Sir Andrew Davis explains the revolutionary nature and historical vicissitudes of the music Beethoven never heard.

What do Beethoven and Sir Andrew Davis have in common, apart from the obvious making of music and the waving about of arms in front of orchestras sort of thing? Given Sir Andrew’s track record conducting the music of 19th-century Vienna’s original revolutionary, it might surprise you to learn that Beethoven’s epic mass setting was kept at arm’s length for many years. Of course, the work is notoriously hard to pull together, requiring considerable forces and stamina from choir and audience alike. But there are other reasons that, as Davis puts it, he, “along with a good many eminent conductors both past and present, have waited long to climb the mighty peaks of this great work.”

“It took Beethoven four years to complete the Missa Solemnis and he viewed it as the most important work of his life,” says Sir Andrew. That measure of the work’s seriousness in the mind of the composer is one of the reasons that the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor has held off attempting to crack what is still one of the toughest nuts...