Beethoven's Missa solemnis
by General Music Director Bruno Walter
(Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, October 30, 1920)

Introduction by Erik Ryding

Bruno Walter's long essay on Beethoven's Missa solemnis is one of the last flowerings of full-blown Romanticism. While Walter wrote a large number of essays for a man whose main occupation was directing an orchestra, he never published anything else like this. Even in his extended essays on Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Mozart's Magic Flute, he offers nothing like the microscopic examination of detail that we find in his essay on the Missa. Nor does he demonstrate in his other essays anything like the imaginative power that figures so prominently throughout this meditation on Beethoven's creative genius.

The essay shows Walter as a musician fascinated not only by the mental processes through which one of music's great masters broke new ground but also by the ecstatic states of mind that led him to ever-higher miracles of creativity ("anyone who understands the 'Credo' and its conclusion," Walter observes, "will understand the utter 'transport from the earth' of which Schindler speaks"). It is a much-needed reminder that the conductor whom many now remember for the even-keeled interpretations of his final years — great as they were — was renowned for much of his career for the Dionysian rapture that he brought to his interpretations.

That Walter should have let his essay on the Missa solemnis fall into obscurity — it never appeared in English translation, and even in the German-speaking world very few know of its existence — is probably an indication that he had changed his view of Beethoven and the Mass over the years. Walter's own religious belief, which intensified as he grew older, may have made him flinch at some of the statements uttered in this early essay, or perhaps he found its florid style dated and overdone. Certainly his later prose is more straightforward and far less adorned. Whatever the reason, this powerful example of Kunstprosa ("art prose") was for many years lost to the world. First published on October 30, 1920, in a supplement to the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten (Munich's paper of record), it formed a part of the nationwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. A slightly shortened version, Über Beethovens Missa solemnis, was printed in Vienna by Berger in 1926, no doubt in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of Beethoven's death. After that, it was forgotten.

Walter conducted Beethoven's Missa solemnis on six known occasions. The first two took place in Vienna during his tenure as director of the Vienna Singakademie, on January 30, 1912, and January 11, 1913, both times with Vienna Konzertverein Orchestra. Three more performances took place in Munich in 1920 (November 1, 7, and 16) as part of the same celebrations that inspired him to write the essay. In Berlin, on March 12, 1928, and March 4, 1929, he performed it with the Bruno Kittel Chorus and the Berlin Philharmonic. On May 28, 1938, during a period of great political upheaval, Walter conducted the Missa in Italy at the Florence May Festival. His final performances of the work took place on April 15, 16, and 18, 1948, when he led the Westminster Choir and the New York Philharmonic in the only performances for which a sound document has definitely survived. The Sunday broadcast (April 18) exists in acetates in perfectly good sound for the time — though the commercial releases currently available on compact disc are made from horribly distorted sources — and show Walter's approach to the Mass to have been every bit as ecstatic as his essay would lead one to expect.

Already in his rehearsals for the early performances in Vienna, Walter showed that he was developing ideas about the Missa that would eventually take shape in his fully developed essay. Mary Komorn-Rebhan, one of Walter's choristers, in 1913 recorded in great detail Walter's comments on various pieces he performed with the Singakademie. One of the comments dealt with the Missa solemnis and its relation to earlier works of religious music, Handel's Messiah in particular. "In Messiah," Walter reportedly said, "a religiosity that is general, comprehensive, and (as it were) established through tradition is being expressed, whereas with Beethoven we are dealing with an independent soul's purely personal view of religion, with a profoundly individual belief in God." It is largely this idea that he develops in the essay below.

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Beethoven's Missa solemnis
by General Music Director Bruno Walter
(Münchner Neueste Nachrichten, October 30, 1920)

In the year 1818, at the age of forty-eight, Beethoven began composing his Mass. In 1822, in his fifty-second year, he completed it. Along with the Missa solemnis there came into existence in these years, among other things, the great B-flat major sonata, Op. 106 (the "Hammerklavier" Sonata); the Ninth Symphony; and three sonatas, Opp. 109, 110, and 111 — illustrious neighbors for the Mass, peaks that could be surpassed only by this single colossus, which reaches into the highest snow-capped region. But the Missa solemnis stands more solitary and incomparable within Beethoven's works than a mountain among mountains, even if it naturally shares certain features in common with works of the same creative period.

