Arts & Events

On Saturday evening, February 5, I attended Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorus performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Mass in B-minor in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. This was for Richard Egarr, the group’s new music director, his first go at the helm of Philharmonia Baroque in the work universally hailed as Bach’s magnum opus. Compiled in the last years of Bach’s life, The B-minor Mass includes music Bach wrote at different periods of his career. The Sanctus dates from 1724, the Kyrie and Gloria date from 1733, and only the Credo and Agnus Dei were written in 1748-49. Yet in spite of its seeming patchwork montage, the B-minor Mass is without doubt a well thought out work of monumental unity, Indeed, it is a veritable encyclopaedia of all Bach had mastered in his long and illustrious career as a composer. 

Numerous scholars have conjectured that Bach wrote the Kyrie and Gloria sections, which together are referred to in Lutheran liturgy as a Missa, in hopes of obtaining in 1733 an honorary position (and stipend) from the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. This would have given Bach more leverage in dealing with the often contentious church fathers at Leipzig, where Bach was employed as cantor at St. Thomas’s school and Leipzig’s Music Director. The choice to write in Latin may have been a nod to the Elector of Saxony’s recent conversion to Catholicism. However, when Bach returned to composing a full Latin mass in 1748-49, he apparently did so with no prospects for a performance of such a lengthy work, which takes up more than two hours. 

It is surmised that the ageing Bach simply asked himself what task remained for him to accomplish, and a Latin mass seemed to him an appropriate work in which to show all he could do in the medium of sacred music. The autograph score for Bach’s B-minor Mass is written in a trembling hand unlike even the steady hand of the Art of Fugue written at almost the same time as his Latin mass.
For Philharmonia Baroque’s performance of the B-minor Mass, the orchestra and chorus were joined by soloists Mary Bevan, soprano; Iestyn Davies, countertenor; James Gilchrist, tenor, Rodrick Williams, baritone; and, in the Credo and Confiteor, Tonia d’Amelio, soprano. Richard Egarr conducted conducted from the harpsichord for the solo numbers and conducted the choral sections from a standing position. The heart of the B-minor Mass is in the fifteen choral sections, while there are a mere six sections for solo voices and only two duets. This emphasis on choruses marks out the difference between Bach’s Passions, where arias and duets abound in a more intimate and personal style than in the B-minor Mass’s more encyclopaedic style. In the B-minor Mass, Bach symbolized the continuity of the Christian tradition by using Gregorian cantus firmi in the Credo and Confiteor. 

In Philharmonia Baroque’s performance of the B-minor Mass, several sections stood out as particularly stunning. The Domine Deus section in the Gloria was beautifully sung by soprano Mary Bevan and tenor James Gilchrist, who were gorgeously accompanied by flutists Stephen Schultz and Lars Johanesson. The Quaniam tu solus sanctus aria was excellently sung by countertenor Iestyn Davies accompanied by horn player Todd Williams. The Crucifixus chorus was accompanied by solemn, grievous instrumental music ending in a descending passage, followed immediately by an outburst of jubilation celebrating the Resurrection, complete with trumpets. Perhaps the highlight of this entire performance of Bach’s B-minor Mass was the plaintive Agnus Dei sung in awe-inspiring tones by countertenor Iestyn Davies. For this music, Bach reused a tune he had used many years before, though here he simplified it in a way that emphasises its humble plea for God’s mercy. The final fugue for the chorus Dona nobis pacem concludes the Mass with a plea for peace.