Luogo e data di registrazione		Doopsgezinde Gemeente Kerk, Haarlem (Holland) - 13/19 febbraio 1985
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Klaus L Neumann | Thomas Gallia | Paul Dery
	Engineer		Sonart, Milano
	Prima Edizione LP		Harmonia Mundi (EMI Electrola) | 1C 157-16 9541 3 | 2 LPs - durata 55' 02" - 56' 25" | (p) 1985 | DIGITAL
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 0761 | GD 77040 | 2 CDs - durata 55' 05" 56' 23" | (c) 1995 | DDD
	Cover Art		Christuskopf, Zisterzienserkirche in Viktring, Kärnten, um 1400. © Buch-Kunstverlag Ettal
	Note		Eine Aufnahme des Westdeutschen Rundfunks Köln.

The B minor Mass is Bach‘s only Missa tota, that is to say, his only mass composition including all of the parts of the Ordinarium Missae: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus with Benedictus and Osanna, as well as Agnus Dei. The history of its creation is unique also within the framework of Bach’s complete oeuvre. A history which extends from 1724, his second year in Leipzig, until the last days of his life. Bach worked on the B minor Mass and not on the Art of the Fugue, as had been previously assumed, in the period immediately before his death (according to the latest findings by Yoshitake Kobayashi, Gottingen). Bach composed the six-part Sanctus (without Benedictus or Osanna) already for Christmas 1724. The Sanctus being the section of the Ordinary sung or played (monophonic or polyphonic) in the Lutheran church only on high feasts. The Kyrie and Gloria followed in 1733. As the only two Mass movements belonging to the Sunday church service they received the designation Missa, as was usual in Bach’s time. Bach sent the parts for the Missa along with a dedication dated 27 July 1733 to the newly invested Catholic Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony (concurrently King of Poland as August III). In the dedicatory letter he requested the appointment to the position of court composer, which he however received only in 1736. Hans-Joachim Schulze, who has published a facsimile edition of the parts with commentary (Stuttgart 1983), has recently called into question the prevailing assumption that the Missa was performed on 21 April 1733 during the devine service held in St. Nicolai’s, Leipzig, in honour of the new Elector’s succession to the throne. Rather, it is more likely that the parts were written in Dresden in the hope of receiving a performance there. However there is of yet no evidence of a performance in Dresden. Only towards the end of his life did Bach form the Sanctus of 1724 and the Missa of 1733 into a Missa tota through the composition of the Credo, the so-called Symbolum Nicenum and the last sections of the Ordinarium, from Osanna through Dona nobis pacem. We don’t know what his incentive was, nor is anything known of a performance of the complete work. Certain is only a performance of the Sanctus in 1724, probably followed by a further one at Easter 1727. A third performance was possibly brought about by the Bohemian Count Sporck, who had borrowed the original parts of this movement (whereby they went astray). The unusual history of the B minor Mass’s creation led the noted Bach scholar Friedrich Smend, editor of the work for the Neue Bachausgabe (1953), to the conclusion that the B minor Mass was not considered by its creator to be a complete work. Rather, Bach, in his later years, combined the individual sections more or less at random in the two partial volumes, with four title pages but without an overall title. The first volume contains the Missa, the second the Symbolum Nicenum, a new copy of the Sanctus and finally - following the last title page - the remaining pieces, from the Osanna through Dona nobis pacem, which Smend, in agreement with Philipp Spitta, took to be music for the Communion. However it is hardly possible not to recognize that Bach completed the B minor Mass to form a unified work. This is shown above all by the reappearance of the Gratias agimus from the Gloria as a parody at the end of the Mass in the Dona nobis Pacem (this type of self-parody also occurs in Mass settings by other Baroque masters) and by the thematic relationship between the Osanna and the Pleni sunt coeli of the Sanctus. In addition it is also possible to identify unifying formal principles for the whole Mass, so that there can be no doubt as to the unity of Bach’s Missa tota. A word on the use of parody technique, whose importance in the B minor Mass is just as great as in the Christmas Oratorio! According to current knowledge, only eight from a total of 25 movements, or barely a third (counting the Gloria in excelsis with the Et in terra pax as one movement and the repeated Osanna only once), can be considered with certainty to be original compositions. They are the first Kyrie, the second part of the Gloria in excelsis (from measure 100) and the ending of the Gloria cycle Cum sancto spiritu; from the Symbolum Nicenum the movements Credo in unum Deum, Et incamatus est, Confiteor, and Et expecto, and finally the Sanctus. It is true the models for only seven of the remaining 17 movements, for the Gratias agimus, Qui tollis peccata mundi, Patrem omnipotentem, Crucifixus, Osanna, Agnus Dei, and Dona nobis pacem have been identified. It is therefore not inconceivable that a few original compositions are hidden among the presumed parodies. This of course does not change the general view that the B minor Mass consists mainly of parody movements. This should not give rise to doubt as to the quality of the music. Bach’s reusage of a composition in connection with an extensive rearrangement quite often approaches the level of a new creation. This