Bach Mass in B Minor Dunedin Consort, John Butt

The Dunedin Consort's recording of Bach's Mass in B Minor revisits the spectacular individual virtuosity that made the Messiah recording so successful. This is the premiere recording of the work in the new Breitkopf edition, edited by Joshua Rifkin, a leading thinker in authentic period performance, who fully endorses John Butt's interpretation.

Following a highly anticipated televised performance at the 2023 BBC Proms, Dunedin Consort and its director John Butt now release Mozart's 'Great' Mass in C minor and Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach's Heilig ist Gott on Linn. Devised to celebrate his marriage to Constanze, but left unfinished at the composer's death, Mozart's Mass can clearly be traced back to the choral writing of Johann Sebastian Bach and his son, Carl Phillip Emmanuel. This musical genealogy is displayed here in a lavish double-chorus, double-orchestra feast where both works echo each other. No stranger to Mozart - the ensemble's recording of the Requiem was a Gramophone Award Winner and Grammy-nominated - Dunedin Consort puts its stamp on these most spectacular contributions to church music.

John Butt and the Dunedin Consort are familiar to many listeners for their exquisite recordings of Baroque choral masterworks, such as Handel's Messiah and Bach's Mass in B minor, but this set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos is the first instrumental outing for the Scottish period ensemble. Playing original instruments or modern copies, and using a lower tuning of A = 392hz, the group recreates Bach's music with a lively combination of extemporaneous ornamentation and propulsive rhythms that is invigorating for its lack of preciosity. The music is by turns brusque and gentle, and at times quite raucous, as it should be in the Concerto No. 1 in F major with its echoing horn calls, chattering oboes, and buzzing bassoon, and vigorous in the Concerto No. 3 in G major, with its energetic string playing.