Music Web International: outstanding; Klassik Heute: outstanding.
The reason why the Missa Solemnis at Beethoven's time did not go so directly to the hearts of many lies in its complexity, its sophistication. To overlay the text of the mass in all its subtleties with personal meaning and at the same time reflect the immense store of traditional rhetoric, to cast the spotlight on the past while not overshadowing the present - this was indeed an undertaking resembling the squaring of the circle. This utlimately meant that the work could not form a wel-rounded, harmonious and self-contained whole, that jagged edges, contradictions and faults were inevitable. They manifest the arduous path of salvation, the unrelenting challenge of faith. They are among the qualities which ensure the lasting relevance of this historic work, a composition which Beethoven was perhaps justified in calling his greatest.