is clearly shown, for example, by the especially impressive Agnus Dei, whose model is the aria Ach bleibe doch, mein liebstes Leben, from the Ascension oratorio (BWV 11). Other older compositions on the other hand practically cried out for a renewed usage, as occurred with the opening movement from the cantata Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (BWV 12) for the Crucifixus. (This movement was already a parody, making the Crucifixus a parody second degree. The common model is a composition by Vivaldi with the text Piango, gemo, sospiro e peno, "the love song of an unhappy soul”, thus Bernhard Paumgartner, who discovered the concordance.) The broad musical horizon in which the B minor Mass’s evolution took place is shown by the parodies. Not only the different stages of the Leipzig years are reflected therein, but also the Weimar period (BWV 12 dates from this time) exercises its influence. The achievements of the Cöthen years are felt in the concertante movements Gloria in excelsis Deo and Et resurrexit. Thus, the B minor Mass reflects to a certain degree all of Bach’s creative periods. If we consider that Bach, especially in the Credo, repeatedly had recourse to the Stile antico, the old-fashioned polyphony, and approached, for example, in the Christe eleison, the developing gallant style, the conception of his Missa tota broadens into a universal expanse, embracing past and present, anticipating the future. For all that, the genesis and the elements of form and style are in themselves not of great importance, but rather form the transparent mantle surrounding the spiritual substance. Yet, in regard to the B minor Mass, the question arises, according to which principles did Bach make use of his stylistic resources and formal elements. Whoever listens to the work carefully will ask himself, according to which fundamentals did Bach employ chorus, aria and duet, especially in the eight movements of the Gloria and in the nine movements of the Credo. Thus the disruption, apparently without reason, of the symmetry, chorus - solo - chorus - etc., in the Gloria could give rise to an impression of arbitrariness. By listing the movements as shown below, the well thought-out, artistic form of the cycle becomes apparent. At the top stands the angels’ song of praise in the night before the nativity (Luke 2, 14), followed by an old-established liturgical text, the so-called Laudamus. The latter has in the B minor Mass the following form: Beginning and end are each made up of an aria im mediately followed by the doxology. The aria texts are related by the repeated word te (thee) in the first and the triple tu solus (thou only) in the second. Bach achieved the expression of the text’s significance through the choice of the aria. The single vocal part symbolizes the one eternal God, to whose glory the following hymn of praise by tutti choir and orchestra is intended. In the central position of the Gloria cycle, symbolizing the Trinity, follows a three-movement supplicatiorn, in whose centre - and thus in the centre of the whole cycle - stands the chorus Qui tollis peccata mundi, the image of the crucified. This chorus is flanked by a duet signifying the humiliation of God in Jesus Christ, and by the aria Qui sedes ad dextram Patris. The duet symbolizes God’s transformation into human form, the second person of the Trinity (as in the Christe eleison of the three-part Kyrie). This is also symbolized by the tonality of the subdominant, G major, as opposed to the D major of the doxology framework. The aria stands for the unity of the exalted Lord with God the Father. Even more precisely conceived, yet still closely related to the form of the Gloria, is the Symbolum Nicenum, as shown in the following table: It immediately strikes the eye, that this cycle contains only two soloistic movements, these are found at the beginning of the second and third articles of faith. Once again, the statement of God’s transformation into human form is represented by the duet, also here in the subdominant, G major. The article dealing with the Holy Ghost within the Trinity is introduced by an aria, which this time is in the dominant, A major. Also this cycle is inclosed in a framework, here made up of a capella choruses followed in each case by a tutti doxology. (In the Credo in unum Deum, a surely symbolic seven-voice fugue on a theme in seven entries, two violins are ”compelled” to help out. ) In addition, both a cappella choruses contain a medieval Gregorian chant, still in use in both Christian churches. In the first chorus this chant is used as the fugue theme, in the second as a canon and them as the tenor cantus firmus, both in the intentionally old-fashioned Stile antico. Here also exists a linguistic connection: the words ”unum Deum" in the first chorus correspond to the words "unum baptisma” in the Confiteor. Also in this cycle the attention is directed towards the crucified in the central position by the order of the middle movements, Et incarnatus est, Crucifixus and Et resurrexit. The significance of the order is further underlined by the tonalities: the B minor of the chorus Et incarnatus est is followed by the E minor of the Crucifixus, the parallel of the subdominant as the sign of utmost humiliation, whereby the chorus Et resurrexit begins with the greatest of contrasts in D major. That Bach consciously intended this axial-symmetrical order for the cycle can be verified by the fact that it received its final form only after a revision of the original version. It can be only mentioned here in passing that such a formation is a characteristic Baroque stylistic feature. Characteristic of