There’s no doubt about it: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor is a masterpiece. It is one of the most exhilarating and satisfying works both to perform and to listen to, and probably receives more performances now than at any time in its 275-year history.
We are thrilled to be performing it at Leeds Minster on Good Friday 18 April at 7pm. Tickets are available and you will be very welcome.
At St Peter’s Singers, we’ve been enjoying some wonderful rehearsals: those of us who know the work have loved returning to it afresh, discovering new things we hadn’t heard before; and those who don’t know it have been blown away by the beauty of the music as well as the technical demands it makes on us as singers.
The B Minor Mass is the product of a formidable intellect, a synthesis of Bach’s musical and theological knowledge, his spirituality and understanding of the human condition, and his artistic mastery. And despite its immense complexity, it remains accessible and deeply moving, resonating with audiences across centuries.
You only have to hear the first four spine-tingling bars, as they build to the most impassioned pleading from the human soul, to know that despite the Latin words and the unfamiliar text, this music can speak both to you and for you, whatever you do or don’t believe.
And with those four bars a journey begins, with music that gives voice to deep sadness and grief, wildly joyful dance and celebration, cheeky intimacy, solemn formality, prayerfulness, awe, longing, confidence, even doubt – an astonishing range of human feelings and experience. And all the while working through the Latin text of the Catholic Church’s Mass!
It’s extraordinary to think that Bach himself almost certainly never heard it in its entirety: he only completed it in the last year of his life, and almost certainly didn’t have the resources it requires at his disposal in Leipzig. Listening to it complete, as we do, is a privilege.
But it was composed long ago, and the world has changed, so what does it mean for us today, and does performing it on Good Friday mean anything?
The answer varies, of course, depending on your perspective.
For many, the music still speaks deeply on its own, with a spirituality that touches the parts that little else can reach. It provides a much needed stability and counterweight to the shallow and fly-by-night nature of our Social Media-driven world. The opacity of the Latin ensures that the text is not intrusive. Perhaps the Easter weekend, with its two bank holidays, may bring a slight jolt in the normal rhythms of life, and with it perhaps a prompt to seek out meaning and connection with something deeper than daily life normally offers. Perhaps a live performance in the grandeur of a beautiful church may prove more meaningful than a recording played in the living room.
For Christians, anything that illuminates faith and encourages prayer may be welcome. For those who, on Good Friday, may have experienced a week of intense and dramatic re-enactment of Jesus’ last days and hours, the evening – with Jesus now laid to rest in the tomb – brings a spiritual, almost eerie, peace, and the chance to step back and ponder what it all means. The Mass, reflecting as it does on the sacrifice made by Christ on the cross, is an ideal and – in translation – familiar text, and Bach’s music, as it explores and illuminates it almost clause by clause can undoubtedly bring insight, joy and prayerfulness.
But wherever we come from, Bach’s mighty Mass in B Minor can speak to us all. On the one hand it is steeped in his mature and very considerable understanding of the text, and yet on the other he presents to us the most opaque, mysterious words written in a rich but dead language. It is the music that speaks, conjuring up a sense of great spiritual mystery, meaning and prayerfulness, maybe drawing our tears of sorrow and voicing our pleas but above all calling us to the dance.
Further reading
Find out more about its history and meaning
Programme notes for the concert