A Rhetoric Reading of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa solemnis
A Rhetoric Reading of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa solemnis

Summary/Abstract: In Austria, sacred music followed the directives of 18th-century Viennese courts boasting such important Kapellmeisters as Johann Joseph Fux, Antonio Caldara, and Johann Georg Reutter. Prior to the composition of Missa solemnis, Beethoven carried out consistent research regarding the sacred musical tradition, therefore he was strongly influenced by works such as Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Mass in B minor. The study aims to highlight Beethoven’s connection with the tradition of rhetorical devices and their role in the composition of Missa solemnis. I believe that today, on its composer’s 250th birth anniversary, it finds its essence in the close tie between music and the religious text by means of the ensemble of the rhetorical devices that Beethoven inherited from the Baroque.

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