Prom 57: Bach’s Mass in B minor with the OAE (29.08.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Monday 29 August 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B minor

Rachel Redmond and Mary Bevan (sopranos)
Iestyn Davies (countertenor)
Guy Cutting (tenor)
Matthew Brook (bass)
Choir of the Age of Enlightenment
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
John Butt (conductor)

Choral music offers few loftier spiritual or artistic challenges than Bach’s Mass in B minor – but then, few living performers are better equipped to tackle it than Baroque music specialist and scholar John Butt, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. ‘If any piece of classical music can be considered universal, I think it’s the Mass in B minor,’ says Butt. ‘It goes down so well across a wide range of cultures.’ Five exceptional soloists (including counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and soprano Mary Bevan) join Butt and the OAE as they drive to the emotional core of this sublime music – and lay bare the passionate, profoundly devoted heart of the man who wrote it.

[bluestateprommer]

Very, very fine reading of JSB's Mass in b from the OAE, CAE and friends, to my not-very-baroque-knowledgeable ears. Not 100% sure of the stage layout that Hannah French described, so will have to wait for pictures to show up on social media. Will be interesting to hear from the more Bach-literate here.

[King_Ouf_I]

Very exciting concert, which had precisely the thing Solomon was missing a week or so ago - continuity. Lovely to hear a choir with the stamina to sound as strong in Dona nobis pacem as in the Kyrie.

[smittims]

Is John Butt releated to Richard Butt, whom I heard (and saw) conduct a thrilling B minor mass in Birmingham Cathedral 50 years ago?

I'd say last night's performance was unified, dedicated, precise and well-finished. I thought it a very modern performance, for our time, rather than a claim to be what Bach would have wanted if he'd performed the work complete.

What I missed was the grandeur of this work. But then I have to say that, although the Period Performance movement has given us a massive wealth of music which would otherwise have been forgotten, and shed new light on it, I've never been moved or thrilled by a Period performance as I was by (in this work) Jochum, Klemperer, Karajan or Coates (who made the first complete recording).

[MickyD]

Though a firm HIP fan, smittims, I do know what you mean - the early 60s recording by Karl Richter was the first I ever heard and I still find it thrilling today.

[Beresford]

Nice concert. I just wish that John Butt would pause long enough to take a few breaths between movements.