• Grant Gershon, conductor

PROGRAM

• Ludwig van Beethoven | Missa Solemnis
      Raquel González, soprano
      Allyson McHardy, mezzo soprano
      Arnold Livingston Geis, tenor
      Rod Gilfry, bass

Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is inarguably one of the top five pillars of the orchestral and choral repertoire and has become a specialty of the LA Master Chorale. At the end of his career – completely deaf at the time – Beethoven was on a prolific roll, premiering both his 9th Symphony and the Missa Solemnis in the same year. Audiences had heard nothing like it before – not only did he create a new musical language for himself, he also set the bar for an entire era of Romantic composers who had to wrestle with the weight of his achievements.