That the commission was given is certain, but as it is not mentioned in the records, Mr. A. W. Thayer is probably right in thinking that it was given unofficially by Richardson and two or three other members. In October 1854 Mr. Thayer wrote a letter to Mr. J. S. Dwight, the well-known editor of the “Musical Journal,” to say that he had questioned Schindler, Beethoven’s biographer, on the subject and had learned from him that in 1823 a Boston banker, whose name was unknown to him, having occasion to write to Geymüller, a Viennese banker, had sent an order to the great musician to compose an oratorio for somebody or some society in Boston and it was forwarded to its destination.... Wishing to know the truth about the matter I wrote to Mr. Thayer, then, as now, U. S. Consul at Trieste, for information, and in reply learned that in one of Beethoven’s note books he had found this passage: “Bühler writes: ‘The oratorio for Boston?’ (Beethoven) ‘I cannot write what I should like best to write, but that which the pressing need of money obliges me to write. This is not saying that I write only for money. When this period is past I hope to write what for me and for art is above all—Faust.’”
The passages cited are from a Conversation Book used in the early days of April, 1823. In the fall of that year, on November 5, the “Morgenblatt für Gebildete Leser” closed an article on Beethoven with the words: “A symphony, quartets, a Biblical oratorio, sent to him in English by the consul of the United States, observe the United States, and possibly one of Grillparzer’s poems, may be expected.”
Chapter IV
The Solemn Mass in D—A Royal Subscription—More Negotiations with England—Opera Projects—Grillparzer’s “Melusine”—The Diabelli Variations—Summer Visitors—An Englishman’s Account—Weber and Julius Benedict—Ries and the Ninth Symphony—Franz Liszt and Beethoven’s Kiss—The Year 1823.
When the year 1823 opens, the Mass in D is supposedly finished and negotiations for its publication have been carried on in a manner the contemplation of which must affect even the casual reader grievously. The work had been originally intended for the functions attending the installation of Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz—not merely as a personal tribute to the imperial, archepiscopal pupil, but for actual performance at the ceremony of inthronization—a fact which ought to be borne in mind during its study, for it throws light upon Beethoven’s attitude towards the Catholic Church (at least so far as that church’s rubrics are concerned) as well as towards religion in general and art as its handmaiden and mistress. Archduke Rudolph had been chosen Cardinal on April 24, 1819, and Archbishop on June 4 of the same year; he was installed as head of the see of Olmütz on March 20, 1820; but the fact of his selection for the dignities was known in Vienna amongst his friends as early as the middle of 1818. When the story of the year 1823 opens, therefore, Beethoven’s plan is nearly five years old and Archduke Rudolph has been archbishop nearly a year. We first hear of the Mass this year in a letter dated February 27, when Beethoven apologizes to his august pupil for not having waited upon him. He had delayed his visit, he said, because he wanted to send him a copy of the Mass; but this had been held back by corrections and other circumstances. Accompanying the letter were the copies of the overture to “The Consecration of the House” and the “Gratulatory Minuet.” Finally, on March 19, 1823, on the very eve of the first anniversary of the installation, Beethoven placed a manuscript copy of the Mass in the Archduke’s hands. In the catalogue of the Rudolphinian Collection, now preserved by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, it is entered thus: “Missa Solemnis. Partitur. MS. This beautifully written MS. was delivered by the composer himself on March 19, 1823.”
