Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Concerto Köln, Peter Dijkstra – J.S. Bach: Mass in B minor, BWV 232 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:58:42 minutes | 1,75 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © BR-Klassik

Nearly 70 years after the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Swiss publisher Hans Georg Nägeli undertook the daring task of preparing the manuscript score of the Mass in B minor for publication. In 1818, to mark the occasion, the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described the Mass as “the Greatest Musical Work of All Times and All People.” This fulsome formulation was primarily a sales strategy: Nägeli was wooing subscribers for a composition that, until then, had been noticed only by a small number of cognoscenti. The announcement does sound rather pompous to our ears today, but the Swiss publisher’s judgement was a sound one. From the mid-19th century onwards, the Mass in B minor gradually became a fxed part of the repertoire for all major choirs, and is now an integral part of the worldwide concert business. However, unsolved questions incidental to this unusual work and its success story continue to preoccupy musicologists to this day: Why is an overall title page missing from the original manuscript, with its four individual folders? Were the four different sections, with their different orchestration, ever conceived as a single and cohesive mass? Was the work composed for any special occasion? And was a performance of the monumental mass even conceivable in around 1750? A look at the history of the music and its structure can bring us one step closer to possible answers.
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