All Beethoven's more important works from this period — let us begin with a discussion of their emotional qualities — are marked by a mood of deep agitation; an exceptional gravitas indicative of mature years; a capacity and a decided tendency to become broodingly absorbed in the depths as well as in the precipices of his own being. At the same time we find, in the realm of art, a corresponding development of Beethoven's entire musical diction. I would refrain, however, from going into this in more detail; the purely musical cannot be described in words. But my meaning will be clear to anyone who compares the thematic material, the development of melodic line, the formal structure, the working out of the coda, and so on, of works from this creative period with those of an earlier one — those, for example, around the time of the Rasumovsky Quartets. Also striking in his musical development are the signs of meditative introspection upon compositional problems, of the struggle with the artistic material, in order to work out for himself a higher and higher miracle of creative (and often commanding) power.

Beethoven's personal lot had always been a very hard one. The burden of fate naturally grew as he became older, and the years about which we are now speaking were certainly his hardest up to that time: not only because they brought agitations large and small — the struggle over his nephew, economic cares, and so forth — but also because at the same time he felt his inner solitude more and more heavily. The world had grown quieter around him. Friends and trusted hearts had vanished from his life, and he himself was partly to blame, being often mistrustful and irritable. Communication with his few remaining friends grew more difficult because of his deafness. But, even in the best of circumstances, what could be the fate of such a lofty heart other than solitude? And now things grew even quieter for the artist; indeed, his genius drove him into a more pathless and inaccessible region. His works began to be "too difficult" for his contemporaries, and here too he could see nothing before him but loneliness again.

Before Beethoven, music had been purer in an elementary sense: it was truly a "divine" art that would allow human qualities — from which it had flowed, or about which it wished to speak — to be sensed only when the music quite dissolved them into its element, so that the "earthly properties that were awkward to convey" could be experienced rather as charm or ornament than as something with essential artistic merit. To the creator of the Eroica, however, even absolute music was no longer created just "for itself" but, more than that (and of course in ever-increasing measure), it became a means of bringing human qualities into expression. And the might of that demigod was gradually able to turn music into a fully expressive art — that is, into a language for all the deepest workings of the heart. So without his having been or having become incapable of purely elementary music-making, human qualities ultimately became through him the most essential contents of music. Its capacity for expression grew and deepened in him from work to work. And no wonder, for if he had made music the organ for moving the human soul, it followed of necessity that just this soul, capable of the utmost in human accomplishment, would have the ability of gradually forcing its prodigious musical potency to the utmost upon musical expression.

Thus Beethoven built and developed musical language: to be sure, never beyond the limit at which it would have become more expression than music — his purely musical creativity was too strong for that — but still to the very limit. And surely the power of elemental musicality, raising its material to higher and higher organizational structures, and titanic presumption, enjoying its own power in such unmatched control over the noblest materials, took part in the opening of new musical territory, just as much as the profound distress that drove him to say what he suffered. This path, however, had to lead him into solitude. So just as Beethoven the man was desolate because of his vast humanity as well as his physical suffering, so he had to become an artist who was compelled to converse, from the greatest depths of his soul, in a new language, which became immense in its presentation, and hence it often seemed puzzling.

Yet the greatest capacity for loving, of which every Beethovenian melody gives tangible evidence, wedded to solitude — is that not a sorrow surpassing all sorrows? The Adagio from the "Hammerklavier" Sonata speaks stirringly of this: this melancholy lament of a lonely, yearning heart, overflowing with a most heartfelt love. The composition of the sonata falls into the period directly preceding the Missa solemnis; even Beethoven had not yet descended into greater depths of his inner world, and at no previous time had the closely guarded life of a great soul been so revealed in music. In regard to its boundless spiritual contents and the individuality of its tremendously powerful musical form, the whole sonata can be viewed in every sense as a predecessor of the work above which Beethoven placed the words "From the heart: may it in turn enter the heart" (from the Missa solemnis). To understand the overpowering message of these words, we need only translate them from Beethoven's plain speech back into the pathos in which they were felt and from which they came into being — that is, we should imagine them once more after hearing the Mass. And the "Hammerklavier" Sonata teaches us now that, with its composition, the prodigious world (as we must regard Beethoven's soul) was ready for its fourth day of creation, for the creation of heavenly light. This mighty soul had now matured enough to arrive at an answer, with the might of its yearning, to the essential questions of a solitary man, and to bring peace — if such a thing indeed existed — to its conflicts. And as a musician he had matured enough, as the sonata also teaches us, to be able to give speech to these most tender and powerful workings of the soul.

