The Greatest Music of the West

[David]

I know, a dramatic thread title, & some probably think it a pompous one. But I want to share a work of music that means more to me than any other music, & one that I believe will usher me out when that time comes. It's the titanic fugue that closes out the Et resurrexit of the Credo of one of Beethoven's late-period masterpieces, the Missa Solemnis (Op. 123), which was dedicated to Beethoven's friend & pupil, the Archduke Rudolph. It's not a very popular work, especially by Beethoven standards, but I consider it the most original & powerful music ever written.

In this particular section of the Credo, Beethoven sets the words Et vitam venturi saeculi (And the life of the world to come) to a great fugue in a major key, & it builds & builds & climaxes with a doubling of its tempo (making it fiendishly difficult to sing). What it meant to Beethoven, no one knows. To me, it represents what the poet Seidl wrote in a graveside tribute to Beethoven in 1827:

Listen to the psalms of his choruses of supplication & you will see a heart that orbits God's throne.

A friend of Beethoven's reported that Beethoven's personality changed during the four-year-long composition of the Missa. The friend visited him at one point during the onslaught, & wrote that: "In the living room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo -- singing, howling, stamping. The door opened & Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole host of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies."



I've included a scan of all eleven pages of the fugue (from the piano reduction of the score published in Austria) along with an MP3 of a recording (conducted by Eliot Gardiner). You can click on the thumbnails & get a full-size image of each page of the music. I had to put the final three pages in a second post. I hope whoever listens to this enjoys it!

et vitam venturi.mp3 - 4.43MB