Mass B minor by JS Bach and related memories

A few days ago, I have listened to Mass B minor of JS Bach performed by Stuttgart Bach Ensemble and Choir with dirigent of Helmut Rilling. It has been some time since I did with the recording.

As well known, before the composer's death, this mass was completed together with the Art of Fugue. The former for vocal music while the latter for instrumental. Both have been a monumental work in classical music. Bach is told to reach a deadlock for Cantata or other genres with the lyrics written in German and was heading to orthodoxical ritual music written in Latin. Such mass pieces were sung at the Lutheran churches. He was trying to reach eternity in music style, they say.

Whenever listening to Rilling, I always feel warmth in expression. I don't know what brings such emotion to me. It is still a characteristic of his conducting for me. It may be related with my experience of Matthew's Passion by Rilling conducting the same ensemble and choir in Tokyo in '70s. It makes me feel as if I went back to those days whenever I listen to his Matthew's Passion or this mass.

In the commentary brochure with the CD, Rilling seemed to have recorded this music for 3 times, 1977, 1988 and lastly 1999. Since 2000 was the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, he might have a lot of chances to play his music. Rilling says he has learned a lot about it. In the 3rd recording, he was conscious of the articulation, the dynamics and so forth for this music. The orchestra seemed to be downsized in player number. The choir sounds translucent with almost no vibrato. Rilling seemed to head to the authentic style while Karl Richter apparently returnd to romanticism in performance. This authentic style or near authentic may make the music sound more intimate.

I could not help mentioning about Bob Warmke, W6CYX, recently ceased. As wrote elsewhere in this blog, he used to attend the Carmel Bach Festival held in summer at Carmel. It was during 2000', I believe. I was astonished to hear from Bob about Rilling's name as the director of the festival because of my experience with him back in '70s. What a coincidence! Bob told me to visit the festival together a few times. Our trip to the West Coast in 2012 was the last chance for us. But it was lost forever for now. From that memory of Bob, Rilling and his performances have special meaning to me. 

I ran across with a video of Helmut Rilling's materclass for Mass B minor. He was a good educator for young musicians. We could see an aspect of his personality from this video.

 https://youtu.be/6FBBLsF2ZuI?si=xMI8wFnw1dTIYe5q

In a book titled as the same name of this music by Christoph Wolff says Bach would go on his life as a composer since he has undergone the surgery for cataract at age of 65 years, which seemed to be risky and eventually lead to his death. Even in the last chapter of our lives, Bach may teach us, we should keep studying and trying to do something whatever for our goal.