Dudamel leads a massive musical and choral force in one of
Beethoven’s most demanding—and least-heard—masterworks.
“From the heart—may it go further to the heart.”
That’s what Ludwig van Beethoven inscribed on the score of his Missa Solemnis, a work he labored over for four years—the longest sustained effort of his career—and one he ultimately declared “the greatest work I have composed so far.” High praise from a man who gave us the Ninth Symphony.
Completed in 1823, the same year as that beloved symphony, Missa Solemnis has never enjoyed the same popularity. And not because it lacks power—quite the opposite. The epic five-movement Mass is so vast, so technically demanding, and so spiritually searching that it’s rarely performed at all. Too large for a liturgical setting, too complex for casual listening, it exists in a category almost entirely its own.
Which makes this weekend’s performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall something of an event.
In one of his final Beethoven programs as Music & Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel takes on this monumental score, assembling the kind of forces it requires: the LA Phil orchestra, an international roster of soloists—including the luminous soprano Pretty Yende—and a combined chorus of 120 voices from Barcelona’s Orfeó Català and Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana.
The scale alone is staggering. But what makes Missa Solemnis so compelling is not just its size—it’s the way Beethoven pushes beyond form, beyond tradition, into something searching, restless, and deeply human. Unlike the more immediately graspable architecture of his symphonies, this is music that unfolds in waves: devotional, turbulent, ecstatic, and at times almost operatic in its emotional urgency.
It’s also, let’s be honest, not an easy listen. (And not exactly your standard Sunday Mass—though what do I know? I’m Jewish.) But that’s part of its allure. This is Beethoven at his most uncompromising, writing not for popularity but for posterity.
Two hundred years after its premiere, Missa Solemnis still feels like a work we’re catching up to.
And under Dudamel—who has a gift for navigating both grandeur and intimacy—it has the potential to land exactly as Beethoven hoped: straight to the heart.
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photos courtesy of LA Phil
