Bach, J.S.: Mass In B Minor, Bwv 232

Description

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Missa in B Minor BWV 232To all intents Bach's Mass in B minor could be described as the composer's re-workings of his choicest pages of choral music, assembled in the closing years of his life. The genesis of the work, however, stretched back over more than two decades. It has also been suggested by some commentators that the composer may have intended the resultant work more as a monument than for any particular performance. Scored for four soloists, a choir divided into two sopranos, alto, tenor and bass voices, strings and continuo with three trumpets, a solo cor a caccia, two recorders (flutes), two oboe d'amore and two bassoons, the work is cast by Bach into four parts - the Missa comprising the Kyrie and Gloria, the Symbolum Nicenum containing the whole of the Credo, the Sanctus, and a composite Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Dona nobis pacem. Bach invariably gives his instrumentalists solos in the arias. For example, the violin in the Laudamus te, a recorder (flute) in the Domine Deus and Benedictus, an oboe d'amore in the Qui sedes and Et in Spiritum, a horn in the Quoniam.The original Missa section was initially completed and performed in July 1733 when Bach was attempting to curry favour with the new King of Saxony, whereas the remainder of the work was assembled during the years 1748-49, just before the composer's death in 1750. The revised Missa survives in the hand of his wife Anna Magdalena while the second to the fourth parts are in the composer's handwriting. Bach, however, never heard his completed work. His son Carl Philipp Emanuel did direct a performance of the Credo in Hamburg in 1784 but it was not until the following century that the work was heard in full. By then, however, the composer's style and age had moved on into a new and entirely different world of performance.The history of Bach's Mass in B minor on record dates back to 1926 when a number of choruses were recorded live in London's Royal Albert Hall by the Royal Choral Society under Edward Bairstow. The choral singing, albeit with a large choir as was common at that time, is remarkably good, even if the recorded sound is dim, distant and murky. More interesting from around the same era was the single chorus Cum sancto Spiritu by the Berlin Philharmonic Choir under Siegfried Ochs on HMV's German Electrola label, affording us a glimpse of the German approach to Bach which goes back to the time when Mendelssohn reintroduced Bach's choral works in the nineteenth century. The work was first recorded complete, however, over the months of March to May 1929 under Albert Coates. This recording is most decidedly uneven, inflated, and contains some bizarre examples of bad balance between chorus and orchestra. The four soloists, however, three of whom appear in the appendix to the complete recording on this Naxos re-issue, are exemplary, the soprano Elisabeth Schumann displaying an engagingly radiant tone, contralto Margaret Balfour grav