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Beethoven's Mass in C Major Op.86

7K views 18 replies 14 participants last post by  Xisten267 
#1 ·
My choir is singing Beethoven's Mass in C Major Op.86 for Easter. Is anyone here familiarized with this work? What do you think of it?

Here is the Kyrie and Gloria:

 
#5 ·
I can't believe I've been ignoring this piece. I went out Monday and fixed the problem; I now have Gardiner's version.

So far, I'm really connecting with this piece. He's brought together elements of the old liturgical style with the current sonata form of his time, yet retaining his individuality.

Thanks for introducing me to this, JCNog!
 
#7 · (Edited)
It is so good that nobody has posted since 2012 ?????

But seriously folks, this is a worthy work, please post some favorite recordings so I can be enticed to spend more money buying more CDs that I don't need but do want.

At least for now I can chase the Gardiner suggestion someone made in an earlier post. :)
 
#8 ·
It is so good that nobody has posted since 2012 ?????

But seriously folks, this is a worthy work, please post some favorite recordings so I can be enticed to spend more money buying more CDs that I don't need but do want.

At least for now I can chase the Gardiner suggestion someone made in an earlier post. :)
I listened to a bunch of these when my choir was scheduled to perform it (postponed due to COVID, alas). The Gardiner is an excellent choice. Two others that are worth hearing are Best (Hyperion) and Hickox (Chandos). I was less enthused about Shaw, Chailly, Giulini, Davis, Richter, Corboz, and Beecham.
 
#9 · (Edited)
A promising work, but not a very mature one. He had just finished his contrapuntal studies with Albrechtberger a few years earlier. One of the concluding fugues (either from the gloria or credo, I can't remember exactly) just has passages of lines continuously going up and down like
↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘
↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗↘↗
I still respect the opinions of people who find the work enjoyable though.
 
#10 · (Edited)
A promising work, but not a very mature one. He had just finished his contrapuntal studies with Albrechtberger a few years earlier.
This is incorrect.

Beethoven's Mass in C major, Op. 86 was composed and premiered in 1807 as a response to a commission from Prince Nikolaus Esterházy II, and after Beethoven had studied Haydn's Masses exhaustively on his own.

Furthermore, it is an excellent and indeed highly underrated work, unfairly overshadowed by the admittedly vastly more ambitious Missa Solemnis. Its smaller scale should not be held as a point against it, in my opinion.

A recentish recording of this mass I like very much is with Jansons/Bavarian Radio.

 
#16 ·
There are several fine disc out there , perhaps the fact that it's not in the religious section is to blame for almost no posts.
Well that is a good place it could be but since it also qualifies as vocal music and the thread seems to be gaining some momentum I will not request moving it. Though if someone else wants to make that request, have at it.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I personally feel that any big middle-period Beethoven work is so many-sided that I want to hear a diversity of approaches. Four favorites here, chosen to contrast as radically as possible:

1. For sheer theatricality one can't beat Gardiner. Clearly he regards it as a very exciting work but not a very great one; he doesn't find in it the kind of substance that might be expected in a work contemporary with the Razumovsky Quartets and the Fifth Symphony.* (I'm not complaining about his approach, merely trying to describe it as accurately as possible.)

2. The exact antithesis is Giulini: he is as totally (one-sidedly?) reflective as Gardiner is theatrical. Everything is slow, sensitive, reverential, reverent. Very similar, in fact, to his famous recording of the Missa Solemnis: anyone who likes or dislikes that performance would be likely to respond the same way to this one.

3. Then there's Beecham. Beecham obviously cherished this work for an idiosyncratic reason: it's the most Haydnesque of Beethoven's major works, and Beecham frankly preferred Haydn to Beethoven. So, one's attitude to this recording is likely to depend on one's attitude to Beecham's Haydn. (And on one's tolerance for 1950s fuzzily recorded choral sound.)

4. Among recent recordings that I've heard, I've enjoyed Jansons most (on DVD--is the CD the same performance?). I'm not sure that Jansons had as much innate talent as either Gardiner or Giulini or Beecham, but he gives me the impression that he really loved & admired this work, treating it as though it truly is a perfectly standard middle-period Beethoven masterpiece. Of the various recordings known to me, this may be the none that offers most of the kind of constantly shifting interplay one customarily hears in Beethoven's symphonies & quartets--light & shade, tragedy & triumph, conflict & conquest intertwined. On the other hand, it doesn't offer (or even attempt) the singleminded intensity of Gardiner & Giulini (in their very different ways).

Did Bernstein ever perform this Mass? He might have done it particularly well; he was at home in both Haydn and Beethoven.

* Chronological position:

Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" (Op. 55; 1803)
Piano Sonata No. 21, "Waldstein" (Op. 53; 1804)
Piano Sonata No. 23, "Appassionata" (Op. 57; 1805)
Leonore/Fidelio, first two versions (Op. 72; 1805-1806)
Symphony No. 4 (Op. 60; 1806)
Violin Concerto (Op. 61; 1806)
String Quartets Nos. 7-9, "Razumovsky" (Op. 59, Nos. 1-3; 1806)
Piano Concerto No. 4 (Op. 58; 1807)
Coriolan Overture (Op. 62; 1807)
Mass in C Major (Op. 86; 1807)
Symphony No. 5 (Op. 67; 1808)
Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" (Op. 68; 1808)

AFTERTHOUGHT

Does anyone have Segerstam (on Naxos)? I imagine the Mass might suit his style well, but on listening to samples, I was rather doubtful about the quality of the chorus, so I've been hesitant to buy it.
 
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