Beethoven's Missa Solemnis
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BEETHOVEN’S MISSA SOLEMNIS presents 2016/2017 BEETHOVEN’S MISSA SOLEMNIS SEASON Sunday, October 30, 2016 at 5:30 p.m. Concert preview with Robert Istad at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Chorale Platinum Season Sponsor Phillip N. and Mary A. Lyons Pacific Symphony Silver Season Sponsor Carl St.Clair, Music Director The Shanbrom Family Foundation Tamara Mancini, soprano Concert Sponsors: Renée Tatum, mezzo-soprano William J. Gillespie Nicholas Preston, tenor Lenora Meister & Salt-Away Products, Inc. Nathan Stark, bass Vina Williams and Tom Slattery Haydee and Carlos Mollura John Alexander, conducting John and Lori Loftus Additional Concert Support: Anne and Tom Henley Ludwig van Beethoven (1833–1897) Loraine Reed Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123 (1823) Martha and Peter Wetzel The Great 8: 1. Kyrie Anonymous 2. Gloria Peter Hahn Craig Kistler 3. Credo Young MacKeand 4. Sanctus and Benedictus Chikayo Rattee 5. Agnus Dei Robert Rife Meri Rogoff Janice Strength Community Partners: 1 TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS Kyrie Et homo factus est. and was made man. Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. Crucifixus etiam pro nobis He was crucified also for us Christe eleison. Christ, have mercy. sub Pontio Pilato: under Pontius Pilate, Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. passus, et sepultus est suffered, and was buried, et resurrexit tertia die, and on the third day he rose Gloria again, Gloria in excelsis Deo, Glory to God in the highest, secundum Scripturas according to the Scriptures, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ and on earth peace to men of et ascendit in coelum: and ascended into heaven voluntatis. good will. sedet ad dexteram Patris. and sits at the right hand of the Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. We praise you. We bless you. Father, Adoramus te. Glorificamus te. We adore you. We glorify you. et iterum venturus est cum and he shall come again with Gratias agimus tibi propter We give thanks to you for gloria, glory, magnam gloriam tuam. your great glory. judicare vivos et mortuos: to judge the living and the dead; Domine Deus, Rex cœlestis, Lord God, King of Heaven, cujus regni non erit finis. of his kingdom there will be no Deus Pater omnipotens. God, the Father Almighty. end. Domine Fili unigenite, Jesu The only-begotten Son, Lord Et in Spiritum Sanctum, And I believe in the Holy Spirit, Christe. Jesus Christ, Dominum et vivificantem: the Lord and Giver of life, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. who proceeds from the Father Filius Patris. the Father. and the Son. Qui tollis peccata mundi, You who take away the sins of Qui cum Patre et Filio Who with the Father and the Son the world, simul adoratur et conglorificatur: together is adored and glorified, miserere nobis. have mercy on us. qui locutus est per Prophetas. who spoke through the Prophets. Qui tollis peccata mundi, You who take away the sins of Et unam sanctam catholicam And I believe in one holy, catholic the world, et apostolicam Ecclesiam. and apostolic Church. suscipe deprecationem nostram. receive our prayer. Confiteor unum baptisma I confess one baptism Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, You who sit at the right hand of in remissionem peccatorum. for the remission of sins. the Father, Et expecto resurrectionem And I expect the resurrection of miserere nobis. have mercy on us. mortuorum, the dead, Quoniam tu solus sanctus. Tu For you alone are holy. You et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. and the life of the world to come. solus Dominus. Tu solus alone are the Lord. You alone Amen. altissimus, Jesu Christe, are most high, Jesus Christ, cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria with the Holy Spirit in the glory of Sanctus Dei Patris. Amen. God the Father. Amen. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Holy, Holy, Holy, Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Lord God of Hosts. Credo Pleni sunt cæli et terra glori tua. Heaven and earth are full of your Credo in unum Deum, I believe in one God, glory. Patrem omnipotentem, the Father Almighty, Osanna in excelsis. Hosanna in the highest. factorem coeli et terrae, maker of heaven and earth, visibilium omnium et and of all things visible and Agnus Dei invisibilium. invisible. Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, Et in unum Dominum Jesum And I believe in one Lord, Jesus qui tollis peccata mundi, who takes away the sins of the Christum, Christ, world, Filium Dei unigenitum, the only begotten Son of God, miserere nobis. have mercy upon us. et ex Patre natum ante omnia born of the Father before all saecula, ages, Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, Deum de Deo, lumen de God from God, light from light, qui tollis peccata mundi, who takes away the sins of the lumine, world, Deum verum de Deo vero; true God from true God; miserere nobis have mercy upon us. genitum, non factum, begotten, not made, consubstantialem Patri, of one substance with the Father, Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, per quem omnia facta sunt. by whom all things were made. qui tollis peccata mundi, who takes away the sins of the Qui propter nos homines Who for us men world, et propter nostram salutem and for our salvation dona nobis pacem. grant us peace. descendit de coelis, came down from heaven, et incarnatus est de Spiritu and was incarnate by the Holy Sancto Spirit ex Maria Virgine: of the Virgin Mary, 2 PROGRAM NOTES By Gordon Paine he three-score years and ten between the composition Tof Bach’s B-minor Mass and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1819–1823) witnessed wrenching changes in European society. In 1776, England’s American colonies declared independence from their distant ruler, and just thirteen years later the French peasantry relieved Louis XVI of his head, axing with the same blow the divine right of kings. And as Enlightenment philosophy spread and political power seeped downward, the church, the oldest bastion of conservatism, struggled to maintain its influence. Europe became more secular, rational, and individualistic. The personal words the two composers inscribed on their Masses reflect this evolution. On the final page of the B-Minor Mass, a vast work that served as Bach’s final artistic testament, he wrote humbly and objectively, “To God alone be the glory.” Beethoven, however, superscribed his Missa solemnis with the intimately personal “From the heart—may it go to the heart.” The contrasting circumstances of the two composers’ employment are also illustrative. In Bach’s time a composer could make a living in his profession only if employed by a noble, city, or church. Beethoven, on the other hand, was among the first entrepreneur- composers to sell his works to the distinguished pupil, the Archduke never before and never since have I public. Granted, wealthy patrons and Rudolph, brother to the emperor, who experienced him in such sublime and friends frequently pulled him out of was to be made Cardinal of Olmütz, unearthly spheres.” Austria on March 9, 1820. Beethoven financial ditches, but he nonetheless Beethoven wanted to attempt this began composing eighteen months in blazed a trail for those who followed. work only when he possessed the advance, but due to a host of personal compositional tools that would connect The Missa solemnis (Solemn Mass) troubles and his compulsive and time- it to the centuries-old history of the is the second of his two Masses, the consuming revisions, he missed his Mass and ensure it an honored place first having been the comparatively deadline. It was not until three years in that continuum. So it was that the conservative and smaller-scale C-major later that the Cardinal finally received master composer of his day, nearing Mass of 1807. Both are written in his presentation copy of the score. the end of his life, undertook a study five movements corresponding to the Still, the compositional process seems of Gregorian chant and the church five sections of the Roman Catholic to have been marked by exaltation. Of music of his predecessors, including Mass Ordinary. Beethoven initially the year 1819, Beethoven’s secretary Palestrina (c. 1525–1594) and conceived his Missa solemnis as Anton Schindler wrote, “when I recall Bach. His work with both sharpened the installation music for his most his spiritual tension, I must admit that his contrapuntal skills, Palestrina 3 PROGRAM NOTES enriching his imitative writing, and becomes gentle and sustained, as the doubling of tempo). The aftermath, an Bach providing lessons in the all-but- tenor announces the great mystery: exquisite, lyric coda, is rivaled in effect obsolete art of the fugue. To the former “And became incarnate by the Holy only by the conclusion of the Agnus we owe many delicate passages such Spirit of the Virgin Mary: and was Dei at the end of the Mass. as the Christe eleison, and to the latter made man.” Beethoven “sanctifies” Like the Ninth Symphony, which the fugues of the Gloria, Credo, and the passage by writing in the medieval shared the program with the Missa Agnus Dei. Dorian mode rather than in a modern solemnis at its Vienna premiere key, and gives the flute a symphonic- The Missa solemnis is, nonetheless, (Beethoven routinely subjected his style solo in which its unusual anything but a traditional Mass. First, audiences to numbingly long concerts), fluttering in the stratosphere suggests it is too long and dramatic to be used the Missa solemnis has always the presence of the Holy Spirit—a in an actual church service, where had a well-deserved reputation for musical synonym for the radiant dove liturgy would require the movements the difficulty of its vocal parts. It is that crowns the altarpieces of old to be performed separately.