May 8, 10 & 11(m), 2025
Atlanta Symphony Hall, Woodruff Arts Center
Atlanta, Georgia – USA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor; Julia Grüter, soprano; Anna Goryachova, mezzosoprano; Miles Mykkanen, tenor; Lawson Anderson, bass-baritone.
BEETHOVEN: Missa solemnis, Op. 123
Paul Hyde | 10 MAY 2025
A choral colossus, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, landed at Atlanta Symphony Hall on May 8, 2025, as what was to be the touted capstone of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Project, all led by music director Nathalie Stutzmann. It is one of Beethoven’s most ambitious and spiritually profound works.
Composed primarily between 1819 and 1823, Beethoven originally intended his Missa solemnis to honor the installation of his patron and friend, Archduke Rudolph, as Archbishop of Olmütz. However, the work quickly grew beyond the bounds of traditional liturgical music, becoming a monumental statement of Beethoven’s personal faith and philosophical ideals. Though it adheres to the traditional Latin mass structure, its scale, complexity, and emotional intensity make it more suitable for concert performances than church services.
The Missa solemnis poses significant technical and interpretive challenges for the performers and conductor. Beethoven pushed the limits of vocal and instrumental writing—especially in the demanding fugues, elaborate counterpoint, and dramatic contrasts of mood. The score’s spiritual weight and Beethoven’s late-style density can make it daunting to grasp on first hearing, yet its sincerity and grandeur have earned it a lasting place among his masterpieces. Beethoven regarded it as one of his finest creations, inscribing on the manuscript, “From the heart—may it go to the heart.”
Joseph Karl Stielers’ 1820 portrait of Beethoven holding the manuscript of the ‘Missa solemnis.’
The late Margaret Hawkins (1937 – 1993), the founding director of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus, once described the sung liturgical mass as being for a chorus what symphonic form is for orchestras. And indeed, the Missa solemnis blends the traditional liturgical arc with symphonic ambition. As with his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven’s symphonic DNA drives its unified D major tonality, thematic motifs, and jarring contrasts. Yet, its abrupt tempo shifts, vocal extremes, and dense counterpoint demand a conductor with surgical precision and visionary cohesion, qualities which are at odds with Stutzmann’s seemingly moment-to-moment inclinations as a conductor.
The ASO Chorus was well prepared by Norman Mackenzie, who celebrates his 25th year as the ASO’s director of choruses. Mackenzie directly inherited the choral techniques of the former ASO music director Robert Shaw (1916-1999), who led the ASO and its Chorus to international fame and multiple Grammy Awards.
However, Shaw’s school of choral technique is hardly the only one out there, and not everyone is a devoted follower of Shaw, whom Hawkins called “the one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a man” in an interview with her some years ago. In that same interview, Hawkins advocated preparing a chorus to be “flexible,” ready to shift gears when the conductor on the podium wanted something different but often didn’t know how to tell a chorus how to achieve it, and Hawkins would have to translate that into techniques for the singers. Shaw, by contrast, did not have that problem with the ASO Chorus, as he was preparing the chorus for himself to conduct, and had pragmatic methods (which the orchestra understood clearly) to achieve both well-defined musical goals and a cohesive ensemble in performance.
And indeed, the ASO Chorus has historically been what could be described as a “rhythmically driven” chorus. This approach has served the ensemble well, producing a lean, incisive, well-defined American sound across wide dynamic and expressive ranges. Like Hawkins, Mackenzie does not have that advantage. Nevertheless, the Shaw legacy lived on as the core body of technique through Levi, Spano, and Runnicles, my impression being that the latter two desired a greater amount of “vocal warmth” added to the sound. With Stutzmann, I still have no strong impression of her vision for choral sound despite her background as a singer.
The four soloists for Missa solemnis—Julia Grüter (soprano), Anna Goryachova (mezzo-soprano), Miles Mykkanen (tenor), and Lawson Anderson (bass-baritone)—are all capable artists, but instead of having them sing at the front of the orchestra, Stutzmann once again (as she has repeatedly in the past) placed the soloists behind the orchestra—in this case on a platform behind the violas on the right side of the stage from the audience’s perspective—much to their detriment and the detriment of Beethoven’s masterwork. It’s an unconscionable decision that Sttzmann seems determined to repeat.
Much was lost in not only the audible volume and “presence” of the solo parts themselves but also their relationship to the chorus and the orchestra, as a contrasting ensemble in the architecture of the whole.
Nowhere was this more telling than in the “Benedictus” section of the “Sanctus” movement, beginning just before the “Andante molto cantabile e non troppo mosso” (measure 111), where concertmaster David Coucheron stood up to play a moving rendition of the solo violin obbligato that continues until to the end of the movement.
What we lost here, by the soloists being isolated at a distance behind the viola section rather than upfront—no fault of Coucheron’s—is the remarkable quintet formed by solo violin and four solo voices (starting at the pickup to measure 134), heard against the orchestral background with the chorus at times taking a turn singing instead of the vocal quartet in alternating passages.
That is hardly the only place where Stutzmann overlooked opportunities to bring the music to full flower, especially in the latter half of the piece—we will not enumerate them here. The bigger problems were more fundamental.
Stutzmann’s uneven and imprecise baton technique does not encourage a tight ensemble (and she is no George Szell by any stretch of the imagination).
Overall, in that regard, you could say it was a “Messy” solemnis.
Interestingly, another astute listener who heard the concert (who will remain anonymous) remarked more bluntly: “The Missa solemnis was a garish mess. There was absolutely no subtlety. […] It was a performance that could wake the dead with its volume. Stutzmann loves bombast. The audience seems too also, but one dare say nothing.”
There was also another listener seated near me who shouted “Bravo” at every turn during the ovation afterward but was also overheard to say (while exiting) that it was the first time he had ever heard the piece and that it seemed like it should have been over about two-thirds of the way through. A naïve observation, perhaps, but not without merit.
No conductor fully conquers the Missa solemnis. Even Sir Donald Runnicles, when he led the ASO forces in Missa solemnis in 2016, nearly had a train wreck at a crucial structural point where the orchestra and chorus were far out sync as they “landed” at that architectural juncture. I was very critical of that concert, but Runnicles has a deep grasp of Beethoven’s music that Stutzmann does not. Even with the near disaster cited above, I would easily take that 2016 performance with Runnicles over Stutzmann’s.
Having now heard last Thursday’s Missa solemnis performance, which was supposed to be the apex of the entire Beethoven Project, I look back at the previous installments (I heard all but one) and have to wonder whether the Beethoven Project with Stutzmann conducting was such a good idea after all, artistically speaking.
In that light, I have to reference a comment (made before the concert) by another anonymous audience member who noticed that, this season especially, the orchestra has consistently played far better under guest conductors than under music director Stutzmann. Well, except for one guest conductor I have in mind, I agree.
That’s a problem. A big red flag problem. But as long as financials are in place and there are no public controversies, boards of directors typically are okay with the status quo. And if there are problems on other fronts, such as artistic or toxic workplace issues, they usually, as a body, don’t tend to know about them unless someone on the board brings them up.
But here and now, I believe there are urgent, hard decisions to be made on behalf of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and its future artistic well-being, as well as the necessary stomach to make them. To paraphrase author Ayn Rand: “You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” And despite anyone’s feelings about the source (and it is a paraphrase, not a quote), the sentiment rings true. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: aso.org
- Julia Grüter: julia-grueter.com
- Anna Goryachova: annagoryachova.com
- Myles Mykkanen: milesmykkanen.com
- Lawson Anderson: lawsonanderson.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
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