It was an external occasion, however, the enthronement of Archduke Rudolf, that caused Beethoven to think of writing a Mass in celebration of this event. But Beethoven's entire being grew ardent and blossomed as never before. Profoundly moved, he had his defining experience with it, and the artist, having arrived at his highest level, created in it his greatest work — or, in Beethoven's own words, his "most perfect work." The four ripest years of that powerful creator were devoted to its supremely important contents. Schindler speaks of the highly animated time of the creation of the Missa solemnis and reports that never before or after did he perceive anything comparable to the fully ecstatic state in Beethoven. Religious ecstasies poured into music, and this music combined with monumental forms — one doesn't know which was the greater wonder: that of the human experience or that of the creative power of the artist. Religious ecstasy? That doesn't tell the whole story. God's being not only seized upon his emotions and shook his soul; intellectually, Beethoven meditated deeply on the text of the Mass, indeed on its every detail. With all mental and spiritual forces he struggled with a conception of the world and a conception of God. The great sorrow could be stilled only if he could resolve his loneliness by communing with the Divine Being. Whether he was successful, and how, we shall see.

The Missa solemnis is actually, as already mentioned, an "occasional composition." Beethoven had already written one Mass (C major, Op. 86) in 1807, and we must not think that a deeper reason than the wish to pay honor to Archduke Rudolf made him decide to compose the Missa solemnis. So, as earlier, he certainly had no other intention than to write a Mass in the style of pure church music. This time, however, while exercising his hard-earned, powerful contrapuntal ability, he surely intended to experience life to the full, even as a musician.

Now, a certain calmness in purely emotional matters is an absolute necessity for church music. Although the texts of ecclesiastical music speak of profound and extremely inward things, it is a prerequisite that the composer be securely rooted in the faith of the church. Yet someone with powerfully intense feelings, lacking this cardinal requirement, would have to break away from the style of true ecclesiastical music. For the problems that the text of the Mass presents — the relation of humanity to God and the presentation of the Divine Being — are indeed no longer problems for the church, and the dogmatic certainty of the feelings of the church must be expressed in ecclesiatical music so that it appears as such.

Beethoven had always been a believer. Although he was not inclined to be conspicuously pious, he nevertheless revealed in countless statements that he had an unusually heartfelt and childlike trust in God, and a thoroughly secure relation to Him. Confident in this inward belief (which he had never questioned), he proceeded to the composition of the Missa, which he began as true church music. But the more he advanced, the more he delved into the text (which he expressly had translated with great precision), the more everything became problematic for him. A tremendous thing happened: God, the world, himself — all became new for him, and what grew out of that was certainly no Mass, but rather the most incandescent, most personal religious confession that art had ever brought forth. That it became, at the same time, a most lofty musical masterpiece is undeniably (as already mentioned) the most wondrous of wonders that were accomplished here. But let us remember in this connection that such a superhuman creative power also required four years of struggling to achieve a form for its immense contents.

And now let us turn to a consideration of the work itself.

The "Kyrie eleison" speaks a language of power and greatness, but also of a most tranquil tenderness. The middle movement, the "Christe eleison," appears as a more passionately intense and more pathetic piece, after which the "Kyrie," with the earlier thematic material, returns — but with a development different from that used earlier. The whole is a self-contained masterpiece, peaceful in the best manner of church music, full of noble Beethovenian melody, and it will no doubt be heard by every listener as the most perfect first part conceivable of a truly "high Mass." But one can scarcely imagine even the beginning of the "Gloria" in a church; indeed, Beethoven praises the Lord God far too violently. Here, one senses immediately, an old familiar relationship is renewed; the rhythmic intensity of the principal theme and the fiery movement of the strings seem hardly like church music anymore. But we mustn't yet speak of disrupting the ecclesiastical style; to be sure, many a fiery piece has been written for the church in praise of God! Even the infinite, heartfelt grace of the "Gratias agimus tibi," which communicates with the Divine Being nearly in the tone of a friend, is thoroughly in keeping with the ecclesiastical style, precisely because of its serenity.

