Missa Solemnis

Ludwig van Beethoven

The musical offering we have for you this week is distinguished in every aspect.

The Music
While contemporaries of Beethoven considered the writing of masses as a routine part of their profession, Beethoven had a much more restrained approach to writing religious music. He composed only two masses, but in an 1824 letter to his publisher, he declared his own Missa Solemnis (“Solemn Mass”) his greatest work.

Many believe that Beethoven was not particularly religious, so strong was his character as a revolutionary and a child of the Enlightenment. Some take as further proof that Beethoven was dismissive of traditional religious views the fact that for the Missa Solemnis, he shortened and changed the liturgical text and composed the mass almost in a symphonic way rather than as church music. And yet, could it be the other way around? Isn’t there a depth, transcendence, and spiritual victory in all of Beethoven’s music that would classify his entire oeuvre as profoundly spiritual? I like to think of it as such. Even Beethoven’s most famous portrait (used as the featured image for this post), painted in 1820 by Joseph Karl Stieler, shows him in the act of composing the “Credo” from the Solemn Mass. What better way to confess to posterity that “I believe”?

The Conductor
Italian Fabio Luisi was named chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Semperoper in 2004 and was chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra until 2013. He also held the position of general musical director of the Zurich Opera and is currently principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

The Venue
This exceptional performance of Beethoven’s Solemn Mass is set in the Frauenkirche of Dresden, Germany. The Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), one of Dresden’s landmark buildings, carries a monitory message to this day. Allied bombings completely destroyed Dresden and the Church of Our Lady in one of the most devastating air raids of modern history. The number of civilian deaths has become a political and historical controversy but is agreed to be at least in the range of tens of thousands. For 45 years, the church ruins remained as a memorial of 20th-century history until its rebuilding (from 1993 to 2005) using what remained of its original bricks.

Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis was chosen for the opening celebration of the reconstructed church on November 4, 2005.