Kent Nagano conducts final concert of the Beethovenfest Bonn

Although Kent Nagano turns 70 at the end of November, retirement is the last thing on his mind, and he has a very full concert schedule. He even added to it a performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in Cologne Cathedral with the ensemble Concerto Köln, singers of the Vokalensemble Kölner Dom and soloists. The concert will take place on October 29, 2021. It had originally been planned for 2020 as part of the Beethovenfest Bonn, but was postponed due to the pandemic.

Nagano and Concerto Köln are already a well-established team. Since 2017 they have been working together on a major research project on Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle. The aim is to interpret Wagner from the perspective of historical performance practice. Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis will also be played on period instruments.

"Kent Nagano takes historical performance practice very seriously," says Alexander Scherf, artistic director of Concerto Köln, who also plays cello in the ensemble. Nagano is not an established expert in historical performance practice, he says, and therefore relies on the ensemble's expertise. Working with Nagano, he says, is a constant give and take. "It's also the only way of working that we accept as a rebellious old ensemble," Scherf says jokingly in an interview with DW.

Instruments as Beethoven knew them

Normally, the ensemble plays without a conductor, but because of his openness the members have even named Kent Nagano their "honorary conductor."

Concerto Köln is world-renowned for its historically authentic performances of Baroque works. For the Missa Solemnis, members are using original instruments from Beethoven's time.

"Particularly as far as the wind instruments are concerned, these are classical instruments from precisely that era," explains Alexander Scherf. And, he adds, "When the choir and orchestra play together, we always pay attention to the text and syllable distribution." That means, for example, if something is especially emphasized in the text, the instruments reflect that in their playing. Performing in this way is called "rhetorical" music-making. It helps a better understanding of the text and contributes to the transparency of a musical work.

'Missa Solemnis' in Cologne Cathedral

Ludwig van Beethoven completed the large-scale Missa Solemnis in D major, op. 123 at the age of 53, composing it between 1819 and 1823. The commission came from Archduke Rudolf of Austria, a great patron and student of Beethoven. Beethoven was to compose a festive mass for Rudolf's appointment as archbishop, but it took the composer so long to write — almost 4 1/2 years — that he was much too late for the occasion.

The mass, which takes around 1 1/2 hours to perform, was also far too lengthy to be a standard liturgical mass. To this day, it is primarily performed in concert halls. Being the businessman that he was, Beethoven offered the mass for sale to several publishers. He finally reached a commercial agreement with Schott and wrote to the publisher: "As difficult as it is for me to talk about myself, I consider it my greatest work."

The Missa Solemnis is really more of a large-scale oratorio, Alexander Scherf says, because it has a dramatic text matched by equally dramatic music. "In the mass, Beethoven interprets the relationship between God and humankind, between the heavenly sphere and earthly life," says Scherf. The work makes the conflict between the divine and the individual — a theme that preoccupied many people at the time — musically tangible. "I don't know of any mass that has as tender and fragile moments as the Missa Solemnis, and of course that contrasts grandly with the emotional hymnal part," enthuses Alexander Scherf, who has played the piece with Concerto Köln several times in the past.

Originally, the work was to have been performed last year to mark the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth as part of Bonn's Beethovenfest, which was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Beethoven Year was extended by one year in Germany, making the Missa Solemnis now the musical conclusion of the Beethoven Year BTHVN 2020.

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis will be streamed from Cologne Cathedral by Deutsche Welle, WDR and Arte television. Deutsche Welle is broadcasting to non-German-speaking countries and the livestream can be accessed here from CET 20:15 onwards. In the German-speaking European area, the concert can be streamed via this link.

This article was translated from German.