Not so, however, the "Pater omnipotens": the word all-powerful had cast a spell over a man who was himself a powerful creator. We shall see in the "Credo" how it could call forth from him more powerful effects, even visions. Here in the "Gloria," the outburst (harmonically so surprising, dynamically so explosive — it is the first entrance of the trombones, and we find the entire orchestra marked by Beethoven with the extremely rare triple fortissimo) has, I would say, a somewhat panicky quality. What is overwhelmingly effective is that the outburst enters on the "bad part of the measure," on the third quarter; the impatient fury appears too great to wait for the next quarter-note that falls on the first beat of the measure, the wildness of which is anticipated, as it were, with violence. In this rhythmic, harmonic, and dynamic impetuosity, we see Beethoven truly becoming unrestrained. It is as if, with outstretched arms, he had fallen on his knees before a conceived image of an almighty God, unveiled to him in glory.

Fiery and agitated, but in a more temperate style, it now proceeds. The "Qui tollis," once again marked by the noblest Beethovenian melody, seems a piece of pure church music. We see, in contrast, that the "Qui sedes ad dexteram patris," with its splendid downward leap of a tenth at "patris," digresses back into Beethoven's vehement style. Nevertheless, it continues to the mighty fugue, and proceeds through this section, which throughout is raised to the loftiest emotional level but still passes for ecclesiastical music, until toward the end of the fugue it changes, exultant and breathless, into — a closing Presto. Yes, a true Presto! — to my knowledge, the only one ever written in a Mass. And if there were, somewhere in other Masses, another Presto or many others, it would not be a Presto in the sense that this is. It is a roaring, overwhelming shout of Gloria from millions of jubilant voices; there are raised arms, enraptured eyes, a rejoicing of all humanity. Beethoven calls out his Hosanna almost like the unbelieving philosopher of Ivan Karamazov, from Dostoevsky's famous novel; after death, to atone for his disbelief, he had to wander through a quadrillion-kilometer darkness until he reached the gate of Paradise. But when he had entered after wandering for an eternity, he called out after two seconds that for these two seconds in Paradise, one could wander through quadrillions of quadrillions of kilometers, and he sang his Hosanna with such rapture that, as Dostoevsky writes, "the more decorous angels immediately felt embarrassed." [Brothers Karamazov, Bk. 11, Ch. 9] Thus even Beethoven's "Gloria" strays "from the key" — that is, it corresponds so little to the customary song of praise, even the most blazing example. He had never been a nonbeliever like the philosopher of Ivan Karamazov; but what was his earlier childhood belief compared with the religious inspiration that now inflamed him?

But the "Credo," which he now sings in the third part of the Mass, is not simply a departure from childhood belief; it is scarcely even human belief. Already a step closer to the Divine Being than in the "Gloria," which is sung with the highest human ardor, it appears to be rather the voice of a prophet that we hear. As the two unprecedented introductory measures promise, the call of this "Credo" theme is mighty: "Credo in unum Deum patrem omnipotentem, factorem coeli et terrae" are the words. What a vision is unveiled by the setting of this omnipotentem! It proceeds in a powerful crescendo to the singing about omnipotence. At the word omnipotentem the sopranos hold a high B-flat for four measures; above this, the first violins play a theme like the tempest in which the Creator of heaven and earth storms throughout the universe, just as Michelangelo envisioned him, stretching out so powerfully that, scarcely emerging into our view, he disappears again, doubly visible as on the painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We will no longer pose the question of how this "Credo" stands in regard to the style of church music. One can feel great stretches of the movement as ecclesiastical, but everyone who recognizes its prevailing mood will find that this characterization simply no longer applies.

