Leeds Minster
Good Friday 18 April 7.00pm
Note: This is an annotated form of the programme notes for this recital, exploiting web technologies to allow readers to delve deeper into the biographies of the composers and the meaning of musical and religious terms as they wish.
Mass in B Minor
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685-1750
| Ruby Hendry | soprano |
| Lucy Appleyard | mezzo |
| Joanna Gamble | contralto |
| Toby Ward | tenor |
| Quentin Brown | bass-baritone |
St Peter’s Singers
National Festival Orchestra
Sally Robinson leader
Shaun Turnbull continuo
Alexander Woodrow conductor
We would like to thank Canon Paul Maybury, Rector, and the Churchwardens of Leeds Minster for their significant support for St Peter’s Singers, and for hosting tonight’s event.
We would also like to thank The Friends of the Music of Leeds Minster for their generous support.
We remember tonight with the deepest affection and gratitude our Founder and former Director of Music
Dr Simon Lindley (1948-2025)
He was passionate about the music of JS Bach and conducted many inspired and memorable performances
Mass in B Minor
Missa
| Kyrie eleison | chorus |
| Christe Eleison | soprano I, soprano II duet |
| Kyrie eleison | chorus |
| Gloria in excelsis Deo | chorus |
| Et in terra pax | chorus |
| Laudamus te | soprano II solo |
| Gratias agimus tibi | chorus |
| Domine Deus | soprano I, tenor duet |
| Qui tollis peccata mundi | chorus |
| Qui sedes ad dextram patris | alto solo |
| Quoniam to solus sanctus | bass solo |
| Cum sancto spiritu | chorus |
Symbolum Nicenum (Credo)
| Credo in unum Deum | chorus |
| Patrem omnipotentem | chorus |
| Et in unum Dominum | soprano I, alto duet |
| Et incarnatus | chorus |
| Crucifixus | chorus |
| Et resurrexit | chorus |
| Et in spiritum sanctum | bass solo |
| Confiteor | chorus |
| Et expecto | chorus |
Sanctus, Osanna, Benedictus and Agnus Dei
| Sanctus | chorus |
| Osanna | chorus |
| Benedictus | tenor solo |
| Agnus Dei | alto solo |
| Dona nobis pacem | chorus |
Text and Translation
The Latin text and an English Translation can be accessed here.
About the B Minor Mass
Bach only completed his ‘Great Catholic Mass’ late in his life, and remarkably, he almost certainly never heard it performed complete. Along with the Kunst der Fuge (‘Art of the Fugue’) on which he was also working in his final years, he seems to have thought of it as a final legacy, a statement both of his faith and of his mastery of Counterpoint. And yet it was not composed in a single act, and he may not have envisioned the whole work when he started on it. So how did this masterpiece come into being ?
Some background: Bach had arrived at Leipzig to his new post as Cantor at the churches of St Thomas and St Nicholas in 1723. He immediately set about re-invigorating the music and for the next five years composed at an astonishing rate: on average a 20-30 minute Cantata every week. In addition, 1724 saw the first performance of the St John Passion, and the St Matthew Passion was composed in 1727. By the last years of the decade he was effectively burned out, at odds with his employers, and settled at that point for using previous compositions to fulfil his church duties.
Composition and genesis
The creation of the B Minor Mass spans several decades but didn’t start in any formal sense until 1733, when he composed a Missa for the Elector of Saxony, which consists of the Kyrie and Gloria sections of the full Mass. He was hoping to secure the title of Court Composer. An offer was eventually forthcoming, but not one that provided the hoped-for exit from Leipzig, and the score was left to gather dust. But this initial offering eventually blossomed into what we now recognize as the B Minor Mass, and actually comprised all the music that precedes tonight’s interval.
The Missa of 1733
The Missa which Bach presented to the Elector of Saxony in 1733 was crafted with meticulous care, showcasing Bach’s ability to intertwine complex Counterpoint with expressive melody, as well as florid duets in the Neapolitan operatic style then in vogue at the Dresden court.
Some of the movements drew on music he had written a long time previously, which he adapted and, as was his custom, took great care to improve. Much of it was composed while he was at Dresden in the spring of 1733, and it was almost certainly performed in the July of that year, but whether Bach directed the performance we don’t know.
With extended fugues and complex choral Counterpoint, ecstatic dances, operatic duets and moments of tender introspection, all underpinned by the considerable resources of the Dresden Court orchestra (three high trumpets, two bassoons et al), it was on a scale never seen before.
This Missa set the standard for the subsequent movements, which Bach would add some fifteen or so years later.
Expansion and completion
It wasn’t until sometime around 1747 that Bach decided to expand the 1733 Missa into a full Mass. Driven perhaps by personal reflection in his later years, Bach embarked on the ambitious task of composing the remaining sections: the Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. He prepared for this by a thorough study of stile antico (a term meaning ‘ancient style’) exemplified in Mass settings by the likes of Palestrina, Caldara and Lotti.
The Credo (or ‘Symbolum Nicenum’) was conceived on a scale to match the Gloria, making it too long for use in a Church Service (although this has happened!).
Much of it was composed from scratch to fit a carefully designed structural scheme which placed at its centre the three narrative movements recounting the bare facts of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection (Et incarnatus, Crucifixus, Et resurrexit) on which the Christian faith is founded. Of these the Et incarnatus, composed late in 1749 in a late change of plan, is probably the last complete piece of music he wrote, while the Crucifixus, which follows seamlessly on, was originally composed with German words for a Cantata as far back as 1714. The structural change created by the insertion of the Et incarnatus, ensured that in line with Lutheran theology of the Cross, the Crucifixus became the central piece in the structure of the Credo.
