Bach: Mass in B minor [Hybrid SACD]

Read About This Recording

Some scholars have written that Bach, in his lifetime, was considered old-fashioned. His firm beliefs in an architectural structure and his instrumentation grounded his compositions in an earlier time, perhaps. But as Norbert Bolin writes in his exceptional notes to this fine recording, Bach's contemporaries now seem bound to their times, while Bach, and in particular, his B Minor Mass achieves a universality that transcends time.

Bach wrote the B Minor Mass over an astonishing period of time — by some accounts, the first two movements were written in 1733, and Bach completed the work in 1749. The score of the final work was presented to the dedicatee, the Saxonian Electoral Prince Fredrich August II in July 1773, 23 years after Bach's death. The prince had provided Bach with his much desired professional position, the Saxonian Court Composer.

Bach composed the movement of the mass at various times and, again, with decades between bursts of compositional energy. Somewhere between 1733 and 1749 Bach changed his concept from a "Missa brevis," consisting of the first two movement of a Roman Catholic mass, to a "Missa tota." The final movements appear on dated manuscripts in 1749 — but not without another twist. One movement, the Sanctus, was first composed in 1724 and performed on Christmas day of that year.

Bach's incredible focus and overall vision for this work was somehow sustained over the last 16 years of his life. That the work's reputation resides in the upper atmosphere of not only Bach's works but all works for chorus is one of many reasons to argue for Bach being without equal among choral composers.

Helmuth Rilling has been recording the works of Bach most of his professional life, and he is pre-eminent in this music. His recordings for Hänssler are made under the finest working conditions, with devotion and care to musicianship, scholarship and engineering quality.

—Ronald Gregory

Quotes

"The choral singing is in the top bracket ... highly recommended for selected clientele — particularly those who know Rilling's measure." —Gramophone

Product Info

MHS version of this recording is not SACD.

Contents

Bach-Collegium Stuttgart; Gachinger Kantorei Stuttgart; Helmuth Rilling, Conductor.