Beethoven himself was convinced to the very end that he had written an ecclesiastical Mass; he admitted only that it could also be performed as an oratorio — that is, in the concert hall. In the emotional rapture, the fulfillment, and the exaltation of his being, he could simply no longer sense how he had abandoned all tradition, indeed all regard for it. If the "Descendit de coelis" inundated him with the power of the image of the son of God descending from the heavens, he composed it in the uninhibited way — for so it seems to me — that his inspired eye caught sight of it and his trembling heart felt it. In the "Et incarnatus est" (this elevated part of the "Credo," full of mystery), it is again a vision that inspires him for the composition. The hovering flute figures tell of the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove; and the congregation, worshiping in the dust, murmurs its "Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine." Then another et and a pause, and again an et and a pause. Even Beethoven's biographer [Hermann] Deiters already found the et's striking. What tension — tension that is wholly unecclesiastical — always informs this passage! And right here! And then how splendidly it is resolved when, after the two pauses, joy is announced: "Homo factus es."

The "Crucifixus" is heart-wrenching, and the Passion of Christ can never be depicted more movingly than through Beethoven's "Passus et sepultus est." The "Ascendit" is expressed unashamedly by the rising figures that were then customary (it was, as I wish again and again to stress frankly, not at all Beethoven's intention to deviate from the norm); and again there stands an et by itself, for he wishes to prepare for the unutterable and to continue only after a dramatic pause: "Et iterum venturus est cum gloria." Then follows a terrifying "Judicare vivos et mortuos," not without a pause entering after another softly sung and sudden et, before the mortuos is whispered, and it crosses over to the reprise — but in the dominant. It is not allowed to stay in the tonic, which must naturally be reserved for the closing fugue.

I must, of course, forgo describing the wondrous structure of this fugue, which is not a matter to discuss in words. But I would like to call attention to the coda after the introduction of the Grave: the music of the spheres, for so they must have sounded. It is as if all the earthly limitations of the senses were lifted from that visionary, and the divine movement in all worlds and expanses lay open and visible before him. The final measures are beyond expression. From this there speaks something like the experience of Alyosha at the close of the first part of The Brothers Karamazov, when — after the difficult, twofold spiritual disturbance — he suddenly comes crashing down, in the lofty bliss of that starry night, in order to kiss the earth and shudders through a presentiment of the mystery of divine love [Brothers Karamazov, Bk. 3, Ch. 11]. There are probably few things in poetry that come close to this incomparable moment in Dostoevsky's great work. And the close of Beethoven's "Credo" seems to me just as incomparable in music, and thereby related in the deepest way to the great experience in Dostoevsky's work. And, after the long coda that quietly dies away, when a sudden trembling movement of the strings begins against the sustained chords of the voices and winds, is it not like a profoundly inward shivering under the luminous, star-strewn firmament? Is it not a trembling dissolution of human solitude in communion with the divine? I know that Beethoven must have had the loftiest moment in a life full of lofty moments when conceiving this coda. He may have often thought then that his senses had left him, and anyone who understands the "Credo" and its conclusion will also understand the utter "transport from the earth" of which Schindler speaks.

What should come now? In the "Gloria" the man inspired by God had spoken; in the "Credo," the prophet who views God. So who speaks in the "Sanctus" and "Benedictus"? No one; it speaks; we are in the holiest of holies. In Isaiah, the Lord is said to sit on a high and elevated throne, "and his train filled the temple; above it stood the Seraphim; each one had six wings; with two, they covered their faces; with two, they covered their feet; and with two, they did fly. And one cried unto another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke" [Isaiah 6:2-4]. In other words, Beethoven's musical setting is also filled with awe in the presence of the All-Holy Being, as depicted in the poetry of Isaiah.

In fact, the conclusion of the piece is quite steeped in awe; and never was there written anything more solemn than this "Sanctus." The fiery "Pleni sunt coeli" and the "Osanna" follow. Beethoven wished both to be performed by solo voices, not by the usual choir. But, with all due respect to Beethoven's wishes, that doesn't work. If the orchestral part is played with power and fire, as Beethoven intended, the solo voices are covered up. But if the orchestra is toned down so that the solo voices are discernible, all the splendor is gone, and no doubt one does greater justice to the composer's fundamental intention by performing the vocal part with the chorus supported by the full splendor of the orchestra than by pursuing the other path.