It seems that the Symbolum Nicenum left a particularly strong impression on the next generation, with his son Emmanuel, now in Hamburg, composing a Magnificat in 1749 that was clearly indebted to his father’s latest work.
The remaining movements (Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei) were partially assembled from earlier compositions (the six-part Sanctus from 1724, the Agnus Dei (whose origins lay in the Ascension Oratorio BWV 11 or even earlier), and the Dona nobis pacem (which like the Gratias movement in the Gloria repeats music from the 1731 Cantata BWV 29), while the eight-part Osanna and the Benedictus were fresh compositions.
It is extraordinary, but perhaps the hallmark of Bach’s genius, that despite the diversity of styles and forms, the long gestation, and the re-use of earlier material, the B Minor Mass is imbued with a deep sense of coherence, unity and purpose, allowing it to resonate on multiple levels. This may be partially explained by Bach’s incredibly careful planning of the work’s structure, but also by recurring use of themes, motifs and symbolic musical gestures, such as the cross-motif and the use of numerology, even his B-A-C-H signature (German notation for B flat, A , C, B natural – but inverted on this occasion).
Impact and legacy
Since its completion, the B Minor Mass has been celebrated as one of the pinnacles of Western music. Although it was never performed in its entirety during Bach’s lifetime, its significance has only grown with time. His sons performed sections of it, and allowed copies to be made, one of which, remarkably, came into the hands of Samuel Wesley, father of Samuel Sebastian (who was the first organist of this church). So the work never quite fell into the obscurity that befell the St Matthew Passion for a century. Musicians and scholars alike have marvelled ever since at its complexity, beauty, and spiritual depth.
What is the meaning of the Mass in B Minor?
This question is essentially impossible to answer, such is the richness of the music within which Bach wraps the text.
But perhaps the place to start is with the Catholic Mass, which is the primary form of worship in the Catholic Christian Church (including much of the Anglican church, even if it prefers the term ‘Eucharist’). In this service of thanksgiving, the Church remembers and gives thanks for Christ’s sacrificial act of Love in his death by crucifixion on the Cross, through which fallible humankind is reconciled to God. The service re-enacts the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples, and goes right back to the earliest days of the Church’s existence. As such it combines ritual, re-enactment and prayer.
It follows a basic pattern that includes an act of penitence and forgiveness as preparation (including the Kyrie), then an expression of praise and worship (Gloria), reading of Scripture and teaching, an assertion of Christian beliefs (Credo), prayers for those in need, and then the great thanksgiving and sharing of the bread and wine in memory of the Last Supper (incorporating the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei).
The words usually set to music for the Western Catholic Mass, as here in the Mass in B Minor, consist of what is known as the ‘Ordinarium’ – the texts in the service that never vary from week to week:
| Kyrie eleison | A plea for mercy, expressed in Greek. |
| Gloria | An extended expression of praise and worship of the Godhead |
| Credo | A sequence of statements beginning I believe… which lay out the central tenets of the Christian faith, as determined at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Note: this was a bit like the final communique from a modern G7 or COP summit, with every clause having been fought over, hence some of the rather strange formulations designed to hold the line against popular heresies (false doctrines). It expresses the core teaching of the Christian faith as it had developed over the three hundred or so years since Christ’s death. |
| Sanctus & Benedictus | The Sanctus, which quotes Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord , comes early in the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving where those on earth join the heavenly hosts in praise of God. The Benedictus expresses a blessing on Christ. |
| Agnus Dei | A prayer to Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb of God, to have mercy and grant us peace. |
On the one hand these texts have to be seen as part of an extremely rich ritual whose significance is appreciated more fully with repetition and practise. It should not be forgotten that for millions of Christians over the ages this ritual was conducted in Latin, an opaque and ancient language whose words they may have learnt by rote, but of which they may have had little understanding. So in some senses it was the ritual that was important, not the precise meaning of the words. As such, this means that with musical settings such as the Mass in B Minor, understanding the words is not necessarily essential and the music may convey meaning in its own right.
But on the other hand, it is impossible, especially with the Mass in B Minor, to ignore Bach’s response to the meaning of the words. To take a few examples: the prayerful upward inflections and downward sighs in the first Kyrie Fugue, the festive joy of the opening of the Gloria, the sense of mystery in Qui tollis and Et incarnatus, the unbridled liberation at the first mention of the Holy Spirit in Cum sancto spiritu, the extraordinary sinking feeling as Jesus’ burial is recorded at the end of the Crucifixus, the chatty intimacy of the Soprano and Tenor soloists as God the Son comes into the picture in Domine Deus, the initial hesitation when the words et expecto are first introduced (‘I look for the resurrection of the dead’) at the end of the Confiteor, and so many more. All these reflect a profound understanding of the theology, and express it in human terms, the musical language of human emotions, thereby repaying the listener’s engagement with a text that may otherwise be opaque and unapproachable.
For Christians, Good Friday is the culmination of a week in which re-enactment of Jesus’ last days and hours is often the primary means for trying to enter into and discover the meaning of those events. But by the evening of Good Friday, with Jesus dead and his body laid to rest, the opportunity arises to step back and reflect on what it all means. There could hardly be a better opportunity for this than that provided by Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
These notes owe a substantial debt to John Eliot Gardiner’s superlative book on Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven. If any of the above has aroused your interest, you would doubtless be richly rewarded by giving it some time.