Mass in b Minor Bach

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.

The Yorkshire Baroque Soloists and Yorkshire Bach Choir were formed in 1973 as the basis of the famous York Early Music Festival, and have built a firm reputation as one of the finest ensembles in the world in their performance and interpretation of 17th and 18th century music. Under their director Peter Seymour they return to disc with a fine selection of soloists to perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Their 2009 disc of Bach’s St John Passion, also on Signum, was released to excellent reviews.

One of the supreme monuments of western sacred music, the Mass in B minor has been constantly reexamined by successive generations of performers. The questions it raises for musicologists and conductors are many and varied; each of them strives to give his or her own reading with the necessary humility. It was in this frame of mind that William Christie tackled the work in the course of a memorable tour in 2016.

Like music lovers the world over, John Nelson believes Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is a pinnacle of Western music. For years, he has cherished the dream of performing this masterwork in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris with the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris whose renown has grown constantly since he began conducting with them eight years ago. In addition to John Nelson and his Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Mass in B minor brings together the Maîtrise de Notre-Dame choir conducted by Nicole Corti as well as internationally recognized soloists Ruth Ziesak (soprano), Joyce DiDonato (mezzo), Daniel Taylor (alto), Paul Agnew (tenor) and Dietrich Henschel (baritone).

This Mass in B Minor led by Sir Neville Marriner is an excellent choice for those looking for modern orchestral instruments, lively, full adult choruses, and a solid lineup of soloists. Marriner’s performance lacks the ponderously stodgy tempos of those older recordings, but he does not bypass the beauty, spirituality, or grandiosity inherent in the music in favour of speed.

When Joshua Rifkin began recording Bach vocal works to demonstrate his one-singer-per-part thesis, he started not with the lightly scored early cantatas but rather with the Holy of Holies–the B-Minor Mass. (Don't accuse the man of starting small.) Predictably, outrage ensued: detractors far outnumbered supporters at the time (though this seems to be gradually changing). Musicology or not, Rifkin's approach works. Bach's florid vocal parts are far more negotiable for soloists than for chorus; period instruments never overwhelm the voices. Certainly the standard of baroque- instrument playing, particularly brass, has improved since 1980; but Rifkin's instrumentalists, especially woodwinds, are quite listenable.

Harnoncourt is a strongly individualist conductor, and his individualism is much more strongly pronounced in the 1986 B minor Mass than in the 1968 version. That's why quite a few reviewers prefer the earlier version - finding the later one mannered, even eccentric. I understand their views, though I don't share them.

Originally recorded in 1988, this was one of the recordings that made historical performance practice the mainstream when it came to Bach's major choral works. Every moment of the mass was thought through anew, every bit of conventional piety purged. Major B minor mass recordings in the following years have developed one aspect or another further than conductor Philippe Herreweghe does here; Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan chisels out the counterpoint in greater detail, and for grand reverential warmth there's always John Eliot Gardiner. But for a constant sense of wonder that makes even the larger harmonic structure of the mass seem surprising as it unfolds – for a real sense of a group responding not only to a conductor's control but to his artistic vision – this reading by Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Ghent remains unexcelled.

Robert Shaw's reading of the B Minor Mass is, in one sense at least, just what one would expect: sober and purposeful, beautifully shaped (Shaw is a master architect), it centers on the chorus. Like all of Shaw's choruses, the Atlanta group has that trademark richness of body and blend, and it sings with utter unanimity as though it were one great voice. Shaw opts for marginally broader tempos than those found in most period-instrument performances but is nowhere near as glacial as some interpreters.