From the Heart of Beethoven
VICTORIA KINGHAM hears Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at St John’s Church, St Leonards
Hastings Philharmonic Choir with conductor Marcio da Silva
Once again, an excellent performance by Hastings Philharmonic Choir of one of the most significant Masses of the period, in fact of any period. Beethoven wrote the Missa Solemnis in the most mature period of his musical development and it has remained one of the most important, and most-performed, choral pieces of all time. It’s a towering work, full of peaks and troughs and highs and lows, fugues, rhythmic variations, harmonic leaps, designed to wrench emotion out of even the most mundane listener, indeed to glorify God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost for ever, in the conventional church Latin of the time. The work ends not triumphantly but strangely quietly, with a prayer.
Helen May, soloist
The Hastings Philharmonic Choir go from strength to strength, and their performance seems to improve as they tackle more and more difficult music with a determination encouraged by, and engendered in, their leader, Marcio Da Silva. His management of both the choir and the orchestra is admirable. The extended Amen in the Gloria was especially fine – Beethoven rocks! The final drama of the kettle drum, and the majesty of the organ, add to the atmosphere. The work is conventionally fronted by four soloists: this performance heard Edwin Kaye, bass, Leonel Pinheiro, tenor, Marta Fontanals-Simmons, contralto, and Helen May, soprano. In fact Helen May’s voice was the highlight of the evening as it soared, powerfully, unhesitatingly, beautifully, above the choral melody and indeed the quartet ensembles. Literally above – her glorious Agnus Dei seemed to float to the roof and descend to surround the listeners: O lamb of god, that taketh away the sins of the world …
There are notoriously high and difficult soprano passages, and the solo and choral passages present singers with considerable challenges. In spite of this, Beethoven would not modify a note. How lucky we are to be able to hear it as it was written, in Beethoven’s words “From the heart – may it return to the heart!”
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