Gustavo Conducts Beethoven: Missa Solemnis

For the first time in his LA Phil tenure, Gustavo Dudamel brings together the massive choral and orchestral forces and even grander musical ideas of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.“From my heart, may it go to the heart,” Beethoven wrote at the top of his “Solemn Mass,” and privately he told friends he believed it to be his best composition. Yet, the epic, near-90-minute testament of Beethoven’s faith grounded in human and Rationalist spirituality is a rarity in concert halls because of its ambitious scale, leading Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford to call it “one of the greatest pieces never heard.” With a stellar cast of soloists and 120 voices from Barcelona’s Orfeó Català chorus, Dudamel navigates the shifting landscapes of Beethoven’s transcendent and revelatory masterwork.