A new Bach b Mass.

A new Bach Mass.

This is being written after having listened to the record once. But it made such a deep impression in me I'll comment it at once.

I'm talking about the brand new Cantus Köln Mass. I rather like Cantus Köln, although I do not necessarily agree with their view that Bach must be sung one voice per part. But I liked their earlier records on Buxtehude and early Bach cantatas, so, after some hesitation, I listened to a bit in the shop. Naturally I chose the Kyries and the Dona Nobis Pacem, the ones I would think would suffer the most from such a minimalist approach.

The great final movement sounded, in fact extremely strange, taken at almost twice or thrice the usual tempo. I never thought it would work, but work it did – I was very impressed but slightly put off.

So I was going out without buying it, but my wife wondered as I came empty handed. I returned to the shop and bought it.

Coming home I listened to the whole of the work. I was thinking that it was more of an interesting experiment than an actual achievement: the counterpoint is very clear (that is, if you can listen to 8 – !! – voices at the same time, which of course I can't) and the musical threads are very clear.

But then I began to feel dragged into the work. There is a kind of subtle tension – the Crucifixus, for instance – that is very impressive. A sort of intimate and very Lutheran religiosity permeates the version.

The Gloria, the Et Ressurrexit and all the bright bits are also extremely convincing.

When it finished, I played the Dona Nobis Pacem first by Richter – it seemed disappointing – and then by Gardiner – again, I was slightly disappointed. Finally, I played the Cantus Köln version again: it was more impressive.

Now this was a total revelation. I would have sworn it would never work at that tempo. But I am still impressed by what I heard.

How does it fare in comparison to other versions? Well, I think most people will prefer the Gardiner set. It is, perhaps, a better introduction to the work. Nevertheless, I am really impressed.

All in all, a very good surprise, which doesn't happen that often nowadays.

P.S.: This is a SACD recording. Naturally, I listened in standard CD mode. But whoever has the option might try to compare the two renderings.

 

I've never been a fan of one-voice-per-part choral Bach. I found Joshua Rifkin's versions of the cantatas so disappointing that I gave them away at the first available opportunity. However, my interest having been raised by your post, RdS, I took the opportunity to hear it today, when down shopping in Basel.

I confess; I was disappointed. It is, as you say, beautifully clear and the contrapuntal texture shines through. But for me there has to be more. I like the excitement, the emotional wallop of a chorus. Take the transition from the aria Quoniam tu solus Sanctus with its wonderful haunting horn obbligato to the slam of the chorus Cum Santo Spiritu with its soaring trumpet and thundering drums. In Gardiner's version (and in most other versions I've heard), it comes in with a dramatic whack. Not in the Cantus Cölln version - it's rather damp. Yet Gardiner has a choir which is only 14 strong (the soloists are choir members), not that big - but big enough to generate an impact. (Correction - the Monteverdi Choir for the B Minor is up to 30 for the big numbers - read the wrong bit of paper).

This, I found was typical - the choral numbers were unconvincingly lightweight. This doesn't mean I want the Huddersfield Choral Society, but I want more punch. The sheer grandeur of the Bach choruses beg for it - and they don't get it from Cantus Cölln.

What it boils down to is that we're looking for different things. You are trained in music and love counterpoint, I am not and tend to be more superficial in my understanding. I go on gut feeling, which is perhgaps why I like Gardiner's more theatrically dramatic approach to things (for example, in the Monteverdi Vespers). Horses for courses!

Another thing I found was that the recording quality was poor. The timpani sounded too loud and the whole thing seemed to be lack mid-range. Now this could be because the shop uses Sennheiser headphones and I had just spent the previous half-hour having my prejudices against Sennheisers confirmed (see under "Reviews"). To me, this is a basic fault of all upper-class Sennheisers.

 

I understand what you say. In the 'power' department, this record is somewhat lacking. And I don't think we differ necessarily because I like counterpoint - it may be the case, though - and you prefer the emotion.

The reason I like this recording is that every line is so well sung: in the tuttis the sopranos introduce a kind of intense and rather moving fast vibrato which no choir can emulate.

As to the recording, it is true it is not very good. But it may well be the Sennheiners. The timpani are not very strong through my system, but it is true that the sound is not very transparent.

Anyway, I think this version requires repeated listening.

That said, do I prefer this version to Gardiner's? No, they are too different. I wouldn't compare them. It is a different reading, almost as if the same piece of music were played in two very different organs - a powerful and a chamber one.

As a matter of fact I have long ceased to search for the version . Every one is different, and none is the way I would actually like it to be. So the many versions I have of the same music are just different 'takes' of the same thing.

The Cantus Cölln's is an interesting one, resulting from a lot of thought and genuinely original. It gives one a very different but honest reading of the score.

Now if I were to be asked which version I would recommend a beginner, that would be quite another matter.

 

I think you're right there - there can never be the version of a work like the B Minor Mass. Having now all the cantatas, I'm constantly amazed where the bits of the B Minor come from - it's mostly plagiarised from the cantatas. However, the fact that Bach puts it all together so well is a tribute to his towering genius - you can't see the joins at all!

I first learned to love it on an old vinyl version by, of all people, Otto Klemperer. Otto did things v-e-r-y slowly, but there was still something majestic about it, and it's hard to beat singers such as Dame Janet Baker and Hermann Prey at the peak of their form. I always remember that the journey between my home in Melbourne and the ICI Ski Lodge at Mt. Buller in the Victorian Alps was exactly one Klemperer B Minor Mass long!

Gardiner's version is special in another way. Before it was made, people tended to consider original instrument and modern instrument recordings as different and applied different criteria. When Gardiner's B Minor was released (the first of his major Bach choral recordings for Archiv), an American critic put his finger on the point - with this recording, he said, the issue of period or modern instrumentation ceased to have any meaning. Such was the musicianship and excellence of the whole thing that it was good no matter what criteria one applied to it A page had been turned. It was a big step along the way away from all the Das Alte Werke/Harnoncourt this-way-and-no-other nonsense.

 

Tones:

Actually I agree with you. When I first listened to Gardiner's Mass I thought just that: irrespective of organological considerations - that is, of the kind of instruments one uses - it was (still is) a very good version.

The Cantus Cölln one is more engaged, but I evaluated it purely on musical terms. Perhaps it need a little cerebral burning in (the kind of thing hifi-ists are forever talking about) but then one may find it is musically (rather than musicologically) very interesting.

I'm very short on time, but if I can I'll post in more length.