BBC Proms 2020

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

BBC Proms

Music: Classical

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The world's greatest classical music festival. Stunning performances, unique collaborations and the sheer joy of live music. Relive 2023's highlights before the new season begins.

BBC Proms: 2020: Beethoven’s Missa solemnis

2020

Beethoven’s Missa solemnis

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2020, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis

Nikolous Harnoncourt conducts Beethoven’s Missa solemnis.

Beethoven’s titanic Mass is performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Arnold Schoenberg Choir under conductor Nikolous Harnoncourt.

Presented by Tom Service

Finding the terror alongside the spiritual awe, the questioning doubt as well as the faith, Beethoven’s mighty Missa solemnis is a work of visceral power – a public statement of intensely private belief. ‘From the heart – may it return to the heart!,’ the composer wrote at the top of a score that stretched the proportions and ambitions of the orchestral Mass to new limits. 

A work close to Harnoncourt’s heart, the Missa solemnis was also the work he conducted in his final public performance before retiring in December 2015. Experience the raw intensity of his account here with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Arnold Schoenberg Choir at the 1998 BBC Proms.

Beethoven: Missa solemnis

Chamber Orchestra of Europe 
Arnold Schoenberg Choir
Ruth Ziesak (soprano)
Bernarda Fink (alto)
Herbert Lippert (tenor)
Neal Davies (bass)
Nikolous Harnoncourt (conductor)

(From BBC Proms 1998, 11 September)

BBC Proms: 2020

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Classic proms performances from the world's greatest classical music festival.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

BBC Proms

2020

Beethoven’s Missa solemnis

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3