J. S. BACH

Mass in B minor BWV 232 (Messe in h-Moll BWV 232)

Mechthild Bach, Sopran; Daniel Taylor, Alt; Marcus Ullmann, Tenor; Raimund Nolte, Bariton

Kammerchor Stuttgart, Barockorchester Stuttgart / Frieder Bernius

Bach created some of his profoundest and most magnificent compositions by means of parody - one is inclined to say: by constant improvement. One obvious example is the Agnus Dei from the B minor Mass. This went through the whole parody sequence, having probably started life as an aria in a wedding cantata. By incorporating this occasional aria into his Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11), Bach made it repeatedly serviceable. And finally, he succeeded in immortalizing this music in the Agnus Dei. However, the long and complex history of the B minor Mass, with its many reworkings and borrowings, takes none of the magic away from what Hans Georg Nägeli described (1818) as "the greatest piece of music of any age or nation." On the contrary, the history of its genesis renders the grandeur of Bach's Mass in B minor all the more unfathomable.

“Frieder Bernius gives us a Mass which neither sits obediently in the groove of seasoned reverence nor resorts to well worn and predictable period reflexes. It is a reading whose invigorating momentum is underpinned by a confident bass presence and an immediacy which resolutely ignores the heavy burden of posterity from which performances regularly suffer...Bernius knowingly approaches the Latin text as a means of liberating the abstract brilliance and lyricism inherent in Bach’s great edifice…The Stuttgart Chamber Choir are full of vim and alertness and the trumpet playing is cataclysmically brilliant throughout…it is the effect of the combined ingredients which makes this the most striking and satisfying Mass in B minor to have appeared in years ”

Jonathan Feeman-Attwood, Gramophone - Editor’s Choice

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