Missa Solemnis review – glorious and memorable Beethoven

Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the National Chorus of Wales and the solo quartet made the complex and demanding great mass soarBeethoven believed his Missa Solemnis to be his best work, a labour of love and faith. Conceived on a symphonic scale, the huge demands this great and weightiest of choral masterpieces makes on his voices, treating them as instruments, are a deterrent to any but the finest choruses. Here, under the baton of Andrew Manze, the fearless and