Together with conductor Nicholas Kraemer, the orchestra will follow Bach's Mass in B minor, which is considered by many to be one of the finest Baroque compositions and in which one can hear echoes of Gregorian chant.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Mass in B minor, BWV 232 (130' with intermission)
Miriam Kutrowatz soprano
Catriona Morison mezzo-soprano + alto
Patrick Grahl tenor
Christian Immler bass
Collegium Vocale 1704
Václav Luks choirmaster
Nicholas Kraemer conductor
Czech Philharmonic
For this Czech Philharmonic excursion into pre-Classical repertoire, conductor Nicholas Kraemer, replacing Chief Conductor Semyon Bychkov, tackles one of the supreme works of the Baroque era: Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental Mass in B minor.
To this day, there is no proof of why the Protestant composer wrote a mass in 1733 using the Catholic rite and one which would be difficult to employ in liturgical practice. According to popular legend, it was Dresden’s Catholic court which commissioned Bach to write a mass, but new discoveries in correspondence from the time now point towards Vienna and the patronage of the Bohemian Count Johann Adam von Questenberg. It is now believed that von Questenberg, Bach’s contemporary and a great admirer of his, probably commissioned the work for a Solemn Mass held for the Feast of Saint Cecilia by a musical fraternity in Vienna known as the “Musicalische Congregation”.
Today the work is deservedly celebrated as a perfect synthesis of all the baroque master’s compositional techniques and procedures.
The event has passed
The event has passed
