Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis
Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is a unique setting of the mass. Though Beethoven set out to write it for the celebration of the enthronisation of his favourite pupil and royal patron, the Archduke Rudolph, as the Archbishop of Olmütz,[1] this was merely a pretext to set upon a highly personal journey of self-questioning. For in the mass, Beethoven delved into the roots of his own faith, vigorously upturning the soil of his beliefs. The composition of the mass was inevitable: the ideas behind it must have been born in Beethoven’s mind much earlier than the year of 1818 when it became known that the Archduke Rudolph was to be enthronised. But the mass was never completed in time for the ceremony, and went through a gestation period of four years before it was finished. By the time it emerged full-fledged into the world, it had gained a wholly new dimension – not only was it enormous in sheer size, but it had become something of a personal testimony. Whilst retaining some points of contact with previous classical mass settings, the work is unconventional in its borrowing from older traditions. Essentially personal, it is more an individual assertion of faith than a public and institutional one and had considerable influence on the masses and requiems of 19th-century composers. This essay will examine how the mass relates to, and diverges from, previous classical settings of the mass both in style and as a public and institutional assertion of faith; further, the work’s fundamentally personal nature will be expounded on, as well as its influence on the masses and requiems of Schubert, Brahms and Dvorak.
As the Missa Solemnis is a work dating from Beethoven’s late period, it is only to be expected that it is in many ways extraordinary. It is then no surprise that the relationship it bears to previous classical mass settings is a curious one. Beethoven owes many of his basic forms to the tradition of the Viennese classical mass;[2] he was influenced to the greatest degree by Haydn. Like other Viennese masses, the Missa Solemnis does not follow most of the directives of the Roman Missal as to how masses should be composed – for example, in the Credo, as in the Gloria, the Roman Missal directs that the first words, “Credo in unum Deum”, should be intoned by the priest; these words are never set in early masses, such as those of Palestrina. But composers of Viennese masses almost always set the opening words for choir, and Beethoven did likewise. Nevertheless, the masses of Viennese composers were mostly missa breves, masses so brief that they had to employ time-saving devices such as the overlapping of verbal phrases.[3] Beethoven, on the other hand, treated the set text with the deepest respect. The Missa Solemnis is most comparable to Haydn’s solemn masses, which show “an expansion of scale over previous masses in the Viennese tradition.”[4]
Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli includes fanfares in the trumpets and drums at the climaxes of both the Benedictus and Agnus Dei;[5] in the Agnus Dei of the Missa Solemnis, we hear similar fanfares. These fanfares did not serve merely decorative purposes – they reflected on the political and military situation of the time. In the 1820’s the military threat of both the Turks and Napoleon was still fresh in the memories of the Viennese, and thus the political climate came to be reflected in the music.
Nevertheless, whilst Haydn’s “war music” is almost genial in character, the interruptions of the trumpets and timpani in the “Dona nobis” of the Agnus Dei in the Missa Solemnis are severely disquieting. We are reminded that peace may be temporary and that the enemy may still be lurking in the distance. No composer except Beethoven would have dared to treat the Agnus Dei with such pessimism. Although the first section of the movement was traditionally treated in a minor key, in the Missa Solemnis it has a black subterranean resonance about it that is unparalleled. Beethoven set the section in B minor, “a dark tonality”[6] which he very rarely used. Considering the text,[7] his treatment of it might suggest that he felt deep anguish about the suffering of Christ for the redemption of humanity; the pained mourning of the solo voices is weighed down by the presence of sin which they beg to have absolved.
As convention decrees, the “Dona nobis” is in the major and involves a suitably communal and joyful – although not exultant – choir. It even includes some pastoral music, which reflects the kind of peace Beethoven must have desired for himself as well as for Vienna. But more than once when the piece seems to be drawing to a close the music is interrupted by the persistent rumble of the timpani, which reminds us again that the prayer for peace must not necessarily be granted. The interpretation of the text is highly personal – and this may be said of the whole mass.
