Beethoven's Missa Solemnis played a key part in my youthful developing
interest in classical music.  I remember purchasing a recording of it on
the old Nonesuch budget label giving it no more consideration than, "It's
Beethoven, so it is probably important." I played it over and over, getting
comfortable with its craggy parts and its abrupt changes of dynamics and
mood.  On reflection, considering the number of missteps brought on in
future years by reliance on the recommendations of others, maintaining the
naive purchasing criteria that led me to this recording probably wouldn't
have been all bad!  MCML recommendations excluded, of course!

Actually, having long since worn out and disposed of the Nonesuch record,
I can't recall whose performance it was.  I currently own three versions
and find each of them problematic for various reasons.  The Karajan came
first.  I was never comfortable with it because I felt the sopranos in the
chorus labored distractingly in the many high passages the piece requires.
The 1940 Toscanini is a valuable historic document, but the recorded sound
is uneven.  The soloists (Milanov, Castagna, Bjorling and Kipnis) while
amazing individually, outshine each other and the chorus.  My favorite of
my three is a Sony disc with Ormandy conducting Philadelphia's Singing City
Choir with Martina Arroyo, Maureen Forrester, Richard Lewis, and Cesare
Siepi as soloists.

I'd be interested to hear which versions others favor and why.

This is all by way of preamble to a brief report on last night's
performance at Symphony Hall in Boston.  In beginning their season with
the Missa Solemnis the BSO is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Symphony
Hall which opened with a performance of the Mass on October 15, 1900.  The
Globe's critic Richard Dyer felthad rough edges and summer rustiness were
apparent last night; the Mass will be performed three more times and should
be sufficiently polished by next week for even the toughest critics,
leaving solely the memory of a fittingly splendid performance in this
wonderful venue.

Ironically, when the hall opened, some critics of the time complained about
the program.  Henry T. Fink in the Evening Post argued that the acoustic
suitability of the hall would be better tested using, "a number of short
compositions by writers of different methods--say Mozart, Schubert, and
Wagner.  Beethoven...should have been represented on this occasion by one
of his symphonies."

With all due respect to Mr. Fink, I disagree.  It's century later and
Symphony Hall has long since demonstrated the fulfillment of a wishful
prediction he made later in the same review.  He wrote that, "[having] the
advantage of starting out well, it would not be surprising if mellowing
time made [Symphony Hall] a Stradivarius among halls." So, acoustics of
the hall aside, what is left is the music; in that regard one can hardly
imagine a piece more suitable to inuagurate or honor a temple of art.

On the proscenium at Symphony Hall are several shields on which to inscribe
the names of composers.  It is not by chance that Beethoven's is the only
name actually inscribed.  And, arguably, the Missa Solemnis, written late
in his life is -- even moreso than the Ninth Symphony-- the great summation
of his artistic and spiritual life.  The BSO has begun the practice of
offering free lectures before concerts and Marc Mandel's enjoyable and
interesting talk did a good job of demonstrating this point.  The talk was
a model of what such talks can (and should) be: accessible, informative
and laced with carefully thought out musical examples.

He showed how the first two sections are a public statement (much like the
Ninth Symphony).  The Credo then forms a kind of arch.  On the other side
are two comparatively more introspective sections.  These convey the
transcending spiritual journey of Beethoven the man.

This is not an operatic liturgy as are, say, Verdi's Requiem or Rossini's
Stabat Mater.  Despite its wonderful vocal music, it is more symphonic in
construction with the chorus and soloists as participants in the orchestra.
For this reason the blending of voices, with the orchestra and with each
other, is critical.  For me this is the downfall of some recordings:
either the chorus sounds out of control, the soloists dominate them or
vice-versa, or the soloists do not collectively create a believable,
balanced ensemble.

