Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

Why did the foremost figure of Lutheran ecclesiastical music set to music the complete Ordinary of the Roman Catholic mass in his declining years? This question has occupied the minds of Bach researchers and enthusiasts for nearly two centuries, although the probable answer is more prosaic than one would have thought. In the early 18th century Lutheran composers sometimes also held Catholic appointments, or they composed to the orders of Catholics (the beautiful oratorio by Händel, for instance), and the latest research suggests that an Austrian Catholic count most likely commissioned the work from Bach. The hidden motive, however, was probably that Bach wanted to create a summary of his oeuvre in vocal music along the lines of his late summarizing works (The Art of Fugue, Goldberg Variations, Musikalisches Opfer), and there was no more suitable core material for this than the centuries-old text of the mass that inspired music of the highest order in the Western artistic tradition. To put it simply, one could say that the Mass in B minor is, in essence, the composer’s ‘best of’ selection, which includes several earlier cantata movements and a few new movements (some of Bach’s final compositions) of fascinating density and profundity. This monumental work of European culture is performed by the Hungarian Radio and Television Music Ensembles and selected soloists under the baton of János Kovács.