Missa solemnis

Do you know this famous portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven? Messy hair, intense gaze, a red scarf around his neck and a quill in his hand, the composer writes. If you come a little closer, you will be able to read the title of the piece he is drafting: Missa solemnis, the Solemn Mass, which he considered to be his finest work. Let yourself be moved and even transcended by it! How could it be otherwise, when you consider this promising note Beethoven scribbled in the margins of the piece’s first manuscript: «From the heart, may it return to the heart.»