“As soon as I started work on the b minor mass, the group of soloists seemed to me to be the obvious solution in musical terms. Bach turns everything into an orchestra. The way his mind works is polyphonic, contrapuntal and, if I may be so bold, symphonic. There is something supremely symphonic in the Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin, not to mention his keyboard works. Well, the mass seems to me to be a product of that same way of thinking. Its music is so dense, so complex, so breathtaking, that in my view it gains in grandeur from the use of soloists. All of a sudden, you no longer have the massed forces on one side and the individual on the other, but a single imposing vocal instrument which sings the same faith in the same language from the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ to the ‘Dona nobis pacem’. Obviously, the choice of those soloists then becomes crucial. It’s no longer a question of taste. The whole edifice depends on it.” Marc Minkowski
Johann Sebastian BACH1685-1750
B minor Mass BWV 232
Lucy CROWE, Joanne LUNN sopranos I
Julia LEZHNEVA, Blandine STASKIEWICZ sopranos II
Nathalie STUTZMANN, Terry WEY altos
Colin BALZER, Markus BRUTSCHER tenors
Christian IMMLER, Luca TITTOTO basses
LES MUSICIENS DU LOUVRE-GRENOBLE
MARC MINKOWSKI
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