Johann Sebastian Bach - Mass in B minor, BWV 232

The Mass in B minor, BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before Bach's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctus Bach had composed in 1724. Sections that were specifically composed to complete the Mass in the late 1740s include the "Et incarnatus est" part of the Credo. It is structured in four major sections and scored for five soloists, a choir that is five-part in many sections and divided in the "Osanna", and a Baroque ensemble including brass and wind instruments.

In the legacy of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, it appears as the "Great Catholic Mass", referring to the fact that all parts of the Catholic Mass are set to music.

Typically for the time, the composition is formatted as a Neapolitan mass, consisting of a succession of choral movements with a broad orchestral accompaniment, and sections in which a more limited group of instrumentalists accompanies one or more vocal soloists. Among the more unusual characteristics of the composition is its scale: a total performance time of around two hours, and a scoring consisting of two groups of SATB singers and an orchestra featuring an extended winds section, strings and continuo. Its key, B minor, is rather exceptional for a composition featuring natural trumpets in D, although far more of the work is in this key than B minor.

Even more exceptional, for a Lutheran composer such as Bach, is that the composition is a Missa tota. In Bach's day, Masses composed for Lutheran services usually consisted only of a Kyrie and Gloria. Bach had composed five such Kyrie–Gloria Masses before he completed his Mass in B minor: the Kyrie–Gloria Masses, BWV 233–236, in the late 1730s, and the Mass for the Dresden court, which would become Part I of his only Missa tota, in 1733. The Mass was likely never performed in its entirety during Bach's lifetime. Its earliest documented complete performance took place in 1859. With many dozens of recordings, it is among Bach's most popular vocal works.

In 2015, Bach's personal handwritten manuscript of the mass held by the Berlin State Library was included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register a project to protect and preserve culturally significant documents and manuscripts.

00:00 - Kyrie 1-3
18:37 - Gloria 4-12
53:28 - Credo 13-21
1:23:10 - Sanctus 22
1:29:02 - Osanna 23
01:31:38 - Benedictus 24-25
01:38:22 - Agnus Dei 26
01:43:43 - Dona nobis pacem 27

Gertrude Heinz - producer/conductor
CMD German Opera Company of Berlin