Now, after the "Osanna" with the transition to the "Benedictus," there is profound quiet. And what a passage is this soft sostenuto! It tells of the peace of the soul, of the satisfaction of all desires. In it, there is no sort of emotion beyond an exalted expectation of the most heavenly bliss, which now comes from above: "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini." Only the solo violin announces it to us at first; then the solo voices and the joyous choir confirm it. I spoke earlier of Beethoven's great capacity for love; this entire Andante is nothing but an outpouring of love. Richard Wagner once said: "I can grasp the spirit of music only in love." Nothing better can be said about music, and especially about Beethoven's music, for if we ask ourselves what actually moves us in a Beethovenian Adagio melody to devote ourselves to it with such rapture, we would find no other cause. The happiness that the music gives is based on that. In the "Benedictus," music found itself in its native ground, for as Beethoven understood the words, they told of divine love. And what he had often sung in a wordless effusion, he consciously announced here in sounds that overflowed with their blissful content — which is only to say that he wrote one of the most splendid slow movements that he had ever created.

We come now to the "Agnus," the boldest and most "subjective" movement in the Mass. One can hardly call the "Miserere nobis" a plea for succor. A person who submits a plea surely believes in the possibility of its fulfillment and has a hope of its being granted. But the view that Beethoven affords of the misery of humankind, of the "sorrow of the world," is without hope. His music is no entreaty full of great expectations but rather a bleak lament.

I should like to pose the question whether he actually wished to depict hell, eternal damnation without hope. I know of no piece more deprived of light, not one that could speak of a deeper misery. This thrice-repeated statement, increased each time to a level of higher despair; the slow inward collapse; everything without vigor; pure wailing without redress — we would hope that he thought "only" about hell. For it is equally possible, and thus all the worse, that he associated earthly, human existence with this inconceivably terrifying representation. One simply cannot describe from what abysmal and nocturnal depths the wretched voices ring out to the Lamb of God. I earlier referred to Dostoevsky and Michelangelo for comparison, well aware that in them I had named kindred spirits to Beethoven. Now I wish to speak yet of a third, who does not appear to me on the whole, except in certain particulars, as a kindred spirit: Dante. And perhaps Beethoven never came closer to Dante than in this first part of the "Agnus."

The chorus now gently intones a quiet "Agnus Dei" on the A-major first-inversion chord and with that moves into the "Dona nobis pacem," which Beethoven called "a plea for inner and outer peace." Truly serene, it begins charmingly in a nearly pastoral vein, then builds, offers an intense challenge, and is interrupted by — a soft solo played on the kettle-drum, like horses pawing the ground, and the fragment of a military march played on trumpets. A solo voice nervously calls "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi" (Beethoven even wrote "nervously" above the passage as a performance direction). The trumpets build in volume, a fearful second solo voice joins in, the tremolo of the strings swells, the chorus calls out a violent "Miserere nobis," the march plays out fortissimo on the trumpets, and a high soprano voice closes the terrifying episode with an "Agnus Dei," cried out in absolute despair. There is probably no one who would not find this stirring intermezzo — which this time is truly and undeniably quite unecclesiatical — one of the boldest and, at the same time, most problematic extravagances of Beethoven's fantasy. And what critical judgments this passage has already received from the most loyal followers of Beethoven! In this I can see nothing other than a vision in the spirit of the Apocalypse: on the one side, humankind praying for peace in mortal fear; on the other, forces that are inimical and menacing. And I am by no means thinking of actual war. Rather, I believe that Beethoven understood the military trumpets and drums as a symbol of everything that is inimical and that, with coarse hands, interferes with the peace that we all desire in life.

The second episode after the next "Dona nobis pacem," the orchestral interlude, only confirms my interpretation of Beethoven's vision: it is a hard, cruel piece, telling of strife, and the following words could stand above it: "The battle of all against all." Trumpets and drums interrupt it, this time only in short rhythms, and now the entire orchestra including the trombones joins the choir in "Agnus Dei." There follows in the brass and drums a kind of veritable percussive din, and a desperate "Dona pacem" from the choir and the soprano soloist. Let us calmly admit it: Beethoven here is more a visionary than an artist. But this apocalyptic vision, which came into existence when he pondered in his heart the deepest meaning of a plea for peace, was too mighty for him to resist giving it an intensely vivid expression, even if doing so meant that a certain disruption of the purely musical element (held in check so far throughout the entire Mass) would enter in the last movement, a kind of disorder.

