Bach Mass in B Minor

Chorale's Choices

No work is more studied or more commented upon; no work excites more controversy. I have to be able to defend the choices I make. And I have to satisfy my own need to express a personal vision: Chorale is presenting a work of art, not a music history lecture about a work of art.

Compiling the Mass in B minor

Plagiarism was not a dirty word in Bach’s time; nor was parody. Bach and his colleagues had immense responsibilities-- and their success depended on getting it all done, rather than on satisfying a theoretical mandate that they be original.

How does one sing Bach?

Probably apocryphal, but nonetheless interesting: at the height of his career, German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was asked by a young singer, “What must I do to learn to sing like you?” To which the baritone replied, “Sing Bach.”

Why did Bach, a Lutheran, compose a mass?

Lutherans continue to claim Bach—some refer to him as the “fifth evangelist”— and others stress a symbolic father-son relationship between him and Martin Luther: Luther clarified the faith, and Bach set it to music.

Behind/beyond the B minor score

A first glance at a good Bach edition reveals time signatures, clefs, and a lot of notes—little else. No color words; no tempo indications; no dynamic markings; no crescendos, decrescendos, ritardandos, accelerandos; very little to delineate phrase, articulation, emotional content; almost no ornamentation.