Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Missa [Solemnis] ... Opus 123. Mainz: B. Schott, 1827
Wilhelm Mengelberg’s copy of the first subscribers’ edition of the full score of Beethoven’s second setting of the Mass, after his Mass in C major, Op. 86.

Full score of Opus 123. 299 pages, quarto (315 x 248mm), elaborate lithographic title with the arms of Archduke Rudolph, engraved music throughout, plate number 2346, 2pp. subscribers’ list. Slightly later half-leather binding, manuscript paper labels pasted onto front cover.

Provenance:
(1) L. Plattner (of Rotterdam; subscriber and with printed overslip pasted onto title).

(2) Bibliothek der Toonkunst (19th-century Amsterdam library stamps).

(3) Wilhelm Mengelberg (1871-1951, Dutch conductor; manuscript annotations in black, red and blue pencil throughout)

(4) Creyghton Musicology-Musica Antiqua (music dealer, Bilthoven, Netherlands, invoice loosely inserted, dated 7 November 1969).

(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 5418.

Written around the same time as his Ninth Symphony, the work was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf of Austria, archbishop of Olmütz, Beethoven's foremost patron as well as pupil and friend, and the Archduke’s arms appear on the title. This copy is the subscribers’ issue containing the two-page ‘Subscribenten-Verzeichniss’, which lists 210 subscribers for this work as well as for the Overture ‘The Consecration of the House’ Op. 124, and the Ninth Symphony; copies for retail sale did not include this leaf.

The subscriber of the present copy, L. Plattner, pasted his printed book-label on the title, obscuring the publisher’s places of Paris and Antwerp. Later, it came into Mengelberg’s possession, presumably through the Amsterdam choral society, Toonkunst, which Mengelberg led from 1898, since the book contains the Toonkunst’s 19th-century library stamps. Wilhelm Mengelberg conducted the Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam from 1895 onwards for 50 years. There is no recording of Mengelberg conducting Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, so this is the only evidence of his interpretation of Beethoven’s great work.
Kinsky, p. 364.