Mass in B Minor, BWV232, No. 20: Confiteor and No. 21: Et expecto

Mass in B minor

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Others, however, find Harnoncourt mannered, and these should be careful with Minkowski as well - though they might find him not quite as extreme as Harnoncourt in that respect. Veldhoven is somewhere in between the two. Vocally, his singers sound more like Kuijken's - "clean", well-integrated voices that sound beautifully light in the arias and duets and combine well into consorts in the choruses.

I sometimes found myself wishing that he, too, would have stuck to using concertists throughout - the sound of his five leading singers combining in choral passages has a beautiful, almost magical quality that is somewhat lost when the ripienists join in. Veldhoven might not have the individualised personality of Minkowski which could be seen as a plus or a minus, depending on your views and tastes , but he does bring out more drama and excitement than Kuijken.

On the whole, I enjoyed all three recordings very much. Bach's music is in itself intensely expressive; I don't feel that it requires highlighting from the performers otherwise I wouldn't have liked Kuijken's version. On the other hand, I do enjoy it when performers boldly emphasize Bach's gestures - when it's done well, it does reveal additional layers of meaning. I did find myself, overall, more attracted to Veldhoven and Kuijken than to Minkowski - mainly because of the latter's choice of singers. If you're doing Bach one-per-part as Minkowski does, in many movements and passages , you need singers who sound good as an ensemble, not just good individual voices.

Minkowski's singers, I felt, sounded too heavy, and did not always integrate well with each other. I will not enter here into the fine points of historical debate. Andrew Parrott has recently written an article on how ripienists were used in Bach's lifetime, and how these general practices could be applied to the Mass I have yet to examine where his recommendations in this article, written two years ago, match what he himself did in I suspect that he would have issues with Veldhoven's and Minkowski's use of ripienists - Veldhoven, especially, is fond of making frequent switches from solo to tutti texture in ways which according to Parrott's research are not consistent with baroque practices.

This might well be the case; and, history apart, I did find some of his transitions a bit "fussy". But on the whole, I did find his recording very beautiful, moving and convincing. What struck me most of all is the sheer variety of approaches. These three performances are not worlds apart. They are all on period instruments, using a small vocal and instrumental ensemble; their approach to many aspects of tempo, dand articulation are similar. Yet there is still a very different feeling to them - from the natural fluidity of Kuijken to the drama of Minkowski.

I find much to enjoy in all these versions - and this overall variety is a testimony, I feel, to the multi-faceted richness of Bach's music as a whole, and the Mass in particular.

Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: No. 20, Confiteor - No. 21, Et expecto

William Hoffman wrote October 4, Thank you for your generous and probing examination of these three recent OVPP recorded performances. William Hoffman wrote October 6, Kyrie eleison opening, Wilderer Missa model C. Kyrie eleison unknown model Stauffer 4. Et in terra pax var. Scheide; new Stauffer B,obs Et in spiritum Anh. Anatomy of the B-Minor Mass 26 movements Osanna repeated: Gloria 5 , Et in terra pax 6 , Gratias agimus tibi 7 , Cum sancto 12 Credo 13 , Patrem ominpotentem 14 , Et resurrexit 18 , Et expecto 21 , Sanctus 22 , Osanna 23, 25 , Dona nobia pacem Kyrie 1, 3 , Qui tollis 9 , Crucifixus 16 , Confiteor Except for the opening and closing arias for unison violins, the accompaniment is never repeated among the other seven aria movements.

The Benedictus can be played by either solo violin or flute. Movements with previous source materials: Parody through extant music 8: Possible Recognized Model 7: Aria Et is spiritum, Kyrie eleison I, 3. Press The most recent comprehensive B-Minor Mass source is: Understanding Bach's M-minor Mass. School of Music and Sonic Arts, , p, found at: Select summaries of Abstracts and Scheide article; Fugitive thoughts on styles, dance-influences, symmetrical structure, and Bohemian transmission connections.

Douglas Cowling wrote October 6, A glance at the movements of the two works is striking: Mass in B Minor 1. Kyrie eleison Revision 2. Quoniam parody BWV 8. Although the Mass in B Minor is on a titanic scale, the Mass in F major is a large work, larger than most of the cantatas it runs about 30 minutes in performance 2. The division into movements is very similar.

