"From the heart, may it again go to the heart", Beethoven wrote above the opening 'Kyrie' in the manuscript of his greatest choral work, the Missa solemnis . His plea may well have been intended as a personal message to his friend, pupil and patron Archduke Rudolph, to whom he had already dedicated so many of his masterpieces. The Mass was occasioned by Rudolph's installation in 1820 as Archbishop of Olmütz, in Moravia. But Beethoven's work was conceived on an unprecedentedly large scale, and it proved impossible for him to complete it in time for the ceremony. Not until 1823 was the score finally ready. The premiere, organised by Prince Nikolas Galitzin (it was he who commissioned the first three in Beethoven's series of late string quartets), took place in St Petersburg on 7 April of the following year.
To Beethoven, the Missa solemnis was his greatest achievement, and it is a work whose intellectual power and expressive depth still leave an indelible impression today. The overwhelming contrasts of the 'Gloria', the tremendous fugues that conclude that section as well as the 'Credo', the manner in which the resounding cries of 'Osanna' break off to give way to an orchestral Praeludium of utmost calm - these are among the work's many unforgettable moments. The Praeludium is darkly scored for low-lying flutes and bassoon (doubled by a single-line organ part), with violas, divided cellos and basses. Out of it emerges a solo violin slowly floating slowly down from on high, in tandem with a pair of flutes, for the start of the 'Benedictus' - one of Beethoven's most radiant pieces of scoring.
Beethoven described the 'Agnus Dei' as a prayer for inner and outer peace. Its calm is shattered by the menacing sounds of war - fanfares for trumpets and timpani growing ever more insistent, as the mezzo-soprano soloist launches into a fervent plea for peace. The idea is one that can be traced back to the late Masses of Haydn, which were actually composed during the Napoleonic wars; but Beethoven turns it to stunningly dramatic use, with the voice singing 'fearfully', to the accompaniment of shuddering strings.
The Missa solemnis has inevitably overshadowed Beethoven's C major Mass of 1807, though the earlier setting is a fine work in its own right. It was composed for the name-day of Princess Esterházy - the same occasion for which Haydn had contributed his series of late Masses - but the manner in which Beethoven fused soloists and chorus into large symphonic blocks provoked the Prince's displeasure. Beethoven was well aware of the originality of his piece. "I believe", he told the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, "that I have treated the text as it has seldom been treated before." At the end of the 'Agnus Dei' the work comes full-circle, returning to the theme of its opening 'Kyrie'.
The Choral Fantasy Op.80 was designed as the grand finale of what turned out to be a disastrous concert on 22 December 1808. The programme, including the premieres of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, lasted very nearly four hours; and on an exceptionally cold night both the theatre's heating system and the performance of the Choral Fantasy broke down. The Fantasy combines elements of a piano improvisation, a concerto, a series of variations and a symphonic piece, and both its main theme and its form anticipate the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Beethoven himself was dismissive of his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives , of 1803. It was, he later confessed, "written in a fortnight during all kinds of disturbances and other unpleasant and distressing events in my life"; and of no greater interest is his other oratorio, Der glorreiche Augenblick ('The Glorious Moment'), commissioned for the Congress of Vienna in 1814. But the cantata Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage , composed shortly after the latter work, beautifully evokes the imagery of the pair of poems by Goethe that later inspired a more famous overture by Mendelssohn. The poems' titles are not synonymous: in the days before steam, a totally calm sea was cause for alarm. It is only when the wind at last rises that the ship can continue on its journey.
In May 1884 the influential critic Eduard Hanslick wrote to Brahms, enclosing the scores of two newly discovered cantatas by Beethoven - one of them on the death of the Emperor Joseph II, the other on the accession of Leopold II. Brahms responded enthusiastically, and pointed out that Beethoven borrowed a passage from the first of the cantatas for one of the most poignant moments in Fidelio , when Leonore frees her imprisoned husband from his chains. Beethoven completed both cantatas before reaching the age of 20, and it's a remarkable tribute to his youthful inspiration that he felt able to plunder them for so crucial an instant in his great opera. He may have thought nostalgically of those early works, too, when he came to write the finale of his Ninth Symphony: the line 'Ihr stürtzt nieder, Millionen' ('Prostrate yourselves, ye millions') from Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' were clearly evoked by the author of the text of the Cantata on the Accession of Leopold II , whose finale chorus begins with the words, 'Stürtzet nieder, Millionen'.
©Misha Donat
