Bach: Mass in B minor - La Cetra Basel
I’m writing this review on 26 October 2024, the birthday, incidentally, of a friend of mine from high school, one admired for his intellect and curiosity. He told me, likely in ’91 or ’92 that he was going to a concert of Bach, wondering if I wanted to go. I asked what the program was and he said “Bach’s B minor Mass? Do you know it?”
I knew enough to say “no thank you,” having never listened to it, but knowing that it was a 2-CD set that, at least on the surface, sounded like a big bore. It was my mistake, of course, to be so pigheaded. I’d have enjoyed the experience, I know now. I remember asking him after the weekend how the concert was, on our ride home from school. “Long… but did you know Bach wrote fugues for voices?” My eyes perked up. It was at that point that I made sure I would at least try and open my closed mind at some point.
It was in graduate school when I finally found an HIPP recording led by Ton Koopman, whom I’d loved with his performance (again, with a release from high school) of Mozart’s Requiem. That recording I would sample, here and there, and for many more years I never fully appreciated this work.
In this new recording led by Andrea Marcon with the La Cetra Basel, we’re treated to a rather atmospheric recording of the work, recorded in the Martinskirche in Basel, just over a year ago. This isn’t one of the anemic one-per-part exercises in how transparent we can get with reduced forces; the orchestral size is healthy, and Marcon writes about finding the right balance with a choir. He therefore arrives at a 24-person chorus, with soloists identified in each voice part, as he describes, was a longstanding tradition that Bach spoke to.
Most interesting in the booklet is something I don’t think I’ve seen before: I read an excellent essay by John Butt (in English). His historical context was not translated, but instead, the booklet includes complimentary texts by Gilles Cantagrel (French) and Christoph Wolff (German). It’s just the kind of intellectual statement that made me think, of all people, that friend back in high school. He’d be just the type to easily digest the French, and while I can’t speak to his ability with German, I could see him tackling the Wolff text with an optimistic joy in trying to make sense of the great scholar’s work in words. I’m less enthusiastic, as clearly it is shown, they did translate Marcon’s reflection on performance into the same languages. And as insightful as Butt’s essay was, I appreciated the humility in Marcon’s reflection that interpretation is something best born out of praxis, that is to say, you have to try different things to arrive at the best solution, rather than doing so from the comfort of one’s armchair, bolstered by books and theories.
Sound Quality
The image in the booklet of the church reveals it to be a large space, but one with all kinds of large pockets for the sound to get lost. I’d wager on the architecture alone for this space to be ill-suited for this work. But what do I know? However it sounded live, the recorded version is quite three dimensional. The engineer Markus Heiland seems to have reproduced a very wide soundstage, with an excellent stereo effect. My audition of this recording via Qobuz at 96kHz lacks extreme depth in the orchestral sound, but its wideness can’t be overstated. The way the soloists emerge from the texture from distinct points in space is a marvel of “stereo” technology. The soloists include well-known names to me, including Hana Blažiková as one of the sopranos, Carlos Mena, alto, and Jakob Pilgram, tenor.
In short, this performance captures the expansive recording location without losing focus or intricate details; the transparency supports the music and reveals the beauty of the singers, not to mention all the solo textures in the instrumental forces.
Performance
Marcon writes at length about tempos and the evidence used in determining the correct solutions; I think I’m in sync with his solutions, finding the chosen tempos to be well judged. I do like myself a fast Credo, but this measured approach I can still live with, for sure. As Bach layers on the parts, with a nice little punchy bass line marching along, the tempo Marcon adopted I think works nicely.
My reluctance to embrace this work earlier in my life in part stems from the dense writing and the fact that intellectually, I found it hard how to get my head around such a massive work. I appreciate Butt’s essay, which reveals that it is doubtful that Bach ever experienced a “full” performance of the work, having composed various pieces at different times. He views the “complete” mass as something of a personal project and legacy. Bach, ever looking backward for inspiration, likely viewed the work as an homage to the past, creating something that may have been a departure from the more pragmatic cantatas he wrote and performed as part of his daily life.
The McCreesh recording still sticks with me; his fast tempi and the lean forces made the work for me a bit more accessible. Under Marcon’s direction, the emphasis I feel is on us being able to understand the text and the relaxed tempos, but I wouldn’t say slow, give the singers, especially in a track such as the second disc’s Et in unum Dominum from the Symbolum Nicenum the opportunity for great expression. The following track, Et incarnatus est best illustrates Marcon’s treatment of the orchestra, the rather dramatic gestures in the upper strings are not fully exploited. It reminds me somewhat of Marcon’s work with his ensemble, Venice Baroque, which for me never was as polished as other Italian HIPP ensembles. I remember seeing them here in Richmond, some years ago, I believe with longtime collaborator Carmignola, performing both Vivaldi’s Four Seasons along the Philip Glass concerto. They did a good job, but the dynamic sophistication exploited by groups such as Europa Galante or Il Giardino Armonico was tame by comparison.
