Claudia Crause - Soprano
Jurate Svedaite - soprano
Valerie Nicolosi - alto
Gregory Zavracky - tenor
Laurentiu Rotaru - bass

A Program Note:

The Mass in B Minor did not assume its final form until Bach's last years, perhaps by 1748. It may be that Bach wished the Mass in B Minor to be regarded as a monument of his skill, for it is a work based much upon his earlier music, which he adapted and refined to meet a sacred purpose. In choosing to reuse earlier material he may have felt himself to be selecting his finest work, laying it out for inspection, and putting it to the service of praising God.

Bach never heard the Mass in B Minor performed in its entirety. It is possible that he only intended that parts of the Mass be used when appropriate. Such was the case when his son C.P.E. Bach first performed the Credo in 1786. Although various other sections of the Mass were performed over the next sixty years, it was not until 1859, more than a century after Bach died, that the entire work was performed at a single sitting.

What is most remarkable about the overall shape of the Mass in B Minor is the fact that Bach managed to shape a coherent sequence of movements from diverse material, whether he intended it or not. When he presented the Missa in 1733 he clearly viewed it as a complete and independent work. The original manuscript shows that Bach divided the Mass in four major sections, similar to the sections in the Roman Catholic Mass Ordinary. The first section is the Missa, and includes the Kyrie and Gloria. The second is the Symbolum Nicenum (or the Credo). The third consists of a single movement, the Sanctus, and the fourth is entitled Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei et Dona nobis pacem.

The magnificence of the work is signalled at the very outset with the mighty adagio five-part setting of the words Kyrie eleison succeeded by a fugal section of architectural grandeur and complexity. The Christe eleison is a gentle duet for sopranos with a charming ritornello for strings. The second Kyrie, for four-part choir, has an intense, chromatic fugal subject.

(Aylesbury Choral Society)