Beethoven's Sanctus from Missa Solemnis

In a sense, the three preceding movements—the introductory Kyrie and monumental Gloria and Credo—are all a setup to the sacred moment of the Sanctus and the miracle of the Eucharist. Considered one of Beethoven’s finest slow movements—and that’s saying a lot!—the Sanctus expresses different music than what we’ve heard to this point. Like the Kyrie, Beethoven instructs the Sanctus to be performed with devotion (Mit Andacht).

Beethoven creates a musical structure that intimates having to go through several successful chambers to enter the “Holy Mystery” of the Benedictus (the blessing of the Eucharist). Just as the preceding movements prepare the Sanctus movement, the Benedictus itself is prepared by several different “chambers.”

First is a quiet expressive hymn that opens the mystery with the feel of a Renaissance mass, first with the orchestra alone…

…and then the choir.

The reflective atmosphere then abruptly shifts to another “chamber”— a jubilant D major tutti with choir, soloists and orchestra that reflects the text that “Heaven and Earth are full of thy Glory.”

An even faster exultation of Hosanna, set fugally, brings the first part of the Sanctus to an energetic close.

All of these musical sections introduce a fourth “chamber” of the inner sanctum, so to speak. An expressive orchestral prelude that itself sets the table for the mystery of the Eucharist—the Benedictus, or blessing. Traditionally in the mass, an organist would improvise (the original meaning of prelude). What Beethoven gives us is an unfolding of string harmonies that is in a musical language decades ahead of Beethoven’s time. To us it sounds similar to the lush harmonies of Wagner. And at one particular moment, it has the harmony of Mahler’s Adagietto to his fifth symphony!

Because the Benedictus that follows is so extraordinary, this prelude might be overlooked. It shouldn’t be. It’s some of Beethoven’s finest writing. It concludes in great mystery, with a swell on a dominant 9th chord over a tonic pedal. What an imaginative and mysterious preparation for the final “chamber,” the gorgeous Benedictus.

The mysterious dominant 9th that concludes the prelude magically prepares the entrance so high above of the solo violin and flutes. They sound like they are in heaven as they slowly descend to earth. The violin seems cleary to embody the Holy Spirit descending to the Eucharist. This magical violin descent is itself yet another introduction to the final “chamber,” so to speak: the Benedictus. And now the violin introduces its sweet, expressive theme, at last revealing a profound and intimate slow movement that is essentially a combined violin concerto, a choral work, and a vocal quartet.The solo violin hovers high in this extended beautiful Andante that is as deep as the Adagio of the 9th symphony, yet quite a completely different type of music.

Not incidentally, it can be a challenge to clearly hear the violin solo, as it competes with the choir and the trombones. Recordings mix the violin clearly so that it does sound like a “violin concerto,”, but depending where you sit in a live performance, many passages get subsumed, especially when the violin dips into its lower register.

How can anything equal the beauty of this violin theme, you might wonder, until the solo singers take up the melody and make it even more sublime.

The interplay of choir with the solo violin provides an expressive contrast. It is tricky to balance the violin all the other orchestral and choral forces. The rich harmonics of the trombones and other winds, the strings, the choir, and even the vocal soloists can drown out the violin, even though it hovers high above them.

In what is Beethoven’s most eloquent vocal writing, all four soloists now sing an extended variation of the theme. Listen especially for the moment the soprano climbs up to her high C.

You might be wondering at this point, where is the fugue? :) Beethoven hasn’t forgotten. The soloists swell to a dominant chord that the choir resolves singing Hosanna. Then the coda begins with a fughetta (a short fugue) building from basses to tenors to altos and sopranos, culminating quickly to a grand held dominant chord.

Then so sweetly, so fragilely, the solo violin enters with the second phrase of the Benedictus theme, while beneath it, the choir sings in hushed tones. The counterpoint in the last few measures is sublime, even delicious in its passing dissonances, with the choir singing scales in contrary motion against itself. On the final “Hosanna in excelsis,” the solo violin, the choir, and orchestra swell to a C major chord that dies away as the solo violin climbs in arpeggio back to heaven, resolving to G major for a classic “Amen” plagal cadence.

If there is a sacred moment in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, this sublime Benedictus is surely that moment. Yet the structure of the entire Sanctus is equally imaginative. While the text of the Sanctus is quite brief, Beethoven conceives an extensive emotional journey in order to prepare us psychologically for the Benedictus. These different sections, what I’m calling “chambers,” play us like emotional harps. We begin in quiet devotion, then feel joy at the glory of heaven and earth. That joy builds to high energy ecstasy. Then at our highest emotional energy, Beethoven plunges us abruptly to extreme mystery with that exquisite orchestral prelude, quieter than even the devout opening. Now at last we are emotionally prepared to receive the descent of the Holy Spirit, represented as a high solo violin, and then to proceed to the blessing.

This structural complexity is one reason Missa Solemnis is not as popular as the Handel oratorios to which Beethoven aspired. Handel expresses direct, clear emotions in fairly short pieces of a few minutes, “bite-sized” compared to Beethoven. Beethoven’s emotional journeys require 5 to 10 times that length. Just as Beethoven places high technical demands on the singers, so too does he expect extended concentration from us listeners. This was the aspiration that guided Wagner and Mahler in their own monumental works. Our reward may not be the “instilled belief” Beethoven hoped for, but certainly it is the reward of deep introspection and emotional catharsis that comes from the finest works of art.