Mass in B minor

“Bach is the beginning and end of all music,” Max Reger wrote in 1906. From the very start, Bach’s only setting of a complete Mass, known as the Mass in B minor, has drawn particular attention. Although Bach, with his many duties, composed almost exclusively for specific occasions, the parts of this Missa came into being over decades; research has identified concrete occasions only for a few early sections.

The Mass was completed only in 1749, in the last year of Bach’s life, and is therefore often described as his musical legacy. It is still unclear why the devout Lutheran made a Catholic Missa the keystone of his work, and Bach probably never heard a performance of the completed Mass himself. Despite its long genesis, the Mass can be understood as one great, coherent composition that combines the stile antico with the modern style of its time.

With a large Bach Consort Wien under Rubén Dubrovsky, the Bachchor Salzburg and the soloists Joanne Lunn, Luciana Mancini, Kristin Mulders, Cyril Auvity and Christian Immler, this performance does justice to both the concert and the liturgical character of the monumental work. The television version comprises the Kyrie and Gloria and the Credo up to the “Et resurrexit”.