“THE GREATEST RELIGIOUS MUSICAL WORK SINCE BACH”: FIRST EDITION OF BEETHOVEN’S EXTRAORDINARY MISSA SOLEMNIS

BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van. Messe Solennelle à quatre parties Solo et choeur avec accompagnement à Grand Orchestre… Opus 123. Mayence et Paris: B. Schott, [1827]. Oblong folio, modern three-quarter navy morocco, uncut; original wrapper bound in at rear. $9500.

First edition, fully engraved, of the piano-vocal score of Beethoven’s choral masterwork, the Missa Solemnis, published in the year of his death, the same year as the publication of the full score.

Written in the last years of his life, the monumental Missa Solemnis is one of Beethoven’s greatest works for chorus and orchestra. “Beethoven believed this Mass to be ‘the best of my spiritual products… Finally he placed the words: ‘From the heart-let it go to the heart’ on the score of the Kyrie. These words and the masterpiece connected with them must be his monument” (Fischer and Kock). The piano-vocal score of the Missa Solemnis is even rarer than the first edition of the full score, which was published in the same year. Kinsky-Halm, 365. Fuld, 187.

Very light foxing and dampstaining. An excellent copy. Scarce.