Beethoven Agnus Dei from Missa Solemnis

After the sublime Sanctus, the final Agnus Dei movement is bold and extraordinary, but not entirely successful. Many find the ending particularly abrupt and disappointing. But what glories there are in Beethoven’s fugal nod to Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus and his military trumpets and timpani nodding to Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, not to forget the moving hymn that surfaces through all of these…