Although Beethoven’s greatest influence among the classical composers was Haydn, he was also influenced by Cherubini, whose mass writing was more contrapuntal than that of Haydn’s. Cherubini’s earliest masses “show his intensive practice in the stile antico”[8] and in his mass in F he included a fugue in the “Christe Eleison” section of the Kyrie as well as extensive fugues in the usual places.[9] This must have appealed to Beethoven, who by his late period had come by something of an obsession for fugal writing.
As has been demonstrated, the Missa Solemnis retains several points of contact with previous classical mass settings, and upon deeper analysis further technical similarities could be discovered. However, it diverges from its predecessors because it is essentially a personal assertion of faith, not a public and institutional one. The setting is greatly original in nature and hardly fits within the confines of the classical style. It is deeply unorthodox, including many deliberate archaisms – the mass is entrenched in musical traditions much older than those of Beethoven’s immediate predecessors. In the Gloria and Credo especially, “the traditions of the Viennese mass are made to accommodate older traditions deliberately resuscitated; Beethoven rubs shoulders with Haydn (the Haydn of the masses), Palestrina, Handel and Bach.”[10] That Beethoven studied the music of these composers it is certain: according to Thayer, when Beethoven died he possessed full scores of Handel’s Messiah and Alexander’s Feast, and Bach’s Art of Fugue, as well as the works of his classical contemporaries.[11]
Beethoven’s admiration for Handel was great. There was a blazing, radiant quality to much of Handel’s choral writing which Beethoven took and metamorphosed. Many of the choral passages in the Missa Solemnis have a glowingly joyous quality to them. In the Gloria, for example, the blaze of the voices is almost aggressively exultant, the upper female voices sounding out the beautiful wrath of avenging angels.[12] These angels were more than a congregation, but actual spirits glowing with a personal flame. That the Baroque master influenced Beethoven to a great extent there can be no doubt.[13]
The Missa Solemnis also touches on the realm of Palestrina and his contemporaries. The aura of early music can be felt in many places, such as “Et resurrexit” in the Credo, during which the choral tenors are joined in rhythmical unison by the the altos and basses in an a cappella declamation of the words that is reminiscent of 16th-century masses. Another example of reference to early music is “Et in terra pax” in the Kyrie; it has a modal flavour and is strongly reminiscent, with its rhythmical unison, of the Gregorian chant. Beethoven’s study of early music is obvious; not only was he familiar with the masses of Palestrina but he had already envisioned the use of “the ancient modes” in another project.[14] Thus it could be said that Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is something of a time machine: travelling from his classical Viennese present back through the centuries, and indeed even heralding the future in his innovative creation.
Another of the startlingly unconventional facets of the mass is the predominance of instrumental music within it; not only is there an extensive violin solo in the Sanctus and Benedictus that seems to transcend earthly dimensions, but the orchestra “sings” the rhythm of the words “Kyrie eleison” before the choir enters. The military kit of trumpet and drums is present from the very beginning, though its role is most dominant in the Agnus Dei. It may thus be concluded that within the mass, the orchestra is not confined to the role of accompaniment but actually plays an almost equal part to the singers.
In the Sanctus and Benedictus another artistic unorthodoxy comes to light. Conventionally, there are two sections to the movement, the first beginning with “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus” and the second with “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini”; according to the Roman Missal there should indeed be a small gap between the two to make time for the Elevation of the Host. During this gap there was sometimes a modest improvisation by the organist. In the Missa Solemnis, however, Beethoven linked the sections together, breaking with tradition and treading on completely new ground.[15]
From what has already been stated, the Missa Solemnis is a highly individual interpretation of the mass text and serves as a personal assertion of faith. Despite being intended for a public ceremony, it grew into a colossal statement of Beethoven’s beliefs and ideas. It contains the depths of Beethoven’s most private spiritual feeling, which is innovatively often communicated first by the group of soloists and is echoed and built on by the chorus and orchestra. Traditionally, in festive masses the solo singers expected to have extensive virtuosic passages in which they could exhibit their vocal technique to the full. Beethoven, however, followed Haydn by treating his soloists more as a concertante group interweaving with the choir, as was the Baroque practice. He went entirely against the grain by giving the solo voices, who usually had no narrative significance whatever, almost all the subjective utterance: the soloists became his spokespeople for the most personal statements of belief and the most troubling questionings, whilst the choir became the community, the congregation, repeating the soloists’ declarations in sheep-like awe.[16] The choir then serves to symbolise institutional belief and perhaps in a broader sense collective humanity, whereas the soloists are individuals.
