Felix Delbruck writes:

>I don't think Beethoven says things all on one level, though.  In his
>great works, the music works both on a meta-musical and a musical level,
>simultaneously. [...] Beethoven makes no bones of his compositional
>complexity and ambition, whereas Mozart cloaks it in surface accessibility
>and elegance.

Certainly true - plus LvB had one wicked sense of humor, even (especially?)
in his most "serious" works.

This is where I can get in my dig about the Missa Solemnis, which just
doesn't work for me.  (And I speak as one who loves both LvB's grand
non-choral works and choral religious works such as the Brahms Requiem.)
By any other composer it would be a near-masterpiece, but I expect more
from Beethoven.  For me it seems to lack just those qualities mentioned:
the wit and passion derived from sheer humanity and human spirit.
Beethoven just doesn't seem to function naturally within the structure
of the Mass; the Gloria is "too much too soon" and the remainder of the
work has "trying too hard" all through it.  (In fact, I prefer the less
ambitious "Mass in C" to the big one in D.) Perhaps it was just not
possible for someone whose work was all about the nobility and struggles
of mortals to direct that passion convincingly toward a higher authority.

Then again, I'm also a member of the "everything except the last
movement of the Ninth" camp.

 - seb