The Crucifixus has plenty of dynamic verve, but while the orchestral forces do play with dynamics, the most palpable form is reserved for the chorus. And I can live with that, it makes good sense.
Bach can’t be much more festive than when the trumpets and timpani come out, and there is good energy in their performance of the opening of the Osanna in excelsis on track 11. The joyous energy is palpable. It’s another example of how I love how the sound of a fuller organ is weaved into the overall sound.
Track 14 presents the Agnus Dei, reminding me in the way Bach wrote it, that the melodic material in the strings isn’t unlike a melodic line from one of the slow movements in a harpsichord concerto. The key in such a performance is how you phrase something; while strings have a sustaining sound, the decay is quick in such a large space. It gets dangerous, potentially at this tempo, but they make it work. Mena’s voice is a good counterpoint to the setting started by the strings, the two meshing well in their “duet” of melodies. I found Mena’s voice, as always, to have an attractive timbre, but there were times where I detected a fragility in his voice, exemplified by some restriction, intentional or not, of dynamics. Despite this, the balance between his solo performance against the violins was well done.
Back on disc 1, the tempo, energy, and balance of forces is all on point in Bach’s Gloria in excelsis Deo. Here the orchestra, going full-tilt, is a bit more dynamic than I’d mentioned before. Here’s the bottom of the orchestral sound reveals something that’s been missing, perhaps, bass energy. The booklet reveals the use of two violone and a theorbo, but I carefully listened and found it difficult to hear the bass lute; these are issues probably best discussed above, under sound quality, but wanting a little more bass presence is about the my only want from this recording.
The Laudamus te, track 6, features Blažiková as soloist. She does indulge us with some vibrato, but it should be noted, given my recent comments on vibrato in the new release from Ensemble Diderot, how the soloists in this album all apply vibrato as an expressive effect in their performances here. The combination of a dark sounding violin alongside Hana’s nearly angelic voice is a nice juxtaposition. There are some common figures between them that are not always followed cat and mouse; in one of the violin entrances the figure jumps and has a lightness to it, that is not echoed, precisely, by Blažiková. It’s a nitpicky detail, perhaps, but when the composer is passing the same theme between parts, in imitation, it’s up to the performers to do the rest.
I’ll end with comments on the opening Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie cycle. For this I went back to Herrewege’s 2011 performance on his Phi label, given my familiarity with his earlier performances of Bach. There’s a far smoother sound, and a slightly faster tempo under his baton, but I ultimately found myself longing for the more organic, more textured sound in the Marcon recording. Then I auditioned the even slower performance by Masaaki Suzuki (note: I hear harpsichord cutting through the texture in their recording!). There’s a clarity in the BIS recording, which is nice, but performance wise, I wanted the opening Kyrie to just go a bit faster. The recording’s singing is polished, but the singers are clearly behind the orchestra, wherein in this new recording by La Cetra Basel, the integration of singers and instruments is better done. Marcon’s decision to utilize solo voices, or ripienists alongside the full chorus is the right touch.
In the Christe eleison I want more bass, again, from the instrumental forces, but I do hear the lute this time around in the texture. Both Miriam Feuersinger and Hana Blažiková lead as the soloists with such delightful vocal sound, while we can hear them quite clearly in the texture, the balance does come across naturally to my ears.
Final Thoughts
There are many recordings of Bach’s B minor mass, and as such, many options to enjoy. I found this one a treat, for several reasons. The recording’s sound quality is superb, but not perfect. Having a little more transparency with the orchestra would have been nice, but it didn’t kill the recording; I did feel the lower foundation of the orchestra was lost more than the its top, which is unfortunate. But performance wise, Marcon’s solution for utilizing soloists alongside the fuller chorus was not only historically viable, but made the performance enjoyable, seeing that he was able to employ strong singers, with background in historical performance.
If you are once like I was, put off by the scale and enormity of this work, not to mention its texture, take it in sections and become familiar with what Bach is doing in his writing; he clearly put everything he knew as a musician and composer into this work. It must have, I think, been a deeply personal work, given his religious convictions. It’s hard not to hear the echo of his fugues from the Well-tempered clavier in many of these movements, or even echoes of his earlier orchestral suites, celebratory pieces for special occasions.
I found this recording made the approachability of Bach’s mass a little easier. My thoughts are that the chosen tempi have a lot to do with this thinking, that the solutions found balance intelligibility with the text, the rhythmic aspect of changing harmonies, and fitting a performance into a highly reverberating space. The opening Gloria puts this acoustic energy to the extreme, but everyone stays together and the resulting energy works.
With many fine recordings already made, I’m not here to declare this one pushes all the others to the side. But it does have many fine attributes that would be worth your time, I have little doubt.
