Christmas Concert — Bach’s Mass in B minor

J. S. Bach’s Mass in B minor stands as one of the most colossal works in his musical output. Its structural scope presents us with a musical monument resulting from the labour of a lifetime. Bach, a composer highly skilled in the reuse of musical material, completed this mass in the final years of his life, between 1749 and 1750. For this purpose, he drew on previously composed musical material and some earlier performed pieces dating back to the 1720s and 1730s, alongside newly composed sections. The work brings together a confluence of styles and compositional techniques that Bach adopted throughout his life, making it a unique piece: a synthesis of styles and contrasts, almost like a musical biography.
The work invites us into the Bachian world through the richness of its choral textures, its latent stylistic variety, and an unmistakable formal mastery and command of writing for choir and orchestra. The Mass in B minor was probably first performed in its entirety in 1859, in Leipzig, more than a century after the composer’s death.

Pre-concert talk by Rodrigo Teodoro de Paula at 4:30 pm.

El Corte Inglés supports the CCB’s Classical Music Mediation Programme.