Aside from the above-mentioned oratorio _Christ on the Mount of Olives_,
Beethoven’s major religious compositions consist of the Mass in C major,
written in 1807, and the stupendous one in D—the overpowering _Missa
Solemnis_—begun in 1817 but not completed till 1825. The C major Mass
must not be thought of as an early creation or a thing in the manner of
the _Mount of Olives_. Actually, it is a work of the composer’s
maturity, virtually contemporaneous with the great “Leonore” Overture
and the Fifth Symphony. It was written at the instance of one of the
Esterhazy princes who, when he heard the mass, infuriated Beethoven by
asking: “Well, my dear Beethoven, what is it you have gone and done
now?” Strangely enough, the C major Mass for all its unquestionable
beauties is treated in rather stepchildly fashion. No greater mistake
could be made than to compare it with the _Missa Solemnis_ of a much
later date and of basically different premises. “It expresses in the
region of sacred music the joyful and victorious mood of the overture
and the Symphony,” says Paul Bekker. “An atmosphere of simple piety
pervades the Mass; no inner disunion, no brooding doubt, no unsatisfied
thirst for knowledge finds expression here. The Mass in C is a
confession of the composer’s faith and is at the same time liturgically
practicable; it expresses a great artist’s confident belief, at a time
when he was one in thought and feeling with the ‘spiritual powers that
be’ of his period.”
The great Mass in D is a totally different proposition. It was the slow
and gradual outgrowth of one of the periods of Beethoven’s life where
soul-shaking problems crowded ceaselessly upon him. He began to work
upon it with the idea of producing it at the enthronement of his friend
and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph, as Archbishop of Olmütz. But as it
slowly expanded the composer forgot more and more why he had originally
conceived it. It became in the grandest and deepest sense an expression
of its creator’s profoundest philosophies. Barring three movements of
the work, none of the _Missa Solemnis_ was ever performed during the
composer’s lifetime. And, singularly enough, those three movements were
presented at the concert on May 7, 1824, at which the Ninth Symphony was
heard for the first time. They had one other performance before
Beethoven died—in St. Petersburg at the instigation of the Prince
Galitzin.
The Mass in D, stupendous creation that it is, is far from a practical
church work. It lacks all pretense of ritualistic use. For one thing,
its vast proportions, the length of the individual sections, and the
duration of the score as a whole would completely unfit it for
ecclesiastical ceremony. The Mass is “unchurchly” in the highest degree.
According to Bekker, Beethoven “breaks through the walls which divide
the church from the world; his church extends to the limits of his
vision; his altar is the heart of the universe, and he will suffer no
dogmatic limitations.” Above the Kyrie the composer inscribed the words:
“From the heart—may it go to the heart.” He intended the work “for the
democratic concert hall rather than for polite social circles.”
The peak of the _Missa Solemnis_ is undoubtedly the great fugue “Et
vitam venturi” of the Credo. And here, incidentally, the demands on the
singing voices are perhaps more cruel than anywhere in the last movement
of the Ninth Symphony or in the most arduous pages of _Fidelio_. Only
now and then is there a wholly satisfying performance of the Mass in D.
Be this as it may, there are two pages so extraordinary that no listener
can ever fail to be stirred to the depths by them. One is the
“Benedictus,” with its transfigured violin solo and a prefatory
orchestral movement so spiritualized that it takes rank by the side of
the loftiest slow movements the composer ever wrote; the other is the
“Agnus Dei” and its “Prayer for inner and outer peace,” in which
Beethoven causes the drums and trumpet calls of war to alternate with
agonized supplications for peace.
All the same, despite the sublimities of the work and the vaunted
“morality” of the composer, Beethoven did not hesitate to offer the
score to at least three different publishing houses at practically the
same time! Small wonder that, before long, a London concert agent was
writing: “For heavens’ sake, don’t have any dealings with Beethoven!” If
the master was not above attempting a little business skulduggery now
and then he did not go about it cleverly!
Symphony No. 9, in D Minor, with Final Chorus on Schiller’s “Ode to
Joy,” Opus 125
More than ten years passed after the initial performance of the Eighth
Symphony before Beethoven brought out its successor, his ninth and last,
on May 7, 1824. The earlier part of this period was comparatively
unproductive. Beethoven was profoundly disturbed by quarrels over his
guardianship of his nephew Karl, which eventually were taken to court.
