Customer Reviews

Beethoven: Messe in C

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Beethoven was originally chastised by Prince Esterházy when this work premiered as "not one of your finest composition, Herr Beethoven." Thankfully, that dismissal did not bury this fine work, and if Prince Esterházy had heard this recording, I'm sure his opinion would have been quite different.

Gardiner's approach to this piece is refreshing with lively tempi, exquisite phrasing, vitality, and gives the mass an emotional center. The Monteverdi Choir also gives a fine performance, with careful attention to classical-style. Also, few choirs/choruses can match Moneverdi's tuning.

The soloists, too, give good performances. If you've ever wondered why some people love this work, you'll understand after you give this recording a listen. If you listen closely enough, you'll hear overtures to the mass Beethoven would write later in life, Missa Solemnis.

It's a pity that Beethoven's wonderful C Major Mass is not more well known. More people know, or struggle to know his mightier, yet thornier Missa Solemnis. A lot of the musical and stylistic elements which characterise both the Missa Solemnis and the Choral Finale of the Ninth Symphony are in evidence in the present piece: extreme dynamic contrasts, exciting volleys of brass and kettledrum, thrilling choral writing. But on the whole it has a sunny radiance, a joyfulness and buoyancy the later pieces lack. The writing for soloists is often in quartet form and features some extraordinarily beautiful things.

The qualities I have come to love and expect from Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his forces are on display here: wonderfully alive, springy tempi, rhythmic drive, transparent textures. It must be said again and again that the Monteverdi Choir covers itself in glory. The whole enterprise is completely satisfying.

Gardiner's light, transpearent orchestral sound, fleet tempi, rhythmic buoyancy and unaffected forward drive all resonate harmoniously in this, his greatest recording of the unknown Beethoven masterpiece.

In addition to the clear crisp production and very singers and musicianship, the almost modernistic, progressive architectural structure of the Mass in C perfectly suits Gardiner's more forward-thrusting treatment.

This is an irresistible recording of a grand conception, and I salute and thank all those involved.

The first mass from Beethoven is (as everybody knows) not a masterpiece as the Missa Solemnis, but it's quite underrated. Beethoven himself thinked that this was a very revolutionaire work. When you hear the mass complete you know that it's not a liturgical work, it's a concert piece. I think that Beethoven did a great work with the text (specially the Gloria) and it's quite good. Please, if you like the Choral Masterworks from Beethoven (I think Meerestille und glükliche Fahrt is one) buy this disk, but sample the gloria above first. You will not be dissapointed.

Simply the bes