Nevertheless, despite its personal nature, the mass does have communal aspects. The majestic vastness of the chorus and orchestra mandates that the strength of the universal feeling that is demonstrated by the performers creates a powerful binding force that is far beyond something private and personal in the manner of chamber music. But this very greatness of feeling stems from Beethoven’s mind and could only take shape in something truly monumental. Any less than the forces he employed would not be sufficient for the assertion of his personal beliefs. The presence of the soloists in the mass proves it to be a personal work in essence.
The individualised setting of the Missa Solemnis had considerable influence on masses of the 19th century, particularly those of Schubert and Bruckner, as well as on the requiems of Brahms and Dvorak. Nineteenth century masses in general turned away from liturgical use and were most frequently found in the concert hall. Not being institutional any longer, the masses immediately gained a more personal flavour, and composers became freer to express their own individual religious feeling. This was very much in accord with the spirit of Romanticism. Beethoven’s retrieval of past traditions also influenced his successors – reaching back into earlier periods served to enrich their musical language, as well as to give their work an aura of timelessness. It must therefore be acknowledged that Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis set a unique example for subsequent mass settings and requiems, an example that could be labelled a pursuit for inner truth.
It is notable that the mature masses of Schubert were almost all based upon internal impulse rather on external events, and his whole work as a composer is saturated in personal religious devotion. The Mass in E flat is perhaps the most personal of all his masses. The inheritance of the symphonic style is clearly Beethovenian, and “the concluding Gloria and Credo fugues, with their sharply chiselled subjects, suggest a composer who had studied Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.”[17] The Agnus Dei is not only full of colourful chromaticisms but harks back to Bach, taking as its basis an adaptation of the C sharp minor fugue subject from the first book of Bach’s Das wohltemperirte Clavier.[18] Thus it is not only highly individual in its subjective idiom but also in the way it draws on past traditions.
Brahms’ German Requiem is, to say the least, unorthodox. Brahms entirely substitutes the Latin text of the Requiem with an independent collection of German texts that has no liturgical purpose. [19] Brahms’ comment on his own work, “I will admit that I could happily omit the ‘German’ and simply say ‘Human’…” describes the requiem astutely. Although taking from the Christian tradition, there is no direct mention of redemption through Christ throughout the whole work, making it universally religious rather than limited to a particular cult. In all of this inheritance from the Missa Solemnis can be found.
Dvorak’s Requiem is a haunting work very different to Brahms’ setting of a similar name, yet it likewise shows many traces of the influence of the Missa Solemnis. Dvorak was deeply religious, but his setting of the text is non-liturgical and closer to an oratorio than anything else. It is symphonic and almost shockingly personal in nature, and reaches far back into the traditions of the Gregorian chant as well as those of the Czech Gothic hymn. Further, the chromatic four-note motif that recurs consistently throughout the work seems to indirectly quote the fugue subject of the second Kyrie subsection in Bach’s B minor mass, one of the monuments of the choral settings of the Baroque period.
