Some of Wagner’s most entrancing effects have their origin in Beethoven.  His method of using the violins and flutes in the highest register in prolonged notes, as in the Lohengrin Prelude, and in general when portraying celestial music, are obtained from this source.  The Mass in D gives several instances where this idea is presented, not by harp (the customary way), but as Wagner has done in Lohengrin, by the violins and wood-winds in the highest register, beginning pianissimo, gradually descending and augmenting in volume and sonority as the picturing merges from spiritual to worldly concerns.  Beethoven’s work abounds in intellectual subtleties of this kind.  Wagner is sometimes credited with having originated this method for the portrayal of celestial music.  Mr. Louis C. Elson says:  “Wagner, alone, of all the great masters, does not use the harp for celestial tone coloring, but violins and wood-winds, in prolonged notes in the highest positions.  Schumann, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, in fact all the modern tone colorists who have given celestial pictures, use the harp in them, purely because of the association of ideas which come to us from the Scriptures, and this association of the harp with heaven and the angels, only came about because the instrument was the most developed possessed by man at the time the sacred book was written.  Wagner’s tone coloring is intrinsically the more ecstatic....  Wagner is the first who has broken through this harp conventionality.”

In the Wagner-Liszt correspondence, Wagner states that the Lohengrin Prelude typifies choirs of angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth.  This idea and the method of its development can be found in the symphonic thought which follows the Preludium to the Benedictus of the Beethoven Mass.

It will be necessary to make a short digression and explain a portion of the canon of the Mass to enable the reader to understand what follows.  During the office of the Eucharist the celebrant repeats certain prayers inaudible to the congregation.  These begin during the latter part of the Sanctus, which immediately precedes the Benedictus, and are connected with the ceremony of the consecration of the Host.  A part of them are conducted in absolute silence.  The choir is not required to be silent during all the prayers said by the celebrant, and the occasion is frequently utilized, particularly at high festivals, by the introduction of orchestral music or a brilliant chorus.  The choir is silent during the elevation of the Host and chalice, which takes place immediately after the consecration.  It is a period of peculiar solemnity, the congregation kneeling in silent prayer at the signal of a gong.  After the consecration the priest elevates the Host and chalice, and with the people still kneeling, offers up a prayer silently, the conclusion of which is as follows:  “We most humbly beseech Thee, Almighty God, command these things to be carried by the hands of Thy holy angels to Thy altar on high, in the sight of Thy Divine Majesty, that as many as shall partake of the most sacred body and blood of Thy Son at this altar may be filled with every heavenly grace and blessing.”  The central thought of this prayer is that the sacred elements are borne to heaven by invisible hands.