The plan to write the Mass for the installation ceremonies seems to have been original with Beethoven; it was not suggested by the Archduke or any of his friends, so far as has ever been learned. He began work upon it at once, for Schindler says he saw the beginning of the score in the fall of 1818. Nottebohm’s study of all the sketches which have been discovered (save a number now preserved in the Beethoven House in Bonn which do not add materially to our knowledge) led him to conclusions which may be summed up as follows: The movements were taken up in the order in which the various portions of the text appear in the Roman missal, but work was prosecuted on several movements simultaneously. The Kyrie was begun at the earliest in the middle of 1818, i. e., shortly after the fact of the Archduke’s appointment became known; the Gloria was completely sketched by the end of 1819, the Credo in 1820; the entire Mass was complete in sketch-form in the beginning of 1822. While sketching the Mass Beethoven composed the Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 109, 110 and 111, the Variations, Op. 107, No. 8, and several other small pieces, including the canons “O, Tobias,” “Gehabt euch wohl,” “Tugend ist kein leerer Name,” and “Gedenkt heute an Baden.” But with the elaboration of the sketches the Mass was not really finished, for subsequently Beethoven undertook many changes. The Allegro molto which enters in the Credo at the words et ascendit is shorter in the autograph than in the printed edition. At the entrance of the words et iterum and cujus regni the autograph is in each case two measures shorter than in the printed score. In the autograph, and also in the copy which Beethoven gave to the Archduke, the trombones do not enter till the words judicare vivos et mortuos. There are no trombones in the Gloria. The trombone passage which now appears just before the entrance of the chorus on judicare was formerly set for the horns. After the words et mortuos the trombones are silent till the end of the Credo in the autograph; they enter again in the beginning of the Sanctus, but are silent at the next Allegro. They occur in the Benedictus, but are wanting in the Agnus Dei. From the nature of these supplementary alterations it is to be concluded that considerable time must have elapsed before they could all be made and the Mass be given the shape in which we know it. Holding to the date on which the copy was delivered to the Archduke (March 19, 1823), the earliest date at which the Mass can have received its definitive shape must be set down as the middle of 1823. Beethoven, therefore, devoted about five years to its composition. He made so many changes in the tympani part of the Agnus Dei that he wore a hole in the very thick paper, his aim being, apparently, by means of a vague rhythm to suggest the distance of the disturbers of the peace. That he was sincere in his purpose to provide a mass for the installation ceremonies is to be found, outside of Schindler’s statement, in a letter to the Archduke written in 1819, in which he says:
The day on which a high mass of my composition is performed at the ceremony for Y. I. H. will be to me the most beautiful in my life and God will enlighten me so that my poor powers may contribute to the glory of this solemn day.
Beethoven and Religion
Something was said, in the conclusion of the chapter of this biography devoted to a review of the incidents of the years 1807 to 1809, concerning the views Beethoven entertained on the subject of religion and dogmatic and sectarian Christianity. His attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church becomes an almost necessary subject of contemplation in a study of the Solemn Mass in D; but it is one into which the personal equation of the student must perforce largely enter. The obedient churchman of a Roman Catholic country will attach both less and more importance, than one brought up in a Protestant land, to the fact that he admonished his nephew when a lad to say his prayers and said them with him (as the boy testified in the guardianship proceedings), that he himself at least once led him to the door of the confessional,[68] that he consented to the summoning of a priest when in extremis and that he seemed to derive comfort and edification from the sacred function. It is not necessary, however, to go very deeply into a critical study of the Mass in order to say that while the composition shows respect for traditions in some portions and while it is possible to become eloquent without going beyond the demonstration contained in the music itself, in describing the overwhelming puissance of his proclamation of the fatherhood of God and belief in Him as the Creator of all things visible and invisible, the most obvious fact which confronts the analytical student is that Beethoven approached the missal text chiefly with the imagination and the emotions of an artist, and that its poetical, not to say dramatic elements were those which he was most eager to delineate.[69] One proof of this is found in what may be called the technical history of the Mass, and is therefore pertinent here. It was scarcely necessary for Beethoven to do so, but he has nevertheless given us an explanation of his singular treatment of the prayer for peace. Among the sketches for the movement is found the remark: “dona nobis pacem darstellend den innern und äussern Frieden” (“delineating internal and external peace”), and in agreement with this he superscribes the first Allegro vivace in the autograph with the same words. In the later copy this phrase is changed to “Prayer for internal and external peace,” thus showing an appreciation of the fact that the words alone contain the allusion to peace which in its external aspect is disturbed by the sounds of war suggested by the instruments. The petition for peace is emphasized by the threatening tones of military instruments accompanying the agonizing appeal for mercy sent up by the voices. The device is purely dramatic and it was not an entirely novel conceit of Beethoven’s. When the French invaded Styria in 1796, Haydn wrote a mass “In tempore belli” in which a soft drum-roll entered immediately after the words “Agnus Dei” and was gradually reinforced by trumpets and other wind-instruments “as if the enemy were heard approaching in the distance.”