Bach: Mass in B minor
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Music CD Cover Performer: Hermann Prey Performer: Franz Crass Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach Conductor: Otto Klemperer Orchestra: New Philharmonia Orchestra Performer: Agnes Giebel Performer: Janet Baker Performer: Nicolai Gedda Edition: Music CD Format: Original recording remastered CD Release Date: 2005-09-13 Music Label: EMI Classics Soundtracks: Music CD 1
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Free Music Notes for Bach: Mass in B minor Album
Free Music Review: Yellow Caution Tape!
Hit: 2 Stars
If a thriving community of Homo neanderthalis were discovered in a volcano-warmed valley of the Svalsbard Islands, I'd hope the international community would have the sense to cordon them off and leave them alone. Sometimes our past is best left in peace. That's surely the case with most performances of Bach before the revelations of the "Early Music" movement, and especially the case with this lumbering Neanderthal recording of Bach's B minor Mass by Otto Klemperer. It should be sealed in a museum case as prime evidence of why the efforts to relearn the techniques of Baroque singing and of playing original instruments were absolutely crucial. Klemperer must have misunderstand the word Mass, thinking of it in physical terms as something heavy to be dragged until all musical energy was converted to square hinders on the concert pews.
I found my old vinyl edition of this performance while searching for every B minor I've ever owned. This one is in pristine condition, suggesting that even in the 1960s I didn't like it much. Well, the only worse performance I've ever heard was von Karajan's. If this is what some people hear as "spiritual" Bach, okay, okay, don't let me spoil it for you. Personally, it sounds conscience-ridden and sanctimonious to me. Besides, the soloists are vilely out of tune most of the time, and if you can't hear the tuning problems, perhaps your ears just aren't skilled at recognizing basic intervals - thirds, fifths, and such. Janet Baker was a brilliant singer, probably my favorite of her generation, but even she can't overcome the thick textures Klemperer wraps around every passage. The first soprano-alto duet in the Christe eleison, for instance, sounds exactly like my two old-maid aunts caterwauling together on the Lutheran Sundays of my rural childhood. It took centuries to corrupt European vocal technique with constant vibrato, and only one generation to purge it. Hallelujah!
I can recommend four modern performances of the B minor Mass, all of them vibrant: Andrew Parrott's, Philippe Herreweghe's, Ton Koopman's, and John Eliot Gardiner's. I haven't heard the Bach Collegium Japan's performance, under Masaaki Suzuki, but I'd expect it to be outstanding.