To the Editors of the CRIMSON:-

In the Boston Herald of March 23, Mr. Philip Hale expends over five paragraphs, and much space in the Symphony program, in attempting to prove his contention that Beethoven's "Missa Solomnis" has little spiritual value after all. To Mr. Hale part of the Mass gives "an effect of infinite labor and vain endoavor and is not an uplifting of the hearer's soul." One almost expects him to say that the music might just as well have been written to the words of almost any Gerruan folk song.

"Beethoven" writes Mr. Hale, "was a Catholic by profession, he was brought up a catholic: dying, he welcomed the administration of the Sacrament, but during his life he was negligent in his religious duties...nor was he a man to be bound by ritual or creed." If this were true, it would seem strange that Beethoven spent four years on this stupendous musical composition which so clearly and so beautifully expressed the words of the Mass.

Ludwig van Beethoven really needs very little apology for having composed the "Missa Solemnis" and the denial of its spiritual inspiration smacks of more shallow pretext and sophistry.

But the truth of the matter is that to many people it is distressing that the unsurpassed sublimity of the Catholic Church should have inspired so much of beauty in art. The critics, in order not to seaudalize the liberal intellectuals of Boston, find it necessary to make excuses in an attempt to justify the existence of the "Missa Solemnis". It seems to them that Beethoven not only had the bad taste to be a Catholic, but he also had the unpardonably bad taste of composing one of his very greatest musical compositions for the celebration of High Mass and then what does he do but delicate it to his friend the Archbishop of Olmutz!

"Beethoven", writes Mr. Hale, "was profoundly impressed by Hindu and Egyptian religious thought." and in the Symphony program he quotes at some length passages which Beethoven transcribed from Hindu literature and from Egyptian temples and tombs. All this goes to prove precisely nothing at all; for all these quotations find a place in Catholic thought. Mr. Hale, like a great many other people, is unaware of the fact that Catholics believe that all great world faiths, possess part of the whole truth and that their principal tenets may be found in the all-embracing tenets of the Catholic Charch. For this reason, the quotations given by Mr. Hale on the Symphony program and the words of great philosophers such as Tagore can be and are read without in any way weakening the beliefs of Catholics.

Neithor Mr. Hale nor any other writer can change the fact that Beethoven used to the utmost his great dramatic, poetic and musical genius in the compositior, of the "Missa Solemnis" in order to bring out the great spiritual significance and beauty of the Catholic Mass.

And finally, Mr. Hale asks: "Would it be irreverent to say that this Mass as a whole is not a sacred opus, but an ecclesiastical opera?" My reply is that perhaps it is not irreverent for Mr. Hale to say so, but I believe it is untrue. J. W. Wood '23