His health and spirits suffered and, meantime, his deafness became
complete. Nevertheless his creative impulse found expression in two
works of the grandest dimensions, the Mass in D and the Ninth Symphony.
Sketches for the symphony were made as early as 1815—perhaps even
earlier—and he went to work on it in earnest in 1817.
The première took place at the Kaerthnerthor Theater, Vienna, on May 7,
1824. The problems of performance were complicated by the composer’s
using in the final movement a chorus and a quartet of soloists. Michael
Umlauf conducted and the solo singers were Henriette Sontag (one of the
most famous sopranos of her day), Karolina Unger, Anton Haitzinger, and
J. Seipelt. The difficulty of Beethoven’s voice parts gave trouble at
rehearsals. Mmes. Sontag and Unger begged him to alter their music, but
in vain. Mme. Unger declared in his presence that he was a “tyrant over
all the vocal organs.” Still, at the first performance it was she who
led the composer from where he had been sitting in the midst of the
orchestra to the edge of the stage to see the excited waving of the
audience and to bow.
[Illustration: Beethoven in Vienna, 1820-25.
_Pen and ink sketch by J. P. Lyser._]
These solo parts have lost none of their difficulty for singers, and
from the sopranos of the chorus Beethoven well-nigh demands the
superhuman. With a view to helping matters some conductors have
transposed the Finale down a whole tone, thus dimming its brilliance and
upsetting Beethoven’s scheme of keys. Wagner believed that Beethoven by
having words and singers in the Finale had closed the cycle of purely
orchestral music. Others, however, regard the singers as a mistake and
maintain that Beethoven recognized his error. So devout and searching a
student of Beethoven as Professor Tovey, while dismissing as absurd the
theory of Beethoven’s discontent with instrumental music, holds that
every part of the Ninth Symphony becomes clearer when we assume that the
choral Finale is right, and that hardly a point in the work but becomes
difficult and obscure when we assume that the choral Finale is wrong.
Though he admits that Beethoven, long after the production of the
symphony, told some friends that the choral inclusion was a mistake and
that perhaps some day he might write an instrumental Finale, he sets
this down to a fit of depression. At any rate, the Finale stands as
written and there is no choice but to grapple with its problems.
For three movements the symphony is of course, purely instrumental. Of
the first movement (“Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso,” in D
minor) Ricciotto Canudo has written: “In the beginning was space; and
all possibilities were in space; and life was space.” It begins
pianissimo in empty fifths. A descending figure of two notes, from the
heights to the depths, is reiterated while a tremendous crescendo leads
to the theme that dominates the movement, given out fortissimo in unison
and octaves:
[Illustration: play music]
The entire movement, which is well stocked with other themes, has the
majesty and impetus of a titanic tragedy, and its propulsive drama ends
with a defiant proclamation of the chief theme.
Now Beethoven reverses his usual procedure by postponing the slow
movement and introducing a “Molto vivace” (in F minor), which has been
called at once the greatest and the longest of his scherzos. A phrase of
three notes, repeated on each interval of the chord of D minor, begins
it, followed immediately by this fugal subject:
[Illustration: play music]
The enormous vitality and rhythmic drive of the Scherzo have deafened
some hearers to the bitter strain in the jest. Joy unalloyed has not yet
burst upon the scene.
And meanwhile Beethoven gives us the slow movement, a combination of an
“Adagio molto e cantabile” (in B-flat major) and an “Andante moderato”
(in D major), which as a whole has been described conveniently and with
reasonable accuracy as a set of variations on two alternating themes:
[Illustration: play music]
[Illustration: play music]
Language has been ransacked for words to express the beauty and
elevation of this Adagio-Andante. Its seraphic song is dying away when
the initial D minor of the Finale, presto and fortissimo, roughly smites
our ears.
A series of orchestral sections, in contrast and conflict, occupy the
battleground of the earlier pages before the baritone soloist, first
using words by Beethoven himself, introduces the human voices and
Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” Two of the themes brought in here the listener
should keep carefully in mind: the first is employed later by the
baritone in demanding sounds of gladness, and the second is the
so-called theme of joy:
[Illustration: play music]
[Illustration: play music]
Now chorus and soloists join valiantly in the good fight for “mirth and
rapture blended” till the symphony ends in the victorious D major
paeans, vocal and at the very last instrumental, of universal rejoicing.
The burden of Schiller’s praise of Joy is held in these two lines:
“All mankind are brothers plighted
Where thy gentle wings abide.”
And universal brotherhood is thus voiced by the tenors and the basses in
unison.