When Beethoven Reached Critical 'Mass'

Wife and I will be attending performance on Sunday in Westchester of the greatest "religious" musical piece ever, Beethoven's Mass in C Major. This is saying something for yours truly, what with my budding atheism. But the mass is so incredible it trumps everything and must shake any non-believers non-beliefs. Beethoven's Missa Solemnis gets most of the props, but to these ears that later work seems somewhat bloated and formless, though spectacular at times. Here is a version of the "Gloria" from the C Major mass.