• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

  • Our Team
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
    • Saint Antoine Daniel KYRIALE
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
  • Donate
Views from the Choir Loft

Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” and the Five Ways of St. Thomas

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · February 27, 2014

319_beethoven_2 HAVE A CERTAIN fondness for Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and some readers may even recall that I wrote about the Catholic character of this work some time ago on this blog (see here). It is not my favorite setting of the Mass texts by a long shot (the palm, in my book, would go either to Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, Bruckner’s Mass No. 2, or Pärt’s Berliner Messe), but it has always remained, for me, a fascinating amalgamation of humanism and simple faith, an intricate microcosm and elevated expression of the peculiar genius of this revolutionary composer.

Once, when listening to the Missa Solemnis, I noticed that its number in Beethoven’s catalog, Opus 123, corresponds to the locus of the Five Ways of Saint Thomas, 1.2.3 (that is, the first part, second question, third article). Moreover, Beethoven assigns to the work as a whole the key of D Major―D for DEUS, to whom the work as a whole is expressly directed, since it is a prayer from beginning to end, an idealized accompaniment to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in which perfect worship is given to the Father by the Son. Thus, a mystical correspondence is obtained between the five movements and the five arguments.

1. The Kyrie and its manifold echoes are like the First Way’s tracing back of effects of motion to their distant and less perceptible causes, and thence to the very first, the Unmoved Mover. The soloists represent the higher and more powerful causes, the chorus the lower and more evident.

2. The Gloria, with its great power and forcefulness, is a dramatic image of efficient causality as such, to which the Second Way is devoted. The powerful fugues and fugal sections are like the levels or layers of causality, one on top of the other, all based upon and testifying to a primal idea or motive (“motif”) that gives them the power to harmonize or cooperate towards a common end.

3. The Credo has often been considered a brash exhibition of Beethoven’s anti-doctrinal pietism, since the articles of the creed are set in rather hurried phrases while the word “Credo” is repeated again and again, as if to say: “Don’t bother too much about the details, the crucial thing is just to believe―believe in something divine, that’s the crux of it.” But one might read the movement differently. The very basis of the truth of all the articles of faith is God’s own nature, His authority, His unspeakable power. And this is precisely the object of our “credo”: I believe that God is God, that He is who He says He is, that He can do all things. In this way, the setting of the Credo highlights the relationship between divine necessity and the mere possibility of all other things that flow from His sovereignly free will, made known to us only by a revelation to which we confidently reply: Credo. In this, one glimpses a correspondence between the Credo and the Third Way.

4. The Sanctus, with its angelic and lofty tone, gestures towards the “Platonic” Fourth Way, the way of manifesting God’s existence from the beauty, nobility, goodness, or any perfection found in things―yet found in them by being caused in them, since creatures are not competent to endow themselves with these perfections. Creatures, having been given the fundamental perfection of being, work to build up still other perfections, but inasmuch as the creature, qua creature, is in potency, the actuality it possesses must be ultimately derived from a source that is potential in no way and altogether actual. The song of the heavenly host, as Beethoven reproduces it, captures this downpour of perfections from their celestial font.

5. The Agnus Dei is suggestive of the argument from divine governance. The tragic tone with which this movement begins and the triumphant glorious conclusion reminds us of the mystery of God’s rulership over the universe, which permits evil (hence the peccata, and the consequent miserere nobis) in order to draw forth a greater good, often in ways we cannot see or ever do see in this life (dona nobis pacem). The rich, intricate, and intertwining harmonies of this movement, and its continual dialoguing between soloists and chorus, are, in their own way, a sensible image of the hierarchical structure of the cosmos, where lower and higher are mutually related for the good of each, where the one and the many are reconciled in the service of charity, and where all things by their very nature strive for the good.

One final note on the Credo of the Missa Solemnis. How could anyone who listens to the “Crucifixus” or the “Passus et sepultus,” or the resplendent “Resurrexit”―all the more forceful from its homophonic brevity―ever think that Beethoven was not a believer? Perhaps he was no orthodox Catholic, but the Catholic faith, its creed, its sacraments, was deep in his bones; it shapes every phrase of this great work. The lengthy final section of the Credo, from “Resurrexit” onwards, is a testimony of faith in the accomplishments of the crucified Christ whom Beethoven lovingly contemplates in the middle section. It is through the death of Christ that the contrapuntal credos of the final section, expressing the constant exercise of the virtue of faith, are made possible.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Don’t You Agree About These?
    If you want to make Jeff Ostrowski really happy, send him an email with effusive praise about the individual voice recordings for hymn #296. [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass] They came out dazzlingly sensational, don't you agree?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Choral Vowels? Yes? No?
    Here's a live recording of one of the choral “warm-up” exercises my choir enjoys. It was taken during our rehearsal on 27 January 2023. It’s good to make sure each chord is perfectly in tune and balanced before moving to the next one. That only happens when each singer has the correct vowel. If you like, you can freely download that vocal exercise.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    26 January 2023 • FEEDBACK
    “Jeff, I wanted to personally thank you for your spiritual witness at the Symposium & often blogs that you write too. Praying that prayer in the mornings My God, my Father and my all (by Cardinal Merry Del Val), mentioning saints’ stories of Brébeuf, Jogues, John Vianney, monks who fought in WWII, their hard work in spite of terrible conditions, their relentless zeal for the faith, their genuine love for the laypeople they served, etc. Overall though—more than anything concrete I can point to that you did or said—it was your demeanor at the Symposium. I could tell you really absolutely love and believe the Catholic Faith. You don’t get that everywhere, even in Church circles. And your humility is what then makes that shine even brighter. It is super inspiring! God is working through you probably way more than you know.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

The representative Protestant collection, entitled “Hymns, Ancient and Modern”—in substance a compromise between the various sections of conflicting religious thought in the Establishment—is a typical instance. That collection is indebted to Catholic writers for a large fractional part of its contents. If the hymns be estimated which are taken from Catholic sources, directly or imitatively, the greater and more valuable part of its contents owes its origin to the Church.

— Orby Shipley (1884)

Recent Posts

  • Don’t You Agree About These?
  • Choral Vowels? Yes? No?
  • Crucial Tip For Choir Directors
  • Father Herbert Thurston • “I Fear the Man With One Book”
  • 26 January 2023 • FEEDBACK

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2023 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.