Bach's testament

The B Minor Mass is more expansive in the central movements of the Gloria but there is recognizable pattern inboth. The Mass in F has a large festive orchestra of 2 ob, 2 horns and strings. Both works borrow heavily from earlier works. This is major hallmark of Bach's compositional style in the last decade of his life: Bach never used the term. It came to mean a smaller scale mass only in the classical period vs. All of Bach's masses are on a large scale.

Nor are they confined to the Lutheran liturgy. Stauffer showed that nocyclic masses were common Catholic practice in the period and thus could be used in both churches: Vivaldi 's famous "Gloria" is a good example of these independent mass movements which could be used in combination with other movements. All of this would suggest that the Mass in B Minor does have comparable works in Bach's oeuvre. Why he took up the mass as a major compositional genre is for the historians to discover. Stauffer certain points to Dresden as the influence and target. Sw Anadgyan wrote October 6, They are all on period instruments, using a small vocal and instrumental ensemble; their approach to many aspects of tempo, dynamics and articulation are similar.

My following comments are of a totally amateurish nature. May I begin with my "first impression"? After the initial run-through of a complete listening, Out of those three OVPP versions aforementioned, only the Kuijken one left me thrilled, Minkowski disappointed me and Vandelhoven kinda left me in neutral gear. I find the version from Marc Minkowski too florid with the singing somewhat more meticulous than Kuijken, wich seemed more subdued and solemn, just as it is with Vandelhoven where the singing I find is nicely aerial.

Where Minkowski seems to lack in a sense of sacredness, he makes up for it with a real sense of buoyancy; this would be the version with the most "personality". There is nothing wrong per se with the Vandelhoven version, it is, to my ears, elegant and with little idiosyncracies. I'm using two sections to help me precise my current opinions the concluding Kirie eleison to appreciate the "rolling movement" and the transition to the Qui tollis peccata mundi, simply because it is of those spots where it does affect me a lot, or not.

Only Minkowski failed to register on that particular scale but not by much. For those weary of the occasional Minkowski neck-braking speeds, I checked the Cum Sancto Spiritu, impression-wise, and his is no faster than Vandelhoven's take; only Kuijken is of a more leisure pace.

Now before using too much space for little contribution, let me compare the Agnus Dei aria enabling me to reach conclusion.

With Vandelhoven the singer, Matthew White, seems more austere and the playing verging on the anemic. Minkowski has Les Musiciens du Louvre in the same delicate space and Nathalie Stutzmann doesn't particularly shine, being correct. Petra Noskaiova, for Kuijken, is the only one to remind me of Kathleen Ferrier with that little oomph in her rendering. Another thing I want to mention is the quality of the wind intrument players in all three versions.

To my neophyte ears, more than the increasingly popular format of One-Voice-Per-Part, it is the gorgeous sounds from these musicians that characterize these recordingsand make them valuable additions to your collection. I would recommend Kuijken without any hesitation, Vandelhoven with some and Minkowski with a lot of it!

Mass in B minor

Thank you and happy listening Julian Mincham wrote October 6, This reminded me of an incident when I was an impecunious student. There were not so many versions of the Mass on LP around then of course, but there were a few. I asked my music lecturer which one he would advise me to shell out my carefully cossetted cash on and I always recall his reponsego into the record booth as you could in those days and try to hear the opening chorus and the Agnus Dei from each recording.

If you like those movements you'll probably like the whole performance--if not you know not? Happy Days Russell Telfer wrote October 6, It was a nasty autumn, some members had dropped out with sore throats and I'm pretty sure the fellows on either side of me had colds too. As well as that, they'd been working their socks off so far, and when it came to the Credo, they couldn't get any sound out. It's one of those bare, exposed moments and as we took the beat I could barely hear anyone else singing at that moment.

Quite an unnerving moment. Russell Been away in Canada. Ed Myskowski wrote October 7, At least in the old days, before ABS. Comments on recordings are always especially enjoyed by me, I trust a bit of stand up comedy in response is tolerable? It is gratifying how enduring is the work of Eugen Jochum; his Beethoven symphonies remain at the top of my list. For the rest of the world to ponder. Good for the throat, in any case. Julian Mincham wrote October 7, But it's hard to fault the line up of singers for that time. Uri Golomb wrote October 7, Jochum made two recordings of the Mass - in the one that Julian wrote ab and in I have much affection to both recordings - with a slight preference to the version, which is my favourite among modern-instruments version ahead of Richter, Klemperer and Rilling, for instance; I did enjoy Abbado's version tremendously, but at the moment it's not commercially available.

