With its tonal language of subjective avowal, the first of Beethoven’s two masses opens up new worlds of expression for the liturgical texts of the Mass which are expressly modern and point towards the future. Not to be considered a preliminary work to the Missa solemnis, it is an entirely independent work which set standards for the further development of settings of the Mass in the 19th century.

Its newness, of which the composer himself was fully aware [“I do not speak gladly of my Mass, o...