Last night's soloists were not the biggest names ever to appear in
Boston, but they were very well matched to the task at hand.  They were
Emiko Suga, Anna Larson, Kurt Streit, and Willard White.  Mr Streit's
voice was the biggest.  In the course of the performance he brought it
into balance better and better with the others.  Ms Larson and Mr White
brought mellowness to the lower ranges, and Ms Suga's was sweet without any
stridency.  The largest ovations were for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus
which, like the soloists, sang from memory.  They displayed both power and
control and commitment to what they were singing.  The Globe's Richard Dyer
described it as "responsive" singing.  He does not extend his praise for
responsiveness to the soloists, but it takes a more refined ear than mine
to feel they were lacking in this regard.

In the more personal Sanctus and Benedictus a fifth soloist is added.
This soloist does not sing however.  Befitting the spiritual and reflective
tone of the music at this point, the solo is given to the first violin.
Its message is beyond words.  Concertmaster Malcom Lowe, who played it,
was described by Carl Vigeland in a 1989 book called *in Concert* about
the BSO and Seiji Ozawa, as: "...having mastered the ability to convey
the emotions of his life through those of music." It certainly sounded
that way to me.

Great music communicates emotional truths in various ways.  Mr. Mandel
spoke about another when he cited the importance of musical word painting
in the Credo section.  Sections of the orchestra demonstrated this
convincingly.  A specific example he used was fully apparent during the
performance.  Above the literal text "et incarnatus est," the flutes
portray floating doves of peace.  I was also impressed generally by the
playing of the winds and cellos whose polyphonic lines I had not
appreciated from recordings.

We often see comments here and elsewhere about the ways in which
meticulously engineered and spliced recordings have stacked the deck
against live performance.  However, a performance like this one --in a
place like this one-- demonstrates that if live music is ever rendered
obsolete, it will be because of economics, not aesthetics.

No recording and no audio equiment in the world can match the sound
and feeling in Symphony Hall at the end of the Gloria.  We sat in the
second balcony at the back of the hall; the sound climbed towards us and,
reverberating off the walls, enveloped us.  Recalling it a day later, I am
tempted to describe it visually: as a rising mist or a comforting shawl.
It was that tangible.

Glory indeed!  Symphony Hall at one hundred: a Stradivarius for certain.
Artists like Mr Ozawa and Mr. Lowe, a gift to our community.  Beethoven:
the paragon of creative genius and human aspiration.

In the program notes Mr Mandel shares a description of Beethoven writing
the Credo of Missa Solemnis.  Anton Schindler reported him: "singing,
yelling, stamping his feet...The door opened and Beethoven stood before
us, his features distorted to the point of inspiring terror.  He looked
as though he had just engaged in a life and death struggle with the whole
army of contrpuntists, his everlasting enemies."

In the book *In Concert* Malcom Lowe makes a statement that the author
speculates may reflect his feelings towards his conductor.  He says: "To
stand on one's own takes courage." Stand on his own is what Beethoven did
in his music.  The program notes quote Martin Cooper in *Beethoven: The
Lat Decade, 1817-1827*" He wrote that: "as a young man Beethoven was
indeed both proud and self-sufficient, and it was only the experience
of his deafness that broke this pride, slowly and painfully turning the
heaven-storming, largely extrovert composer of the early and middle period
works into the self-communing and contemplative visionary of the last ten
years...Beethoven moved from a position of militant stoicism...to an
acceptance which, whatever his everyday life may have been, bears in his
music the unmistakable character of joy, that unearthly joy such as is only
achieved through suffering."

Each of these aspects is on display in Missa Solemnis.  Moving far beyond
the musical conventions of his day, he confronted his existence and,
ultimately, made his own peace with it.  (Dona Nobis Pacem).  This is what
his music encourages the listener to do also.  The concert halls in which
it is played may be celebrated as venerable institutions a hundred and
eighty years after he wrote it, but the message of the music is no less
radical or challenging in our time than it was in his.

Ed Zubrow <[log in to unmask]>