Second Opinion: Beethoven's Operatic Missa Solemnis

"There is, of course, among musicians an underground tradition of critical reserve" about Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, as Theodor Adorno once observed. People may think of it as a glorious monument because of its length and intensity, even if they are not really all that familiar with it. Beethoven worked on this piece for a long time, and perhaps because of all that labor, it sometimes