Bach’s artistic personality is the always present interest in art for art’s sake, in music as ars, that is to say, in the search for all conceivable possibilities in regards to form, setting, virtuoso technique, instrumentation. etc. This is shown, for example, by his use of different concertante instruments in the various solo movements of the Gloria cycle to demonstrate the full of musical possibility. This never occurs arbitrarily, but rather always analogous, where possible symbolic, as in the use of a brass instrument in the bass aria Tu solus sanctus. The brass instruments having been considered representative of the heavenly realm. Or in the Crucifixus chorus, whose model already contains a lamento figure of a chromatically descending fourth, which sounds twelve times, to which Bach here added a 13th period in which the continuo enters only at the words ”Et sepultus est”, leading then to G major. A unique realization of the death-like silence on Golgotha, behind which the unspoken "It is done" can be perceived. Thus, the highest compositional mastery becomes transparent for the expression of religious affirmation. As unmistakable as the formal relationship is between the two cycles of the B minor Mass, the Symbolum Nicenum represents not just a continuation of the Gloria, but rather, in the completion of the work, a concentrated, spiritualized intensification. Even assuming that the impulse for the work’s completion was given by some external incentive, Bach clearly had more in mind with his only Missa tota (actually a Missa concertata exploring all of the contemporary compositional techniques) than the fulfilment of a commission. It is the wish to bequeath posterity an ”idea-work of art”, on the one hand as a representation of the humanly possible in the realm of composition, and on the other, as a symbolic portrayal of the divine service’s all embracing ideal, in its timelessness and supra-denominationalism. Bach’s late instrumental works, characteristic of the last decade of his life, can hardly be appreciated by the modern observer without taking the B minor Mass into consideration. It thus becomes impossible to see in these late instrumental works a turning away from his profession as cantor or from his duties within the church. For all that, Bach’s handling of music as art also resulted in a theological realization, in the understanding of the general bass as ”the most complete foundation of music“, whose “last and final justification can be none other than the honour of God and the recreation of the soul” (Fr. E. Niedt, Grülindlicher Unterricht des General-Basses). This meant for Bach, both freedom and restriction. Bach’s opus ultimum, the completion of the B minor Mass, has to be understood as the sum of his life. After 1750, the autograph score of the work came into the possession of Bach’s second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who performed the Credo in a "Concert for the medical alms-house” in 1786. This being an indication that he considered the Credo to be the most important part of the Mass. In the inventory of his estate from 1790, the manuscript is listed as "the large Catholic Mass”; if this designation has any basis, is not known. At first no buyer could be found for the valuable manuscript. Only in 1805 was it acquired by the Swiss writer and music publisher Hans Georg Nägeli, who then spoke of ”the greatest work of art of all times and every culture”. His planned edition of the Mass came to fulfilment only in 1845 under the supervision of his son, Hermann. The name, Great Mass in B minor, appeared here for the first time, undoubtedly in order to place it on the same level with Beethoven’s Missa solemnis. The Händel biographer Friedrich Chrysander later acquired the autograph score for the Bach-Gesellschaft, founded in 1850, who in turn sold it to the Royal Prussian Library, Berlin, in 1861. At present, the manuscript belongs to the holdings of the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in West Berlin. Independent of the fate of the autograph score, efforts were made already at the beginning of the 18th century to prepare the Mass, copies of the score having been made early on. Carl Friedrich Zelter was the first, having occupied himself with the work, since 1811, at the Berlin Singakademie. It was here that the work was first sung in its entirety, however not in public, since it was considered too difficult. In 1834, Zelter’s successor Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen presented the complete work to the general public for the first time, on two evenings; partial performances having already taken place in various German cities since 1828. Yet, only after the B minor Mass appeared in the first complete edition of Bach’s works 1856 in an inadequate version, since the autograph score was not available, 1857 in a revised edition - were the conditions present for the inclusion of the work in the repertoires of the most capable oratorio choirs. The Berlin Singakademie alone realized 57 performances up until the beginning of the Second World War. Renditions of the B minor Mass were however always exceptional events and are so even today, even if the number of performances has grown greatly in recent times; every conductor sees in the presentation of the B minor Mass the high point of his career. This development is also evident abroad and within the Catholic church. Today, the B minor Mass belongs to humanity, irrespective of denomination or nationality; it is considered to be the pinnacle of musical culture. One can only wish that along with its unique sonority, its essence also be increasingly understood. G.B.