In the early 1980s, the American musicologist and conductor Joshua Rifkin created a stir in the stagnant waters of Bach’s interpretation, demonstrating based on the Mass in B Minor his theory that the choral parts of Bach’s vocal-instrumental works were to be sung by solo voices, and these ideas were further developed by the British conductor Andrew Parrott. Suddenly there appeared an approach to Bach that revealed noteworthy facts, primarily concerning the size of the ensembles for which he composed his works. During the decades of heated debate that followed, the advocates of this theory basically defended their new vision of Bach’s music, and the impulses that arose from this discussion had a major impact on the interpretation of Bach’s works for vocal and instrumental forces. The assigning of a single singer to each vocal part in the chorus is now often claimed to be the only correct and historically faithful solution to this problem. Here, however, it is necessary to choose between two fundamental questions: Do we want to perform the work in the most ideal form possible while respecting the composer’s intentions and the context of the period when the work was created? Or do we rather want to reconstruct the historical reality of a performance with all of the negative aspects against which the composer himself was struggling mightily? We do know that Bach was long dissatisfied with the instrumental personnel and singers that he had available in Leipzig and that he was often forced to perform his works with the smallest possible forces. At the same time, however, we are fortunate to have an unambiguous document directly from the hand of the Master dated 1730 and intended for his superiors (Kurtzer, iedoch höchstnöthiger Entwurff einer wohlbestallten Kirchen Music / A Brief but Eminently Necessary Suggestion for the Proper Forces for Church Music), in which he clearly formulates how he envisions the ensemble required for performing music in churches. This document implies that in the vocal ensemble, Bach required that the “concertists” (a singer performing both choral and solo parts) be reinforced by at least 2 “ripienists” on each part (singers performing only the choral sections). Bach’s comment is worth quoting: “Note: It would, of course, be better if the ensemble could be supplied with four singers per vocal part, so that each choir would have sixteen singers. The orchestration with trumpets and other wind instruments then brings the total required forces to between 20 and 24 players. That Bach did not hesitate to use such large numbers of musicians for a single performance is supported by the statements of contemporary witnesses about the participation of 30 to 40 musicians performing in Leipzig under Bach’s direction.

The question of the size of the forces used is noteworthy, of course, and undoubtedly of great importance. To me, however, what is even more important is the question of comprehension of Bach’s notation and comprehension of his musical language. The instruments used, how high to tune the pitch, or the size of the ensemble are all merely the tools of the trade, and any craftsman knows that more important than the tools themselves is our skill at using them. The Mass in B Minor is an extraordinarily complex work, in which Bach touched upon widely divergent musical genres and compositional techniques. The flattened impression of his music that we have inherited from the 19th century and a romanticized fascination with symbolism are reflected in the interpretation of Bach’s music to this day. One example of such a problematic reading of Bach’s score is the interpretation of the polyphonic sections composed in the stile antico (old style) generally in alla breve meter. In those sections (Kyrie eleison II, Gratias, Credo, Confiteor, Dona nobis) inspired by the counterpoint of Palestrina and notated using large rhythmic values, to indicate a fast tempo Bach and his contemporaries used the alla breve marking, which means a doubling of the tempo in relation to the notation. In his 1752 treatise on flute playing (Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen, 1752, V. 13. XVII), JJ Quantz writes: “In four-four meter, it should be well noted that when the C for common time is struck through with a line, … it means that the notes get different values and are to be played twice as fast as if the C were not struck through. This type of meter is called alla breve or all Capella.”  In the 19th and 20th centuries, when awareness of the meaning of the marking had dwindled, performers usually emphasized the deliberately archaic aspects of these sections (reinforced by the optical impression of the notation of the music using large rhythmic values), making them inappropriately ponderous and static. It is noteworthy that this style of performing the portions of the Mass in B Minor composed in the stile antico is still usually practised to this day, in spite of the fact that learning has made great progress and that the interpretation of the music of composers other than Bach has been transformed radically in this respect.

The organ is the predominant element in the sound of Bach’s instrumental forces. For pragmatic reasons, in concert performance in recent decades, a small, portable positive organ has been routinely used. For playing the basso continuo, however, Bach normally used big church organs, and during his day, the little portable organs were only used as a substitute when a big organ was not available. The sound of the organ pipes with their wider diameter is so strikingly different from the sound of the commonly used positive organ that we have decided to use an instrument that, while perhaps unable to compete with the instruments that Bach had available, will still make it possible to approach the balance of sound that Bach had in mind when he composed his Mass in B Minor.

Performance traditions and the habits of musicians in the 20th and 21st centuries have become blinders, preventing us from taking an unbiased view of the music of the past and from ridding ourselves of centuries worth of layers of thoughtlessly repeated clichés and of aesthetic norms passed from one generation to the next. In the case of the Mass in B Minor, what is involved is not the discovery of some sort of universal, historically-based interpretive truth, but rather the courage to examine one of the greatest works of music history without being intimidated by its monumentality, and with eagerness to discover its lovely colors in their natural beauty as revealed when the layers of performance tradition are removed.

(Translation: Mark Newkirk)

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Václav Luks conducts the Mass in B Minor on Sunday 19 March at the Southbank Centre.