Finally Missa solemnis

[lennygoran]

Over the years I've tried quite a few times to get enjoyment from this work-I own and have listened to the Arnold Schoenberg choir and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Haroncourt-live recording salzburg festival July 1992. Somehow I could never get it but today sitting at the computer working on some tedious paperwork I decided to try again. Finally I enjoyed! It's got to be it took me so long because of my own limitations--it couldn't just be that one performance is so much better than the other? It probably has to do with what Wiki says. Regards, Len


"Despite critical recognition as one of Beethoven's great works from the height of his composing career, Missa solemnis has not achieved the same level of popular attention that many of his symphonies and sonatas have enjoyed. Some critics have been troubled by the problem that, as Theodor W. Adorno put it, "there is something peculiar about the Missa solemnis." [4] In many ways, it is an atypical work, even for Beethoven. Missing is the sustained exploration of themes through development that is one of Beethoven's hallmarks. "


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missa_sol ... ethoven%29



Ludwig van Beethoven
Missa Solemnis in D major, Op 123

1 Kyrie
2 Gloria
3 Credo
4 Sanctus
5 Agnus Dei

Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano
Elina Garanca, mezzo soprano
Michael Schade, tenor
Franz-Josef Selig, bass

Dresden State Opera Chorus
Staatskapelle Dresden
Chistian Thielemann, conductor

Live recording. Dresden, February 2010

[josé echenique]

I think the Missa Solemnis Beethoven´s greatest work, in fact I remember reading that he said so himself.
It´s a big, long, demanding work, with frightening demands for the chorus and soloists, but it´s also, noble, compassionate and awe inspiring.
The sheer number of recordings now available contradict that it´s not "popular" if by that is meant not well known.

It was the last work Harnoncourt conducted before an audience by the way.

[lennygoran]

I think the Missa Solemnis Beethoven´s greatest work, in fact I remember reading that he said so himself.

Jose thanks-for some reason I just couldn't seem to appreciate it-glad I went back to it. Regards, Len

[jbuck919]

It´s a big, long, demanding work, with frightening demands for the chorus and soloists, but it´s also, noble, compassionate and awe inspiring.

Not to mention the orchestra, starting with the concertmaster's obligation to perform the incredible and extended solo in the Benedictus.

[John F]

Over the years I've tried quite a few times to get enjoyment from this work-I own and have listened to the Arnold Schoenberg choir and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Haroncourt-live recording salzburg festival July 1992. Somehow I could never get it but today sitting at the computer working on some tedious paperwork I decided to try again. Finally I enjoyed! It's got to be it took me so long because of my own limitations--it couldn't just be that one performance is so much better than the other?

My experience is something like yours. It took a very persuasive performance for me to get into this music, after years of hearing it now and then. I suppose it's partly in the nature of the music, partly in the nature of us.

[lennygoran]

My experience is something like yours.

Wow, I'm in very knowledgeable company then-makes me feel a little better- I was so happy with that work I decided to give another work I have struggled with a try-it paid dividends-Britten's War Requiem! Regards, Len

[maestrob]

This is my favorite reading, formerly available on EMI.......

I suppose you could say that I "got" the piece in my forties or thereabouts. Wish I had sung it, but never had the chance.

[josé echenique]

This is my favorite reading, formerly available on EMI.......

I suppose you could say that I "got" the piece in my forties or thereabouts. Wish I had sung it, but never had the chance.

That was also my first recording, a noble and compelling reading from Klemperer. The Wilhelm Pitz trained chorus was the best until Gardiner and Herreweghe took choral singing to a different level.
The now almost forgotten Eugen Jochum/Concertgebouw version was probably second best in the 60´s and 70´s.

[jbuck919]

Now this is a first--apparently I'm the precocious one here. I "got" it the first time I heard it. It was a broadcast of a live performance from St. Peter's Basilica, of all places, with Pope Paul VI in attendance. The acoustics must have been terrible at the site, but this did not come across in the broadcast. It was in 1970 and the conductor was Sawallisch, a name that meant nothing to me at the time, but I had to look up those two specifics just now. There are excerpts on YouTube.

(Perhaps I was comparing it to the execrable parish settings of the Latin Mass I could still remember from just a couple of years previously. I have had the text by heart since boyhood.)

[josé echenique]

Now this is a first--apparently I'm the precocious one here. I "got" it the first time I heard it. It was a broadcast of a live performance from St. Peter's Basilica, of all places, with Pope Paul VI in attendance. The acoustics must have been terrible at the site, but this did not come across in the broadcast. It was in 1970 and the conductor was Sawallisch, a name that meant nothing to me at the time, but I had to look up those two specifics just now. There are excerpts on YouTube.

(Perhaps I was comparing it to the execrable parish settings of the Latin Mass I could still remember from just a couple of years previously. I have had the text by heart since boyhood.)

I saw that performance some years later but still in the 70´s, maybe 78 or 79, what caught my attention was Domingo´s Radamés-like rendition of the tenor part.