Hurwitz has posted several discussions of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with reviews of recordings by Bernstein, Zinman, Gardiner, Shaw, Klemperer, Blomstedt, etc. I own the Telarc CD of Robert Shaw of the Missa Solemnis and Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus and several soloists. You could also watch the conductor rehearsing and performing the Missa Solemnis in 1992 at Carnegie Hall.
In one of Hurwitz's discussions of this great Mass, he talks about how until he listened to George Szell's 1967 performance in Severance Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra, Sara Mae Endlich (soprano), Florence Kopleff (alto), Ernst Haefliger (tenor) and Ezio Flagello (bass) and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus prepared by Robert Shaw, he did not understand or appreciate this work. In another video, however, he chooses Leonard Bernstein's 1978/1979 live recording with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra as The Reference Recording.
Indeed, the 1967 Szell is out of print, but I found it on YouTube, and after listening to it, went back to Dietrich von Hildebrand's MOZART BEETHOVEN SCHUBERT and read what he said about Beethoven's achievement in this work:It is a work or art, but a sacred work of art. It is primarily an artistic representation--even the representation--of the spirit of the Holy Mass. Its sublime artistic beauty is fully thematic; but, on the other hand, it is so unambiguously sacred and so much a religious confession that one cannot do justice either to Beethoven's intention or to the spirit of the work if one listens to it as a pure work of art, that is to say, with the same attitude with which one listens to a symphony.* Despite the thematic character of the artistic beauty, the theme of the whole remains purely religious. (p. 73)
Earlier in the book, von Hildebrand comments on the "thoroughly Catholic" essence of this Mass at the beginning of the Benedictus "When . . . the violin rings out, it is as if heaven bends down; when the Dona nobis pacem resounds, as if humanity from its true metaphysical position looks up beseechingly to God. Truly, it ever in the world of art applies, then here we must say: "It is the Passover of the Lord." (p. 42)
That's so true in this performance! Or when you listen to the pleading of Szell's soloists and the chorus in the Agnus Dei for mercy and for peace as the prayers they are, not merely thematic developments, you know what von Hildebrand means.
Sometimes critics ask if they can really appreciate a religious work without a religious response--reactions to Elgar's Dream of Gerontius usually disparage the text** and years ago a critic wrote that he couldn't respond to the tragedy of the Carmelites of Compiegne in Poulenc's opera because he didn't accept their rationale for martyrdom (I'm relying on my memory of Catholic media response to his review.) I think according to von Hildebrand you have to have the correct subjective response to the objective value of the work to give it its due and comprehend what the composer intended to achieve.
Regarding Beethoven's religious faith, the commonly accepted view is that he had left behind his childhood Catholicism, but Nicholas Chong, an assistant professor of musicology at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, has written a book I've seen reviewed, The Catholic Beethoven, published by OUP (expensive!!!!!) but fascinating:
The Catholic Beethoven offers a new view of Beethoven and his religious music by demonstrating that both the composer and his sacred works were influenced by the German Catholicism of his era to a greater extent than has been thought. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, most accounts of Beethoven's religious attitudes have assumed that, as a child of the Enlightenment, the composer was estranged from the Catholicism into which he was born, adhering instead to an idiosyncratic and unorthodox religious outlook that was suspicious of dogma and tradition. This assumption has often resulted in the critical marginalization of Beethoven's religious music, with the notable exception of the Missa solemnis, which is usually included among his most important compositions only by being reinterpreted as a humanist or universalist work transcending its superficial identity as a setting of the Catholic Mass. This book argues that such views have relied on an inadequately complex view of the Enlightenment, which presumes incorrectly that the Enlightenment was monolithically opposed to traditional religious belief.
Beethoven's religious outlook was primarily shaped by ideas associated with the German Catholic Enlightenment, a particular strand of the Enlightenment that sought to reconcile traditional Catholic beliefs with elements from more familiar, secular versions of the Enlightenment. The book uses the central concerns of this Catholic Enlightenment as a framework for interpreting Beethoven's sacred works-not just the Missa solemnis, but also the Mass in C, Christus am Ölberge, and the Gellert Lieder-as well as documentary evidence usually cited in relation to the composer's religious outlook. In addition, it will situate the content of a number of religious books in his library within the religious-historical context of his time. Particular attention is devoted to Beethoven's interest in the writings of Johann Michael Sailer (1751-1832), one of the most important figures in German Catholicism during Beethoven's time, with whom the composer also had a personal connection.
*Von Hildebrand only mentions Gustav Mahler once (as an opera director of Beethoven's Fidelio); I wonder what he thought of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony with its "Urlicht" and "Aufersteh'n" movements . . .
**Dave Hurwitz particularly despises Saint John Henry Newman's poetry in content and form. Newman had a more dispassionate view of his work: "As to my own Gerontius, it was not the versification which sold it, but the subject. It is a RELIGIOUS subject which appeals to the feelings of everyone." (September 18, 1870.) Not in this case, obviously.
Image Source (Public Domain): Beethoven with the manuscript of the Missa solemnis by Joseph Karl Stieler (1819-1820)
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