On This Day!

[Joy]

In 1830 -- Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is performed in its entirety for the first time, at Warnsdorf., Bohemia.

"My chief aim when I was composing this grand Mass was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers but also into the listeners," wrote Ludwig van Beethoven.

Then I also read that it was the only full performance in Beethoven's lifetime (bits of it were played in other concerts)? How could it be both?

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Joy:
In 1830 -- Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is performed in its entirety for the first time, at Warnsdorf., Bohemia.

"My chief aim when I was composing this grand Mass was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers but also into the listeners," wrote Ludwig van Beethoven.

Then I also read that it was the only full performance in Beethoven's lifetime (bits of it were played in other concerts)? How could it be both?

Dear Joy;

Parts of Missa Solemnis were performed in Beethoven's life time, but not the entire mass, and not in a church.

There were some very strange laws in Austria then. One such law forbid church music to be performed in any place but a church. So, church music could not be performed in a theater or a concert hall. But as we all know, necessity is the mother of invention, and this law was by-passed easily. Beethoven performed parts of both his masses in theaters by billing them as "hymns with Latin texts."

That was how his C-major mass was billed in 1808, and Missa Solemnis was billed at the premiere of the 9th smphony.


Hofrat

[Joy]

Thanks very much, Hofrat, for the information! Very interesting to learn that people were always bypassing laws and getting around them!

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 06-29-2006).]