life, perhaps when it is too late to make amends.  When I hear Missa Solemnis, I hear supplication echoed by self-doubt expressed in the most fearful terms against a backdrop of urgency. Perhaps the fear and trembling that lies at the very heart of this music is an acknowledgement of the disparate realties of the utter bleakness of a life without redemption, that there lies damnation at the end  of this life, of perhaps even blank nothingness.  Perhaps death itself is nothing more than an interruption and the concept of resolution to our lives,  never mind redemption, is nothing more than a delusion.  The greatness of this work lies in the way it encapsulates the sense of utter hopelessness of the penitent souls as they prostrate themselves before God in full knowledge of their transgressions and earnestly wishing that there still lies somewhere a rocky and rugged road to redemption.

Missa Solemnis occupies a singular place in the repertoire as one of the very greatest of all sacred masterpieces (along with Bach's Mass in B Minor and Monteverdi's 1610 Vespers) and yet, unlike Bach or Monteverdi, Beethoven did not write a great deal of sacred music and did not, strictly speaking, have any formal beliefs.  In this regard, he was very much a product of his time.  Post-Enlightenment European composers did not have to rely upon the Church  as a means of patronage in the same way that Monteverdi and Bach were obliged to.  However, Beethoven was very much influenced by the concept of a pantheistic deity and was fulfilled by the underlying precepts of Christianity, namely faith, hope and love.  What I find fascinating about this work is how personal a response it is to Beethoven's own sense of mortality, and a profound sense of awe and terror about death permeates the work and, in particular, the fear of what lies for him beyond the grave.  The innate difficulty of this work reflects acutely the profundity of Beethoven's approach to this subject. At this time of his life, his writing had become increasingly personal.  It is not accidental in any way that Beethoven inscribed "From the heart, may it return to the heart" on the original manuscript of the Missa Solemnis.  The work of his final period - comprising the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, the Hammerklavier piano sonata and the final string quartets - represent a man raging against his waning physical strength, his anger at his contemporary audience's lack of appreciation of his work, and, finally, a sense of the encroaching passage of time and a fear that his musical thoughts would die with him if he did not find a way to articulate them.  Much has been made of the innate difficulty of the works produced during Beethoven's final period - for both performers and listeners - but, to me that element of struggle produces an added human dimension to our appreciation of this work.   As we struggle with the music, we get a profound sense of of the physical and mental anguish that Beethoven expended when labouring over this music.   The work that was produced from these final four years can take a lifetime to assimilate but can, ultimately, evade all of us.  On the one hand, you listen to something as enchantingly beautiful as the Benedictus, which is as close to a vision of heaven as any of us has a right to expect, and then you have the fear and doubt and grave uncertainty in the Agnus Dei.  

Quite simply, this is music that you listen to in mute astonishment, which defeats cerebral analysis, which speaks directly to the heart, which drains you utterly, reduces you to tears and envelops you with a sense of overriding fear.  To my mind, no other work presents to the listener such an emotional gamut, nor does it suggest so strongly an intimation of the mortality that will, one day, confront us all.  

[fergus]

As ever Paul, that is a wonderful and beautifully crafted thesis and one which requires quite a bit of analysis as one could not take it all in at one reading. It is therefore something that I will come back to again at a more reasonable hour than midnight. Well done on a fine analysis of something that is obviously close to your heart; it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

[mcq]

Many thanks, Fergus, that's very kind. There is something so very unsettling about this music that is truly difficult to express in words - but it is something that you feel instinctively and becomes ever more apparent the more you listen to this work.

[Seán]

Hi Paul, that is a wonderful read, beautifully constructed and hugely informative, well done and thank you.

[Seán]

on my first listen to this set... and it's (predictably) very good indeed... it's a while since I listened to any Mozart Orchestral works, and it's refreshing to get back to them and give the Symphonies another run through...

I listen to Mozart's Symphonies regularly and am partcularly fond of the 35th & 36th, I do not have very many recordings, the Abbado and BPO performances are my favourite renditions of these gorgeous works.

[markof]

Love this recording. It's like the Martin Logans were built with the cello in mind.

I really like that one too; I assume that you have Vol. 1 MarK?

Yes I have it. I think I bought both after reading a recommendation in this forum, probably by yourself. Must listen to it again today.

I find the forum a great source of music inspiration. If I think I might be interested, I trial an album in Spotify and purchase it later if I like what I hear.

Many Thanks. Mark.

[markof]

Really lovely stuff .

[Jose Echenique]

The Missa Solemnis used to be an extremely difficult work to perform, especially when there were no professional choirs of the quality of the Monteverdi Choir or the Collegium Vocale.
In the early 1930´ s and 1940´s performances with Toscanini used to have glorious vocal quartets (Zinka Milanov, Bruna Castagna, Jussi BJörling and Alexander Kipnis) but his choirs were barely adequate.
This used to be the case up to the 70´s, that´s why memorable recordings of the Missa Solemnis were so rare. When I was growing up you basically had only 3 choices: Klemperer on EMI, Jochum on Philips and Karajan on DG. Other conductors later contributed: there was a fine Böhm recording in DG with Margaret Price and Christa Ludwig.

As I said, the new Herreweghe recording is also wonderful, but it´s basically the same interpretation as the one in HM, and therefore I see no point in Herreweghe repeating himself.

[mcq]

One of the most extraordinary versions of Missa Solemnis that I've heard is a live performance from 1977 conducted by Rafael Kubelik (and available on Orfeo).  Absolutely inspired conducting of the Bavarian Radio Symphony and the choir sing magnificently. Unlike many other modern instrument performances the choral forces are beautifully balanced with the orchestra.  Kubelik's tempi are measured but never seem to drag.  An otherworldly sense of reflective calm and spiritual repose informs this performance.  There is a famous line from Heinrich von Kleist's On the Marionette Theatre which comes vividly to mind:  "when consciousness has passed through an infinity, grace will return".  It is this state of grace that is the hallmark of Kubelik's performance, just like a searing intensity epitomises Karajan's reading at Salzburg in 1979 or the sense of self-doubt and humility that Herreweghe conjures up in both of his readings.