The Mass in D furnishes another instance where the celestial harmonies
are introduced to still better purpose than in the Benedictus. It is in
that portion of the Credo, beginning with the Et incarnatus. The
delicate ethereal nature of this music, as indicated by the violins and
flutes in the highest positions, is so transcendental, so imbued with
spirituality, as almost to evade analysis. By the magic of Beethoven's
art the impression is conveyed that the listener overhears far-off angel
voices from other spheres, when the heavens were opened for the descent
of the Son of God to earth. The instruments give out the merest
intimations of sound, scintillations that suggest it rather. In the
opening bars of the movement, just before the introduction of this
tone-figure, he uses an ancient ecclesiastical style, the Plagal, a mode
that obtained centuries before Palestrina. Harsh and strident,
inharmonious, are the tones, which in the opening Adagio typify the
dread, the foreboding and dismay, that can be supposed to have been felt
by the Son of God when the time came to give up a beatific state and
enter on the actualities of earthly existence.
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