United States J. S. Bach, Mass in B minor: Rebecca Myers (soprano), Aryssa Leigh Burrs, Gabriela Estephanie Solís (mezzo-sopranos), Emily Marvosh (contralto), Jacob Perry (tenor), Edward Vogel (baritone), Charles Wesley Evans (baritone), Apollo’s Fire / Jeannette Sorrell (conductor). St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Akron, Ohio, 4.4.2025. (MSJ)
Sometimes I wonder: If western civilization should collapse, how many of its finest attributes could be reconstructed if just a few select works by Johann Sebastian Bach survived? It’s an absurd thought exercise, perhaps, but there is so much about the best of humanity’s western tradition that is interwoven through every bar of this music: chains of logic, an almost architectural sense of structure, a scientific curiosity about finding the bounds of harmony through deft exploration, even techniques for summoning the numinous aura of spirituality.
Bach was a practical musician, yet there can be no doubt that he was self-aware. One could not strive for breakthroughs on the plane of music such as what Bach achieved in his Mass in B minor without knowing that one was climbing to new heights. But there is no indication he ever realistically expected that he would be rewarded for his creative quest. It took the world nearly a hundred years after the composer was gone before general music listeners were able to wrap their thoughts around the greatness of what Bach did. After all, Bach was classical music’s Shakespeare: the creator who arrived at the moment the modern world began and gathered those threads and wove it into some of humanity’s greatest achievements.
One of those key works by Bach that is widely acknowledged as a cornerstone of western thought is the Goldberg Variations. Perhaps that piece, controlled as it is by a single keyboard player, makes it easier to grasp the universe of dialectical thought encoded in the notes. But the Mass in B minor is arguably an equal if not greater example of human genius. The problem, however, is how often the work fails to gel in performances. I have many recordings of the piece from over the years, but I rarely listen to most of them because the majority suffocate under their own weight with huge orchestras and choruses, operatic soloists and turgid tempos. Their sense of dutiful awe congeals into a meaningless trudge: a pilgrimage through mud that has forgotten to look toward the heavens.
What is so revelatory about Jeannette Sorrell’s pilgrimage through this Mass is how light and graceful her steps are. She avoids the potential thickets of thoughtless run-throughs of Bach’s dialectical counterpoint by sculpting phrases, tucking loose ends and making sure that textures are aerated. In this performance, one could always hear through the layers of counterpoint to discern the different directions choral and instrumental lines were taking, which is essential for this kind of music. Sorrell’s experience and insight into the music is such that she knows where to provide the moments of heft essential to a piece that surveys spiritual beliefs. On the other hand, her leadership never descends into micromanagement, for she constantly keeps one eye on the large-scale ebb and flow, the monumental architecture of the piece. If there are better conductors of the big choral compositions of the Baroque repertory, I would like to hear their work.
Key to Sorrell’s achievements are musicians able to realize her vision. Beyond the animated playing of an expanded ensemble and chorus, a rich range of soloists lit the piece up internally. Rebecca Myers and Gabriela Estephanie Solís duetted gorgeously in the ‘Christe eleison’ section of the Kyrie and elsewhere, Myers’s clarion soprano intertwining with Solís’s warmly pliant mezzo-soprano. Particularly endearing was the way the two took care to constantly shape their phrases to allow each other moments to shine.
Aryssa Leigh Burrs eased her creamy mezzo into an ecstatic duet with Alan Choo’s radiant violin, one of many moments where players in the orchestra were on equal footing with the vocal soloists. Another was the ‘Domine Deus,’ where Myers duetted deliciously with tenor Jacob Perry while Kathie Stewart spun a limpid perpetual motion thread around them on the traverso flute, supported by delicately plucked lower strings. Emily Marvosh brought a marvelously open and affecting contralto to the ‘Qui sedes ad dextram Patris’ duet with Deborah Nagy’s gently insistent oboe d’amore.
If I were to name a peak moment, it is in the sense that Mount Everest is the tallest peak in a mountain range of stunningly tall peaks: the ‘Quoniam to solus sanctus’ featured Todd Williams doing miracles on the keyless hunting horn, while Charles Wesley Evans intertwined his handsome, mahogany baritone with the period bassoons, themselves having a delightfully reedy tone, albeit with a little key clatter. Likewise outstanding was Edward Vogel in the ‘Et in Spiritum sanctum,’ where he was able to take his sonorous baritone and send it soaring with the kind of gleam normally associated with tenor voices. Jacob Perry sang the ‘Benedictus’ with poised flexibility and tremendous warmth. In the decade or so that he has guested with Apollo’s Fire, Perry has kept his gleaming tenor voice but expanded his stage presence to an embracing gravitas.
The orchestra excelled throughout, the strings slashing viscerally in the ‘Crucifixus’, where Bach symbolized the crucifixion of Christ by adding sharps to notes in the vocal line, giving it painful twinges of dissonance. The brass and percussion added a gleaming edge to the ensemble sound in certain numbers, though the timpanist did have to adjust tuning at the beginning of the ‘Gloria’, the humid evening having already begun to detune the instrument. It would have been nice if the brass and percussion could have been on risers for visibility: the depth of the stage in St. Paul’s puts them at a distance, though such placement would also run the risk of sonic over-prominence in the church’s barrel-vaulted acoustic.
As the final ‘Dona nobis pacem’ climbed up to another plane of emotional impact, it became clear that Sorrell’s sure hand has grown stronger and deeper in this work with the passage of the years. With the world outside the walls of the church churning with political and social unrest, the value of this music and these performers became all the more resonant. While con men and demagogues show the worst side of society, this music reminds us of humanity’s potential to embrace beauty and grace.
Mark Sebastian Jordan
An excellent overview of this wonderful concert. I appreciate the just-right description of both the period instruments and the glorious voices tuned to the liturgical narrative. A pleasure to read Mark’s en-pointe and creative descriptions of the voices; e.g. ‘mahogany baritone.’ A sonically rich and profoundly moving concert reviewed with precise attention and insight. Thank you, Mark!
Thank you, Barbara! It makes my job easy when this ensemble provides so much inspiration!