It is indeed quite slow and heavy, but not as rigid as many other modern-instrument versions, and at times it's deeply expressive. The First Kyrie, for instance, maintains a powerful arc of tension and release despite the slow tempo. It's amazing, BTW, how little Jochum's interpretation has changed in the 23 years separating his recordings - other conductors have changed much more in shorter spans of time. In some cases Rilling's and versions, Harnoncourt's and , it's difficult to believe that the same conductor is responsible for both versions. Do you have ready access to the names of the soloists on the later recording?

There are more details on: I should add that my main reason for preferring Jochum's second recording is that the choir sounds better there. I'm not sure whether the choir itself was better then more steady singing, less vibrato or whether it's due to a better, clearer recording. Probably a combination of both.

But there are moments I prefer in the first recording. The beginning of the second part in the First Kyrie, for instance: But in the recording, there is a sense of hushed mystery in the bass entry, and of a gradual "lifting of the mist" as more voices enter; and something of that mystery is lost in Russell Telfer wrote October 9, Maybe that's how it read, but that's not what I meant. The exhaustion was physical, not mental, although I did briefly enter the fifth dimension during a guided talk in Quebec City.

Most places score more including my own neck of the woods. See Canada in 15 days. That's what I did. I didn't even have time to seek out Douglas' church in Toronto. William Hoffman wrote October 9, It can be accessed at: When reflecting on the early reception of Bach's B-minor Mass, those areas of the German Reich which were committed to the Catholic denomination, especially the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Margravate of Moravia, will be of particular interest to the researcher. A correspondence between a student of the University of Leipzig and Questenberg, dated April , indicates that the Moravian Count obviously contacted Bach at that time.

Unfortunately, this letter has come down to us without any particular details about Questenberg's request. The Count was a passionate lutenist and an opera lover so he might have asked Bach to send him some instrumental music. Interestingly enough, the mysterious letter was written just when Bach was working on the completion of his B-minor Mass-a fact that led Christoph Wolff to assume that Questenberg might even have been the initiator of this project.

This would easily provide an explanation as to why a Protestant Cantor of St. Thomas' in Leipzig would create such a large-scale work that was only suitable for a Catholic service. For a long time, important records referring to Questenberg and Sporck were kept behind a locked door, which made research on the Counts' musical activities extremely difficult.

Wolff as a result of the discovery and analysis of records referring to both Questenberg and Sporck in several archives in the Czech Republic. The large amount of records found in Bohemia and Moravia provide unknown and detailed information not only about the capacity and standard of the Dukes' orchestras but also about the musical preferences of Sporck and Questenberg.

Eventually, the exploration of the Counts' biographies will lead to a better understanding of the origins of their connection to Bach. Count Sporck, the borrower of the 'Sanctus' parts in the s, cannot be considered, for he died in Bach reportedly corresponded with Questenberg in the spring of about a commission or project.

Maul and others are pursuing these connections. As reported recently, it is possible that the B-Minor Mass was performed soon after its completion, possible at St. I also think its is possible that Baron von Swieten may have had access to German and Austrian sources.

Much may have been word of mouth after Christoph Wolff writing about the St. Bach circle in Hamburg , c. Bach vocal music, including the early Weimar Passion. As for Count Sporck, an extended article on him can be accessed through: Kim Patrick Clow wrote October 9, What source specific sources would Swieten have had? And why didn't he perform it then, or have copies in his library? Were those sources lost later, because Beethoven was desperate to get a copy of the B minor Mass for his own studies in preparation of the Missa solemnis in D Major, Op.

If I may pickup on what you have written, I'm going to focus on the horn connection. As you point out, BWV is scored for 2 horns and 2 oboes and the first two movements, "Gloria" and "Domine Deus," are parody. Incidentally, there is a whole historical genre called the "Parody Mass," for those averse to the term "parody.

In the chorus he elides the division between the opening and middle sections, and abbreviates the beginning of the recapitulation, but the original form remains. We'll be taking up the Lutheran Masses a year from now. Meanwhile, I'd like to connect some possible dots.

Start with the B-Minor Mass bass solo, "Quoniam," with the gorgeous horn solo and two-bassoon accompaniment. It could be traced to the sacred wedding cantata BWV Anh. It may be that at that time, Bach had met Count Sporck in Leipzig , a friend of Picander, who dedicated his first book of poetry to the Count and who may have facilitated the Bach-Picander collaboration.

