Bach: Messe H-Moll (Box-Set, Br-Klassik)

With the High Mass in B minor, Bach set a climax and, at the same time, the end of his life’s work: this ‘great Catholic Mass’, his only mass composition, in which he set the full ordinarium of the Latin text of the mass, was his last major vocal work. His mass, completed in 1748/49, is a musical masterpiece in which the baroque musical splendor is always in the foreground, but contemplative moments and intimate chorales are also essential components. The Latin ordinarium forms the silk thread on which all these musical pearls are strung. Even after almost three hundred years, the music of Bach’s Mass in B minor is still lively, fresh and a true baroque delight can now be experienced in concert or from the record . What makes the live recording of the concert performance published here in April 2016 in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz so special that it should definitely be added to your CD collection is the unused voices of the young and excellent vocal soloists, who are repeatedly in the highest Sounds praised ‘crystal clear sound’ and the ‘tremendous plasticity’ of the Bavarian Radio Choir under the direction of Peter Dijkstra and of course the renowned original sound ensemble Concerto Köln. And it is also the lively live atmosphere of a concert event that thrilled the audience and even managed to elicit the adjective ‘magical’ from the Munich reviewer, a rare, but in this case well-deserved praise! The audio recording of Bach’s Mass in B minor is now being re-released by BR-Klassik on two well-equipped CDs and together with a work introduction by Markus Vanhoefer.