Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123 (1824) by Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Concentus Musicus Wien on Sony Classical (2016), mostly while on a slow drive to and from the supermarket in Manahawkin, NJ for beach-house groceries, but partly later that evening while pacing the boardwalk to and from the 21st Street beach in Barnegat Light on our final full day at the Shore this week.
They say this piece is one of the pinnacles of sacred Western classical. They are right. It is spaciously majestic. It features two of my favorite modes (Dorian and Mixolydian). It’s not overweighted with Beethovian repetition, about which I have mixed feelings, usually depending on how I feel about the charm of the theme.
Plus, it’s anything but solemn. (Apparently, “solemn” in musical settings means “lengthy and elaborate.”) That is, except in its final, lugubrious Adagio, set to the “miserere nobis” portion of the Agnus Dei plea. For such a long, stirring, adventurous piece of sacred music to spend its penultimate seven minutes on a dirge that misses the desperate, yearning spirit of the plea is a disappointment. Beethoven teases relieving my disappointment with an unexpected drum break about a fifth of the way through the next and final portion of the text (“dona nobis pacem”), surprising me and priming me to expect a barnburner of a finale. But it isn’t to last: He soon settles into music that comes off to me as brotherhood-of-man pabulum.
Speaking of the brotherhood of man—but hopefully not of pabulum—I have just one more piece of Beethoven repertoire piece to go: Symphony No. 9. But which recording? As a first pass, I’ll opt for Vänskä / Minnesota Orchestra on the strength of Hurwitz’s review.