A valuable facsimile of Beethoven‘s Missa solemnis

Beethoven struggled with the Missa solemnis for years, searching for a highly personal way to deal with the words and musical traditions of the Mass Ordinary. In the end he produced a work that leaves no listeners cold - some are puzzled but a great many are deeply moved.

The autograph reflects how intensively he worked on the Missa solemnis and what a difficult work process it was. Apart from the many corrections there are several torn-out pages. Sometimes Beethoven could only proceed by stitching replacement pages into the manuscript.