Beethoven

by Drabkin, William

• ISBN13: 9780521378314
• ISBN10: 0521378311
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-12-01
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The Missa Solemnis is a document of extraordinary richness from the last decades of Beethoven’s creative life. In this compendious and accessible guide, William Drabkin considers the work as a musical expression of the most celebrated text of the Roman Catholic faith and as an example from a tradition of Mass settings in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Austria. The opening chapters present various critical perspectives on the Missa Solemnis and chart the history of its composition, first performances and publication. But, above all, the work itself is considered in detail, including the overall design, connections between the movements, the orchestration, word painting and programmatic elements.

Table of Contents

List of tables	ix
Preface	xi
Critical perspectives	1	(10)
The Missa solemnis as religious experience	1	(2)
The Missa solemnis and music history	3	(1)
The Missa solemnis in the History of sacred music	4	(2)
Analytical studies	6	(2)
Source studies	8	(3)
Composition, performance and publication history	11	(8)
Background	11	(3)
The composition of the Mass	14	(3)
The marketing of the Mass: publication, performance	17	(2)
Preliminaries to the analysis	19	(9)
Beethoven and the Austrian mass tradition	20	(1)
Analytical method	21	(2)
Textual problems	23	(3)
The Mass in D as a `missa solemnis'	26	(2)
Kyrie	28	(9)
The first `Kyrie' (bars 1-85)	29	(4)
`Christe' (bars 86-128)	33	(1)
The second `Kyrie' (bars 129-223)	33	(4)
Gloria	37	(15)
Gloria in excelsis Deo	41	(5)
Qui tollis	46	(2)
Quoniam	48	(1)
The closing fugue	49	(3)
Credo	52	(14)
The first section (bars 1-123)	55	(2)
The central section (bars 125-87)	57	(4)
The third section and closing fugue (bars 188-472)	61	(5)
Sanctus	66	(17)
Early sketches for the movement	66	(7)
Sanctus-Pleni-Osanna	73	(3)
Praeludium and Benedictus	76	(4)
The second `Osanna'	80	(3)
Agnus Dei	83	(13)
The `Agnus'	85	(2)
The beginning of the `Dona'	87	(5)
The `War' interruptions and their consequences	92	(2)
The Coda	94	(2)
Concluding thoughts	96	(13)
Connections between the movements	96	(5)
Orchestration	101	(5)
The Missa solemnis as programmatic music	106	(3)
Notes	109	(4)
Bibliography	113	(4)
Index	117