Fierro II

Now presented complete, Raphaël Pichon and Pygmalion’s exceptional Lutheran Mass performances, in this often unjustly neglected genre, remind us of Bach’s telling psychological shift in the early 1730s from ephemeral duty to collating collections of music for posterity. The four parody Missae breves, comprised of a Kyrie and Gloria only, in the north German way, were compiled by Bach from cantata movements he clearly admired and felt could be productively recycled. Then there’s also the Missa of 1733 – the work which Bach offered to the new Elector of Saxony in search of wider recognition and which was to become the blueprint for that summa anthology, the Mass in B minor – now assembled with the others and strengthening the identity of Bach’s Mass oeuvre further.