Composers of old ages used to reserve the purest part of his art to the writing of music for the Church. In the epochs following, musicians went on considering the composition of a mass a serius undertaking.
And through my dealings with music I have been able to testify to that fact, specially in regard to three works. One of these is the Missa Solemnis (I guess there must have been many missae solemnis, whatever the plural is). Once my father took home a large stack of LPs, among which there was a two-disc set of a register of the Mass in D major. The cover exhibited the famous portrait by Stieler. But the first disc of the set was missing. And I listened to the Sanctus and Agnus Dei every time I could put my hands on the gramophone.
One day I made up my mind to become acquainted with the first sections. So I got into a disc store, chose a recording and said the dealer I wanted to hear it. I found them much more dynamic than the part I already knew. For the next few months I repeated this experience once and again, restricting my attention to Kyrie, Gloria, Credo.
Finally, I bought a record featuring a version by Otto Klemperer in a single disc (two discs would have been unaffordable to me). And the first sections went on keeping me from focusing my attention on the more lyrical ones. It was a long time before the last two sections came to to occupy the place they deserve. I was young.
This LP is now in a deplorable condition because, putting all of the music into only two faces makes the grooves very thin and vulnerable by the stylus. The highs, specially, had been degraded and I remember asking my brother if the choir did not sound like barking. An this is the story of my discovery of the Missa Solemnis.
Useless to say, this, one of the summits of Beethovenian art, is no match to Mozart's Requiem Mass in popularity. But... times change. Next: Bach's Mass in B minor.
And through my dealings with music I have been able to testify to that fact, specially in regard to three works. One of these is the Missa Solemnis (I guess there must have been many missae solemnis, whatever the plural is). Once my father took home a large stack of LPs, among which there was a two-disc set of a register of the Mass in D major. The cover exhibited the famous portrait by Stieler. But the first disc of the set was missing. And I listened to the Sanctus and Agnus Dei every time I could put my hands on the gramophone.
One day I made up my mind to become acquainted with the first sections. So I got into a disc store, chose a recording and said the dealer I wanted to hear it. I found them much more dynamic than the part I already knew. For the next few months I repeated this experience once and again, restricting my attention to Kyrie, Gloria, Credo.
Finally, I bought a record featuring a version by Otto Klemperer in a single disc (two discs would have been unaffordable to me). And the first sections went on keeping me from focusing my attention on the more lyrical ones. It was a long time before the last two sections came to to occupy the place they deserve. I was young.
This LP is now in a deplorable condition because, putting all of the music into only two faces makes the grooves very thin and vulnerable by the stylus. The highs, specially, had been degraded and I remember asking my brother if the choir did not sound like barking. An this is the story of my discovery of the Missa Solemnis.
Useless to say, this, one of the summits of Beethovenian art, is no match to Mozart's Requiem Mass in popularity. But... times change. Next: Bach's Mass in B minor.
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