SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Beethoven, Missa Solemnis: Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome. Emma Bell (soprano), Anna Larsson (contralto), Roberto Saccà (tenor), Georg Zeppenfeld (bass). Conductor Antonio Pappano. Sala Santa Cecilia, Parco della Musica, Rome. 26.10. 2009 (JB)

Understanding Beethoven’s religious stance is difficult. The Missa Solemnis conceals as much as it reveals. It belongs to the last period of his life, was written in the same years as the ninth symphony and long after Opus 111, to be followed only by the last quartets. One matter which characterises all this late music is the struggle which it cost Beethoven. That was not simply his struggle against deafness, but a struggle to deepen and broaden his aural imagination from whose well he created this music. An appreciative listener finds himself entering into this struggle: an empathy with Beethoven seems to require this. The composer who was so hard on himself can also make demands which are hard on the listener. That requirement is something like a fundamentalist commitment; Hard but strangely satisfying. It’s not far from the truth to say that Beethoven’s religion was music itself. And he died searching for it.
On Monday, the two women soloists -Emma Bell and Anna Larsson- sounded at the beginning of the mass as though they were going to die delivering it. This came across as what some wit called the Mount Etna school of singing: lots of volcanic rumble and very little actual vocal sound. In their defence it has to be said that the opening is badly written. Beethoven had little understanding of voices. No wonder that Rossini felt sorry for him and hurried to Vienna to take up a collection for the elderly, abandoned, deaf composer. The women soloists get much more considerate treatment as the work proceeds and by the time we get to the prayer-like Agnus Dei, you could say that Beethoven has found some respect for the female voice. Here they both sounded like what they are: esteemed singers of Italian opera.

The quartet of soloists was completed with Roberto Saccà (the Italian tenor par excellence) and Georg Zeppenfeld (bass). Beethoven writes always for the four as a quartet, not as soloists. Saccà stood out in the group like the sun coming out in the middle of the night. Beethoven would not have liked this. The Roman audience did. Here was a tenor who may be stylistically incorrect, but he was vocally satisfying. The only way Mr Saccà knows how to sing is as a soloist; there were even moments when he sounded as though he was having fun. But fun is not what this is about, we hear the ghost of Beethoven say.

There is, however, an Italian mentor for Beethoven in Missa Solemnis, even if Beethoven falls short of his excellence: Palestrina. Beethoven’s counterpoint was at its most inventive in an instrumental medium. He worshipped the Italian contrapuntalist and is on record paying homage to him. However, words -and in particular the Latin words of the mass- were Palestrina’s joy. And it is in the setting of the words -not their contrapuntal treatment- where Beethoven’s weakness becomes exposed. The chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia did an admirable job in plastering over this weakness. Diction has never been a strong point of this chorus and this is one of those cases where a vice becomes a virtue. Their performance may have been short on authenticity but it was not lacking in conviction. And for a Missa Solemnis that is surely a plus. Beethoven himself might have been pleasantly perplexed by this two-pronged delivery.

In January this year, Antonio Pappano gave Rome what many consider a landmark performance of the Verdi Requiem (see my review of the recording on MusicWeb International.) His conducting of the Missa Solemnis was memorable too, even if some will regard it as too Italianate. As always, the orchestra of Santa Cecilia served him impressively. Carlo Maria Parazzoli, the orchestra’s leader, delivered the solos with unabashed Italianate aplomb. And not for the first time, I have to single out the exceptional timpanist, Antonio Catone, whose exquisite, carefully measured, muffled tones gave Beethoven all the doom and gloom that the author might have wished for.

Jack Buckley