Who would have it otherwise? Who would not be grateful to have the opportunity of peering, as it were, through the chink of music into the Beethovenian eye itself, glowing with visionary fire? The bold and problematic design of the "Agnus Dei" lay in the direct pursuit of the path that Beethoven had taken earlier: to express in tones what he perceived of God and the world. That was his undertaking in the Mass: he had not chosen it; it had chosen him, and he remained true to it to the end. After the last episode, the soloists and chorus for a third time take up the "Dona nobis pacem." It is a more ardent entreaty than earlier. Indeed, it builds to a most powerful demand; then it sinks down to an emotional whisper, to be finally cried out to heaven one last time with full strength by the tormented creature. It is not otherwise; after a newly won inner feeling of being as near to the Divine Being as one can ever come, Beethoven turns his gaze in this last movement of the Mass upon the earth, upon the life of humankind, and he sees pervasive torment, war, and distress.

"God is love, but the world is evil and full of sorrow": that is the last thought of Beethoven's Missa solemnis. A vision of God extending to a mystical union with the Highest Being had come to him; he had not gained a world view in which he could feel secure. But then, when surveying the pain of this world with open eyes and a feeling heart, who has achieved this? Such a world view would be gained by one who, from an understanding of the true nature of God, could infer or at least suspect a more optimistic interpretation of the world's sorrow. Here I neither can nor will touch upon the problem of all problems, which a philosopher has declined to discuss with these words: We can choose only between an almighty God and a benevolent one. Beethoven saw Him as simultaneously almighty and benevolent. And thus he had to fall into deep confusion, realizing that the world is evil. Perhaps, with his powerful religious predisposition and his moral ingenuity, he would have had the ability to attain clarity out of such confusion. Perhaps there were tendencies in him toward piety, and it is only natural for the pious to arrange evil into a harmonious world picture, in which everything appears as a consequence of an Almighty Divinity that is at once love and only love — in which, therefore, everything appears good. But Beethoven's musical genius truly outweighed everything else in him, and thus it was in his nature to use music to calm everything that stormed and rocked within his soul. And it is for that reason that he wrote the Missa solemnis instead of taking holy orders. For music can channel completely into itself the metaphysical needs of man. Whoever knows the blessings of music no longer brings his religious tendencies to it in order to live fully, and probably for the reason mentioned earlier: because he has, precisely through music, a kind of direct contact with divine love, as through an act of grace, without having somehow to achieve it first through great effort. But where would we have knowledge of this highest power of music if not from Beethoven, who actually first created this power of music when, out of his soul, he extracted from music the power of deepest expression?

Once again: Would we wish the "Agnus Dei" otherwise? Is the line descending at the close of the work no longer a thing of deep beauty? In the end, there is also the warmest humility of the heart as well as ardent sympathy in that Beethoven, after the lofty flight of the middle movements, when turning to the contemplation of human, earthly existence, sees it so deep in the dust, pleading for mercy, and in helpless fear, pleading for peace. No, we do not wish it otherwise — and, what is more, precisely because of what is problematic in the piece. Let us think of that clever saying of Nietzsche: that one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a star. Beethoven's inner world was truly a world. In it, not only does divine harmony rule, but underneath there are always chaotic depths somewhere or other, into which even he did not gaze down and about which he could give only enigmatic information when speaking. And it is just this that we sense in the "Agnus."

If the stern critic seems prevented on purely artistic grounds, because of the "Agnus Dei," from acknowledging Beethoven's word that the Missa solemnis is his most perfect work, then we wish to state: Of course, the objections are not without justification, but it is not through a minus but rather through a plus that it strays from perfection. It became problematic not through a deficiency but through an overabundance, and this was because it came directly from the heart and was in turn to enter the heart — and we wish to bow down before the greatest human heart that has ever revealed itself in music.

Translated by Erik Ryding

(I am grateful to James Altena and Rolland and Irmgard Parker for their comments on an earlier draft of this translation. —ER)