The Mass in B minor holds a very special place in J.S. Bach’s output: a work of grandeur, an opus ultimum, it was not composed as such but is the result of an assembly of pieces written at different times and for different circumstances. Bach worked on it during the years 1748-1749, until his eyesight, which had gradually deteriorated, was completely lost. The idea of bringing together pieces drawn essentially from the vast corpus of cantatas was not unusual; a similar approach was taken by several of his contemporaries, such as Handel, and Bach himself had done so for the short masses he composed in the late 1730s. These were called parodies. Moving from the German text of the cantatas to the Latin text of the masses meant adapting the vocal lines, with additions and deletions, polyphonic and harmonic enrichments, and changes in instrumentation. Throughout his life, Bach never ceased to revisit his works with a view to improving them.

It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between performances of Bach's B minor Mass than Otto Klemperer's 1967 recording featuring the New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, and Sigiswald Kuijken's 2009 version with La Petite Band. Klemperer's recording features a star-studded cast of soloists and sounds as if it were carved from giant slabs of granite, while Kuijken is seated in the concertmaster's chair, leading a performance with one voice to a part. Musical fashions change, and this recording reflects research and an aesthetic attitude that the B minor Mass does not need to be backed by an army of vocalists and instrumentalists. As with his series of Bach cantatas, Kuijken eliminates nearly all doublings, instrumental and vocal, except for the first and second violins, of which there are two each. Although other conductors have taken similar approaches, most notably Joshua Rifkin in his pioneering 1981 recording, it could be argued that Kuijken has done it best. Aside from the effortless virtuosity of all the musicians, the qualities that most distinguish this performance are its inwardness and its spirituality. Technical mastery is a quality shared by all great recordings of the B minor Mass, but the inwardness and the intimacy of this performance make it unique. Each musician is alone on his or her part, as in chamber music, so each part is infused with individual personality. Under Kuijken's intense and assured leadership, the result is a recording that stands among the greatest ever made, including Klemperer's. Challenge Classics' super audio sound is richly detailed, amazingly clear, and evocative. © TiVo

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Bach's Mass in B minor, BWV 232, is unique among his works in that it evolved over a period of years, beginning with a Sanctus written in 1724, continuing through a Kyrie and Gloria of 1733 and the remainder of the movements written at the end of Bach's life, and extending even beyond that into not fully specified revisions made by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to the damaged manuscript. This new recording from a crack group of mostly German musicians and conductor Hans-Christoph Rademann is perhaps the first to incorporate the 1733 sections, using a new edition of the mass made by the Carus label and publishing company on which the recording appears. These are intriguing; Bach's impulse seems to have been to simplify the "Lombardic" rhythms in two of the sections of the Gloria. But really bigger news is the all-around excellent performance, combining soberness, transparency, great feeling, and superlative work from all the soloists, but especially English mezzo Carolyn Sampson. Rademann deploys a 32-voice choir, right in the sweet spot between heavy traditional choir performances and unacceptably minimal readings that assume the choirs Bach used were what he would have wanted if money were no object. It's matched by an orchestra of roughly the same size, and the result is a reading that's agile, rich when the text and music call for it, and precise in the delineation of Bach's lines. Rademann's tempi tend toward the quicker side in the joyous outer polyphonic movements, balanced by quiet intensity in the central text junctions. Sample the Incarnatus from the Credo, CD two, track four, for an example of how the superb Gächinger Kantorei Stuttgart and Freiburg Baroque Orchestra respond to Rademann's leadership. The former group, much underrated, illustrates how Germany's high-quality regional choirs are making the transition to medium-sized historical performances that really fit their dimensions better than traditional performances usually did. In all, this is a historically informed performance that reflects the best German traditions. Carus' live sound from the Liederhalle in Stuttgart has great immediacy and hardly sacrifices any of the clarity that makes this such an impressive reading of the great B minor Mass. © TiVo