Bach’s Mass in B Minor

By Sanford Dole, Music Director

Dear readers and fans of the Guild Chorus, I am thrilled to embark on our 25th anniversary season. To celebrate this milestone, we have programmed three major works sure to please and delight you. With supreme examples of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras, plus a brand new composition, the season represents all that the Baroque Choral Guild stands for and all that I personally love about being a performing musician.

We perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vespers in March. Then in May, in partnership with the California Symphony, we present Ludwig van Beethoven’s immortal Symphony, No. 9 and, as an exciting bonus, the world premiere of a work by the orchestra’s composer-in-residence, Kevin Beavers.

Right now we are hard at work preparing J. S. Bach’s Mass in B minor, which is, without a doubt, one of the greatest masterpieces for chorus and orchestra if not the greatest. On my personal list, it jockeys for first place with Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Mahler’s Symphony, No. 8. Also among my top ten are Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’ German Requiem, the Verdi Requiem, and two more works by Bach, the Saint Matthew Passion and Saint John Passion.

Completed within a year of his death and likely not heard in its entirety by the composer, the Mass in B minor is, in a sense, Bach’s final dissertation before graduating from life. It brings together four separate works from earlier periods, including movements reworked from some of his cantatas and a few newly composed sections, and arranges them to work together as a whole.

While the Art of the Fugue, the other great work from his final year, is perhaps even more of a compendium of his creative genius, the Mass in B minor is the choral work that best sums up Bach’s stylistic innovation and craft. It stands as a monument of formal structure in harmony with exquisite melody and flawless counterpoint.

The mass uses the chorus extensively, to a much greater degree than the two Passions do, requiring stamina in Herculean proportions. Every singer must be at the peak of his or her game, able to negotiate long and tricky runs, as well as sing controlled, legato lines. The work provides one of the greatest challenges a chorister can face.

We have been building toward this moment since I became music director in 2000. I am happy to report that as we go through the rehearsal process, the chorus, including several new experienced and skillful singers, is doing a superb job of rising to the challenge. You will be pleased and impressed with our sound and our ability to bring out the exquisite beauty of Bach’s music.

If you are on many groups’ mailing lists, as I am, you may note that others are presenting the B Minor Mass this season, too. I am confident enough in all our forces, not just the chorus, to predict that BCG’s production will prove to be the one not to be missed. The orchestra, comprised of the Bay Area’s leading period instrument players, offers you a historically informed sound for a superb rendition of this Baroque work in the appropriate style. And we have engaged five of the best soloists in the region. If you have not heard Catherine Webster, Ruth Escher, Wendy Hillhouse, Kevin Gibbs, and Paul Thompson before, I want to tell you that you are in for a real treat.

I urge you to make plans to attend our concert on November 22 in Palo Alto or November 23 in Berkeley. If you have been wanting to introduce friends to our group, this would be an excellent occasion. Treat yourself to a live performance of one of the greatest of all musical masterpieces. The experience will surely start the holiday season off for you in grand style.

Volume 12, Issue 2

Baroque Choral Guild, 953 Industrial Ave. Ste 118, Palo Alto CA 94303, 650.424.1410