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Sporck was a champion of the horn and I will pursue this further in a few weeks with the discussion of BWV As for other topics related to the current discussion of BWV , I'm pursuing both the Trinity Feast "omnes tempore" connections with the Mass and the biblical origins of the Mass Ordinary texts. Peter Smaill wrote October 9, Apparently the servants at the great estate of Jaromerice where von Q lived subsequently took to protecting the trees in winter by wrapping old scores around their trunks!

In this context of ecumenical relevance, it is interesting that von Q's ancestor Gerhard von Questenberg was the Habsburg ambassador during the Thirty Years' War and attempred to negotiate an end to the conflict, associated with the famous Catholic general Wallenstein who tried to secure peace but was murdered.

This von Questenberg is dealt with rather inaccurately in Schiller's trilogy of Wallenstein plays, depicted as entirley partisan there to absolutism. I can't believe that one of the estate managers wouldn't have put a halt to this. Granted people may have not have known the musical value of what they were using, music manuscripts were a big investment in terms of paper, ink, time and the cost of copying.

Pisendel went to great risks to send Telemann a score of a beautiful Zelinka motet, and begged him not to allow the source be made known, since it could have serious ramifications for Pisendel's position in Dresden. Why not rip an oil painting out of a frame and wrap a tree with that as well? I've heard the stories about Bach scores were used to wrap fish after his death, but I don't know the origin of that or if it's truly factual. Douglas Cowling wrote October 9, In the 18 th century, there was little or no interest in such developments.

The churches were pretty much fixed in their doctrines and in their political arrangements. On a practical musical level, however, there was clearly substantial movement. The career of Handel is a good example. Although an orthodox Lutheran, he was commissioned to write lavish liturgical music for the Catholic mass and vespers in Rome. Later Handel would do the same for Anglican Church. What was to prevent Bach from accepting commissions from Catholic patrons?

The Lutheran authorities in Leipzig may not have liked it, but if there was a connection with the Saxon Court at Dresden , they may have acquiesced. After all, there was a Jesuit chapel royal in Leipzig. Bach may very well have contemplated a career change at the Catholic Chapel royal in Dresden. At the same time, his interest in mass composition evidenced in the so-called 'Lutheran' masses shows his concern to provide Leipzig with the most modern liturgical music.

I find it hard to believe that the Mass in B Minor was ever repertoire at a minor aristocrat's chapel. The sheer scale of the work argues for a very special event and major royal or imperial performance. This is music of princely "magnificence. I only listened to the Kyrie and Gloria. It was interesting to go through the Mass with Bach's manuscript in front of me; sometimes it was harder to follow than a modern printed scorbut it was remarkably clear for the most part, and it was kind of neat to listen to the Mass that way.

I'm sure Bach never imagined his manuscript would be printed and used as a reference centuries later.

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One interesting thing about the OVPP that I didn't notice before is that it really brings out the contrast between voice being doubled by an instrument and not. You can also hear a big difference when Bach collapses both sopranos into one line. William Hoffman wrote October 10, I agree with your thoughts, especially the last, above. They certainly could have assumed that role. The Sanctus was just a foretaste of the feast to come. Douglas Cowling wrote October 10, There were always concentric circles of decision-making which guarded social superiors from direct contact with middle-class artists and artisans.

The court party which supported "modern" composers like Telemann in the negotiations for the Leipzig cantorate could well have decided that Bach belonged in Dresden or Vienna. I was listening to the Biber part 'Missa Salisbugiensis' the other day -- it's a truly mediocre work -- but its monumental scale always reminds me of the "imperial" quality of the Mass in B Minor.

Matthew Passion by the Tafelmusik Orchestra and Choir. There were three obvious textures: The various scorings created extraordinary contrasts which I had never heard before with large choirs. Peter Smaill wrote October 10, Viennese court and musical circles there. In the paper "Viennese Traditions of the Mass in? B Minor" given by Ulrich Leisinger. C Minor K There are obvious similarities between the two works, starting with the five part "chorus" with two sopranos for the "Kyrie" and an eight double part chorus for the Osanna- settings that are not commonly found in mass compositions of the period.

