Without Difficulty

Beethoven’s Missa solemnis has a reputation for being difficult. Conductors and choral singers will tell you it is difficult to perform; sound engineers will tell you it is difficult to record; record companies will tell you it is difficult to package, with all but the shortest recordings fitting awkwardly over two CDs or four sides of vinyl. And those who grow obsessed with Beethoven’s difficult masterpiece, who acquire every recording and attend every concert they can, must eventually conclude that there has never been and perhaps can never be a definitive performance in which each element comes out exactly right.

Yet even if we accept that perfection – in everything, but especially in the Missa solemnis – is an impossibility, the recent performance given by Marek Janowski and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin was deeply impressive…