Mass in C

[rwallis]

My group, the New Jersey Choral Society, will perform this little-heard work next weekend. Our conductor has asked a very interesting (and perhaps rhetorical) question: How is Beethoven in general, and the Mass specifically, relevant in the 21st Century? What does it mean to us living now?

Intriguing questions -- I'd be interested in hearing opinions. Thanks.

[Amalie]

Originally posted by rwallis:
My group, the New Jersey Choral Society, will perform this little-heard work next weekend. Our conductor has asked a very interesting (and perhaps rhetorical) question: How is Beethoven in general, and the Mass specifically, relevant in the 21st Century? What does it mean to us living now?

Intriguing questions -- I'd be interested in hearing opinions. Thanks.

I am tempted to say, is mankind relevant in the 21st century,? because that is no less than the audience that Beethoven or indeed any great composer addresses themselves to.
No doubt the technological television age in which we live is turning us all into drones, but Beethoven reminds us that we are being called to something much higher and to realize something much deeper within ourselves. Not that one can separate whatever is the relevance of Beethoven from the religious work of the Mass which he composed. Beethoven tended to have a Wordsworthian quasi-religious veiw of nature, but it is clear from the Mass that he also had a very strong formal religious impulse.
The relevance to us today is to remind us that we are not 'souless consumers' in the add mass culture in which we live, but that we can in a sense redeem ourselves and these times through Beethoven's great musical works, including the great Missa Solemnis.
Of course if one took Huxley's arguement in Brave New World, 'spiritual' things like music and religion are just simply utterly irrelevant to the instant gratification consumer culture.



------------------

~ Courage, so it be righteous, will gain all things ~


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 05-18-2005).]

[Peter]

I think Amalie has put it very well - I'd say that if Beethoven and all great art cease to be relevant then we would have lost all vestiges of humaninty and civilisation. Perhaps this quote by Peter Warlock on the homepage of this site is useful here " . . All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago. All good music, whatever its date, is ageless - as alive and significant today as it was when it was written . ."

Regarding the Mass in C, though not on the scale of the awe-inspiring Missa Solemnis, it is however a very fine work. In an age of increasing materialism and a decline in spiritual values I think the need for such music speaks for itself!



------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

I think that from a technical point of view the mass is very relevant to us today. In Beethoven's "modern world" it was not beyond him to bridge the past with the then present in the use of a more florid style--thinking back to a more Palestrina-ish era. As the early music served for foundational purposes in the time of Beethoven we can and should use them as well in our day. We cannot escape our past.