Sefan Kunze has analysed the gestalt of the "Qui Tollis" in some detail before summarizing: Leisinger thinks however that Van Swieten himself may have shown it to Mozart. It is in the Eisenstadt Collection in Austria, ms ; and was in Haydn's collection. Another possible dot to connect: In , Vivaldi 's memorial service was held at St. The essay's theme is that "By setting the text of the Latin Mass, Bach in fact was participating in a liturgical and musical process begun by Martin Luther himself Vivaldi 's visit to Vienna shows the strong Venetian connection connection in Vienna and Salzburg.

So too in Dresden. It would not surprise me if records turned up which showed a Dresden or Vienna performance for the Mass in B Minor.

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But it is also the most astounding spiritual encounter between the worlds of Catholic glorification and the Lutheran cult of the cross. Scholars have suggested that the Mass in B minor belongs in the same category as The Art of Fugue , as a summation of Bach's deep lifelong involvement with musical tradition—in this case, with choral settings and theology. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff describes the work as representing "a summary of his writing for voice, not only in its variety of styles, compositional devices, and range of sonorities, but also in its high level of technical polish Bach's mighty setting preserved the musical and artistic creed of its creator for posterity.

Two autograph sources exist: Bach the autograph has been published in facsimile from the source in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Bach, as was typical practice in the era, made additions to the autograph score for performance by adding a bar introduction, replacing the now-obsolete oboe d'amore with newer instruments clarinets, oboes, or violins and making other changes in instrumentation for his own aesthetic reasons.

For this and other reasons, the Mass in B minor poses a considerable challenge to prospective editors, and substantial variations can be noted in different editions, even critical urtext editions. The Bach Gesellschaft edition, edited by Julius Rietz, was published in based on several sources but without direct access to the autograph.

When access was later obtained, the textual problems were so evident that the society published a revised edition the next year. The edition was the standard for the next century, but was later recognized to be even less accurate than the version due to inadvertent incorporation of C.

Bach's alterations in the autograph. Christoph Wolff's edition, published by C. Peters in , [50] uses two copies of the —50 manuscript made before C. Bach's adulterations to try to reconstruct Bach's original readings, and seeks to recover performance details by using all available sources, including cantata movements that Bach reworked in the B minor Mass. Bach emendations, but differs from Wolff in arguing that the —50 work is, to quote John Butt, "essentially a different entity from the Missa, and that a combination of the 'best' readings from both does not really correspond to Bach's final and virtually completed conception of the work"; [53] Rifkin's version seeks to adhere to this final version.

Bach's handwriting from the additions made by C. Bach's revisions and uses the Dresden parts as the primary source for the Kyrie and Gloria. The work consists of 27 sections. Tempo and metrical information and parodied cantata sources come from Christoph Wolff's critical urtext edition, and from George Stauffer's Bach: The Mass in B Minor. Regarding sources, Stauffer, summarizing current research as of , states that "Specific models or fragments can be pinpointed for eleven of the work's twenty-seven movements" and that "two other movements [the "Domine Deus" and "Et resurrexit"] are most probably derived from specific, now lost sources.

Butt points out that "only with a musical aesthetic later than Bach's does the concept of parody adapting existing vocal music to a new text appear in an unfavourable light" while it was "almost unavoidable" in Bach's day. As of [update] , recordings are listed on bach-cantatas, beginning with the first recording by a symphony orchestra and choir to match, conducted by Albert Coates. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other Masses in B minor, see Missa in B minor.

Mass in B minor structure. Performed at Latin Cathedral in Lviv, Ukraine. Run time is four minutes, 41 seconds. For selected recordings on period instruments and modern instruments, see Mass in B minor discography. Archived from the original on Mass in B minor, Rome". Also in The New Bach Reader: The Learned Musician, W. The Mass in B Minor , p. Stauffer, Bach, the Mass in B Minor: The Mass in B Minor , pp. The Great Catholic Mass p. The Learned Musician , W. Seine unterthanigste Devotion der Autor J. Bach"; translation John Butt, Bach: Mass in B Minor pp.

Mass in B Minor , pp. Retrieved 23 February Mass in B Minor , p. Friedrich Smends Ausgabe der h-moll-Messe von J. Mass in B Minor , Schirmer, , p. Messe h-moll BWV " in German. Archived from the original on 4 January Retrieved 18 May Yo Tomita, Robin A.

Mass in B Minor, p. A source for parodied arias in the B-Minor Mass? Bach," Bach Jahrbuch 70 , pp. Masses, magnificat, passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach. Evangelist List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.

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