Missa Solemnis, No. 3: Credo

The opening flourish to the Gloria heard above serves as a motto which recurs in several places throughout the Gloria. Most evident in this movement is the use of word painting. Beethoven uses music to add significance to the text -- bring the music down low for solemn parts and really letting it go strong during the Gloria! Such occupation with dramatic detail makes it unsuitable for liturgical perfomance.

He couldn't resist ending with shouts of Gloria! Closing Bars in Gloria. It is characterized by vivd color, provided by lots of orchestration. At the beginning, Beethoven introduces a simple, but very memorable theme which is sung, in fugal form, by each part of the choir. This theme, which Beethoven thereafter associates with the word "Credo", is heard at various points throughout the movement. Credo When the music arrives at the phrase, "Et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto ex Maria virgine" and became incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary , Beethoven utilizes a method characteristic of older religious music composers.

Past Performances

In the 18th century, modes were closely identified with the idea of the supernatural, so he decides to use it here at a critical point in the text. Like composers before him, he employs a specific mode just as the text is speaking of the Holy Ghost, thus incorporating a tradition of older church music into his own. In this instance, Beethoven decides to use Dorian mode, which is explained as follows: A comparison of the interval scales between each mode shows how they are related. To identify the key signature of a specific scale in Dorian mode, simply take the beginning note and bring it down one whole step.

The note that it lands on is the tonic of the major key with the key signature that should be used for the Dorian. For example, Dorian D has the same key signature as the key of C major, which has no accidentals. Dorian E has the same key signature as the key of D major, which has F and C , and so on Listen now to the use of Dorian D in conjunction with the phrase, "Et incarnatus A very clear example of this is the presence of a solo flute in the background while the soloists are singing the phrase, "Et incarnatus In this short clip, the flute is very obvious.

Flute By this time, the key has modulated from Dorian D to D Major, in association with the words of the text. Then, abruptly, the key changes to parallel d minor, just as the tenor reaches the phrase, "Crucifixus etiam pro nobis" He was crucified also for us. Also present in this section is the utilization of sharp sforzandos and syncopated rhythms, which jolt the listener into images of suffering. Try to pinpoint the exact moment when the music changes.

Crucifixus Shortly after the crucifixion, Beethoven employs another tool used by his predecessors. As the choir reaches the phrase, "Et resurrexit tertia die" And the third day He arose again , the music consists of numerous upward running scales.

Hearing the Missa Solemnis is always an extraordinary experience-and the enormous difficulty of the score guarantees that live encounters will never be too frequent. This work shows what can happen when a genius consciously decides to outdo himself, and create an all-encompassing work that expresses the composer's profound spirituality and realizes a musical vision never previously formulated. Beethoven, though raised as a Roman Catholic, was not a regular church-goer.

Nevertheless, he was familiar with the liturgy, and was well aware that writing sacred composition represented the highest goal to which a composer could aspire. He admired Handel's Messiah , Haydn's Masses and oratorios and, above all, Mozart's Requiem ; yet he himself had attempted sacred composition only twice. But neither the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives , nor the Mass in C could be said to have been very successful.

The composer keenly felt that he had yet to reach the summit of his art in the realm of liturgical music. It was an external circumstance that provided the initial impulse for what turned out to be one of the crowning masterpieces of Beethoven's later years. But Beethoven missed the deadline; in fact, the Mass wasn't finished until two years after the event it was supposed to celebrate.

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Of course, Beethoven knew that the Mass was one of the greatest works he had ever composed. And he was prepared to milk it for all it was worth: The full score was finally printed by Schott in Mainz, but not until , the year of Beethoven's death. In , the composer had taken subscription orders to have manuscript copies prepared expressly for some of his most influential admirers-including Prince Nikolai Galitzin, for whom he had also written three of his late string quartets.

It was Galitzin who arranged for the world premiere, which took place in St. Petersburg in April In Vienna, only three of the five movements were ever heard during Beethoven's lifetime. There are strong indications that Beethoven experienced a kind of spiritual awakening during the last decade of his life, even if this did not take the form of religious practice. As a true child of the Enlightenment, he apprehended Divinity through Nature and Reason, which didn't make his spirituality any less powerful or transcendent.

In the Missa solemnis , he wanted to communicate the experience to the world; as he wrote in a letter,? My chief aim was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers but also into the listeners. The vocal parts not only those of the soloists but the chorus as well are fiendishly difficult; harmonically and structurally, Beethoven's music was never more complex than here.

Yet, listening to the Missa , one understands that it took nothing less to transmit the composer's vision to the audience. A fiercely individual free thinker grappling with the mysteries of God, death and afterlife-the stakes have never been higher in a piece of music, and the composer had to make use of every expressive means at his disposal. This insistence on communication or communion with the audience is apparent from the inscription on the first page of the score: The setting of the opening word of the Mass,?

Lord" , sung on a single repeated note by the chorus, is a good example for this eminently dramatic approach to the text. It is only after the tone has been set by these powerful single chords that a gentler melodic figure is introduced on? The more isolated gestures contrast with a more continuous melodic flow in the? Christe," begun by the four soloists; the sustained motion is generated by polyphonic imitation. The Gloria and Credo movements always present composers with special challenges because of the great length of their texts.

Many composers have broken up these texts into several independent movements to make them more manageable, but Beethoven opted for a single uninterrupted musical statement, unified by a recapitulation of the opening? Gloria" theme at the very end, and of the? Credo" theme numerous times throughout the movement. In between those motivic restatements, we have a wide variety of motifs in different keys, tempos and orchestrations, as dictated by the emotional content of the individual words and lines.

Starting and ending with an ecstatic praise of God, the?

Gloria" passes through moments of introspection and even temporary despair: We give you thanks". After a brief return to the original? Gloria" mood, we reach the heart of the movement with? You who take away the sins of the world" , where the tempo drops to Larghetto and the quartet of soloists intones an intimate plea for mercy. For you alone are holy" , private prayer once again changes to public worship. Tradition demanded that the? Gloria" movement end with a fugue, but in the present case, the music takes a dramatic turn when, after an emphatic restateme nt of the theme in slow motion augmentation , to use the technical term , the excitement reaches fever pitch as the tempo suddenly increases.

It is at the climactic moment of this development that the theme from the beginning of the movement returns in a faster tempo than the first time , closing the circle at the end of a fascinating spiritual journey. The next movement, the? Credo," is another spiritual journey, even more complex than the previous one. The abstract theological nature of its text has always represented a major challenge to composers; the dogmas of the Catholic Church, as codified in the Nicene Creed from the year , do not lend themselves naturally to musical treatment. Beethoven set the first word,?

I believe" to a short and pithy motif that serves as the glue holding the entire movement together. From the start, the I receives at least as much emphasis as the believe , yet there is definite shift at the words qui propter nos homines? Mass in D Major, Op.

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