In conclusion, the Missa Solemnis is wonderfully astonishing in many ways. Although it obeys some conventions of Viennese mass writing, it could hardly be called a public and institutional assertion of faith in any normal sense, and is indeed so personal that had it been truly understood during its time it would have likely caused a scandal. It is perhaps not wholly comprehended even today – there are some things about such a work that must remain a mystery, veiled to all but the spirit of Beethoven incarnate in the music. Its individualistic and personal nature unsurprisingly had an impact on subsequent 19th century settings, and indeed even on those of the 20th century. Beethoven’s genius had an enormous impact on all music and musicians that came after him – and there is no greater example of that genius than the Missa Solemnis. So long as humanity lasts on this earth, the spirit of Beethoven will forever live on through it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Score examined:
Beethoven, Ludwig van, ed. Willy Hess. Missa Solemnis., London: Ernst Eulenburg, n.d.
Sources consulted:
Bozarth, George S., and Frisch, Walter. “Brahms, Johannes.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 2001. Vol. 4, pp. 180-227.
Cooper, Martin. Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817-1827. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Doge, Klaus. “Dvorak, Antonin.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 2001. Vol. 7, pp. 777-814.
Drabkin, William. Beethoven: Missa Solemnis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Fiske, Roger. Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. London: Paul Elek, 1979.
Hindley, Geoffrey, ed., The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music. N.p.: Hamlyn, 1994. 17th impression.
Jones, David Wyn. The Life of Beethoven, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Kerman, Joseph, et al. “Beethoven, Ludwig van.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 2001. Vol. 3, pp. 73-140.
Kirkendale, Warren. “New roads to old ideas in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.” The Creative World of Beethoven. Ed. Paul Henry Lang. New York: Norton, 1970.
McKinnon, James W., et al. “Mass.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 2001. Vol.16, pp. 58-85.
Solomon, Maynard. Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Sullivan, J.W.N. Beethoven: His Spiritual Development. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979.
Tame, David. Beethoven and the Spiritual Path. Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1994.
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock. Thayer’s Life of Beethoven. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.
Winter, Robert. “Reconstructing Riddles: The Sources for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.” Eds. Lewis Lockwood and Phyllis Benjamin. Beethoven Essays: Studies in Honor of Elliot Forbes. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Winter, Robert, et al. “Schubert, Franz.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press, 2001. Vol. 22, pp.655-729.
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[1] Joseph Kerman, et al, “Beethoven, Ludwig”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (Macmillan Press, London, 2001), vol. 3, pp. 73-140.
[2] See Roger Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Paul Elek, London, 1979), Chapter 1.
[3] Composers such as Mozart and Michael Haydn were commissioned by the Archbishop of Salzburg to write masses that were limited to approximately 20 minutes in length, which made the repetition of words in the Gloria and the Credo impossible.
[4] James W. McKinnon, et al, “Mass”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (Macmillan Press, London, 2001), vol.16, p. 81.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Beethoven once made a note calling it this. See Willy Hess’ Introduction to the Eulenburg score, p. xiii.
[7] Lamb of God, thou takest away the sins of the world.
[8] James W. McKinnon, et al, “Mass”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan Press, 2001), vol. 16, p. 81.
[9] Ibid.
[10] J. Kerman, et al, “Beethoven”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001, vol. 3, p. 105.
[11] Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Thayer’s Life of Beethoven (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967).
[12] Richard Toop, Lecture (Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Monday, 7th of May, 2007).
[13] It is known that Beethoven actually copied out Handel’s Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah by hand in preparation for the writing of the Missa solemnis.
[14] Also for voices. Beethoven once said that “Pure church music should be performed only by voices…” That the Missa solemnis would not comply with Beethoven’s own notion of “pure” church music is suggestive: the mass is not in any way a conventional institutional setting. See Geoffrey Hindley, ed. The Larousse Encyclopedia of Music (n.p., Hamlyn, 1994), p. 268.
[15] Roger Fiske, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, (Paul Elek, London, 1979), p. 12.
[16] Although at other times, they were more like “the heavenly host” that Handel thought he saw before him whilst he composed. Richard Toop, Lecture (Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Monday, 7th of May, 2007).
[17] Robert Winter, et al, “Schubert, Franz”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (Macmillan Press, London, 2001), vol. 22, p. 680.
[18]Ibid., p. 681.
[19] Fifteen passages from Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible.
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