Mass in B minor - Bach
In the half-century since Bach's Mass in B minor was first given in concert in Ireland as part of the Bach bicentenary celebrations of 1950, the tendency in performance has been towards the use of smaller forces.
Internationally, the extremity was reached around 20 years ago, when Joshua Rifkin conducted a recording in which the choruses were also sung by the soloists, one voice to a line, making his instrumental ensemble more than double the size of his choir. In Ireland, the diminution is more likely to be instrumental than vocal, as at last Saturday's recital, when the Guinness Choir presented the work at St Patrick's Cathedral.
From what I've heard of the previous work in Bach of the choir's music director, David Milne, I suspect he may favour a rather smaller choral group than the Guinness Choir, with its 100-plus voices, affords. Yet, even with a large choir and a small orchestra, he proved quite persuasive in his swiftly flowing view of the music.
The choir was at its best in the fervour of the early part of the work, with signs of fatigue appearing later in the inaccuracy of awkward notes, and in moments of patchy ensemble.
The team of soloists was a strong one, the second soprano Tanya Sewell sounding so accurate and true that the music might have been written for her, and tenor Emmanuel Lawler finding a tone of easy, musicianly authority. First soprano Olive Simpson and alto Deirdre Cooling-Nolan were nearly as fine, but, sadly, the usually reliable bass, Philip O'Reilly, was on decidedly mixed form.
Seated as close as I was to the performers - I could almost have shaken hands with the conductor - the sound from players and singers had little space to blend, and the string playing often came across as from a group of individuals rather than a fully co-ordinated orchestra. Yet, for all the lack of focus that resulted, the performance was one which, happily, added up to a lot more than the sum of its parts.
