Raphaël Pichon makes his debut with Bach’s Mass in B minor
A great composer takes stock with one of his last works – and creates one of the most mesmerising vocal works ever: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor goes beyond the boundaries of the liturgy of the mass and combines everything that makes up the art of Baroque composition – from poignant arias and elaborate fugues to magnificent choral movements. Bach takes us through the whole spectrum of human emotions. Raphaël Pichon, an acclaimed conductor of Early music, makes his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
The autograph score of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor, a UNESCO Memory of the World document, lies just a stone’s throw away from the Philharmonie Berlin in the vault of the music department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library), preserved at 18 degrees Celsius and fifty per cent humidity. What makes it so precious is not just the fact that the master’s elegant handwriting can be marvelled at – it also provides important information about the genesis of the work. As various inks reveal, the monumental mass was composed over a period of almost 30 years.
To this day, it is not known what motivated Bach, a Lutheran, to set the entire mass text of the Catholic liturgy to music. He applied for the position of Saxon court composer with an early version consisting only of the Kyrie and Gloria. He added the remaining parts of the work, comprising 18 choruses and nine arias, at a later date – seemingly without having any particular reason to do so. In keeping with the practice of parody at the time, he made ample use of his own ideas from earlier compositions. However, the result is by no means a piecemeal work, but a highly original and unified mass setting that combines all of Bach’s qualities: contrapuntal sophistication and emotional depth, Italian opera aria style and stile antico. The canon of the aria “Et in unum dominum” reveals the care with which Bach interprets the Latin text in a particularly beautiful way: the two closely blended voices symbolise the essential unity of Jesus Christ and his divine Father.
Bach himself never heard a performance of his mass. Today, it is one of his most popular compositions and is in the best hands with Raphaël Pichon, who has extensive experience of Baroque vocal music both as a conductor and as a countertenor.
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