Catalogue

Summary:

“Easily one of the most memorable concerts of recent years… the 20-member vocal ensemble was inspired throughout the performance. The instrumental consort was in brilliant form, playing with unimpeachable balance and intonation…and a sensitivity to the dancelike elements of the mass. Presiding over it all was Jeannette Sorrell, who with understated grace led her charges on a moving traversal of Bach’s unsurpassed canvas”
Chicago Classical Review, 12 April 2025 (‘Best 10 Concerts of 2025’)

A fresh, intimate, and intense new take on Bach’s B Minor Mass from Grammy Award winners Apollo’s Fire and Jeannette Sorrell

Scholarly debates about the origins and purpose of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B minor, however enlightening, can never surpass the experience of the work’s epic traversal of the human condition. Apollo’s Fire and their Artistic Director, Jeannette Sorrell, offer a new take on Bach’s masterpiece that draws the listener into a searing and intimate emotional journey – from the anguished opening outcry through to moments of joy, pathos, triumph, and ultimately, a vision of peace.

The album, set for release on the Avie label on 23 October 2026, preserves the passionate elan and dancelike joy of critically acclaimed live performances given by the Grammy Award-winning ensemble last year in their home cities of Cleveland and Chicago.

“While music is always an emotional journey, I feel that Bach’s Mass is an exceptionally cathartic and healing one for our time,” says Jeannette Sorrell. “The music theorists of the 17th and 18th centuries emphasised music’s role in moving the Affekts or emotional moods of the listeners. Undertaking that journey with Bach’s epic B Minor Mass is both a joy and an honour.”

Sorrell believes this Mass speaks to our time in profound ways. “I’ve always felt that the B Minor Mass is Bach’s vision of peace. He completed its composition in the year before his death, and it ends with the choir repeatedly chanting ‘Dona nobis pacem’ – ‘Grant us peace’. In the troubled world in which we live today, with wars and refugees across the planet, I believe that Bach’s wish for peace can resonate with everyone. He was famous for saying that the purpose of all music is the refreshment of the spirit. I think we all need that.”

Her recording employs what she considers to be the ideal forces for the work, utilising twenty-four instrumentalists and twenty-two choristers, including the five soloists. Sorrell said she has always wanted to do a B Minor Mass that evokes the emotional intimacy of Bach’s own performances. “Most recordings today, even recent ones on period instruments, use ensembles quite a bit larger than Bach would have envisioned. Bach did not like doing sacred music with just one singer on a part, but he did not ask for a choir of 35, either. He was not performing at Versailles. German ensembles of his time were smaller, but with that comes a buoyancy and deep spiritual intensity. That’s what I hope we have emulated in this recording.” Sorrell chose her soloists for their light and pure voices (emulating Bach’s youthful singers) and for their emotional connection to the text.

Baroque composers used the architecture of sacred spaces in creative ways, and Sorrell likes to follow their example. In performances of the Mass, she chose to enhance the ritual drama of Bach’s Mass by using the cathedral’s side aisles as well as its nave for the recording. “I begin with my choir in the aisles,” she notes. “We sing the first eight bars of the Kyrie, which I feel is such an anguished lament from the soul, after which comes that very long instrumental ritornello, during which the singers process up to the stage and take their places. I also begin the Credo with solo singers, evoking a more personal statement of faith before the rest of the choir gradually joins ahead of the thrilling Patrem omnipotentem.”

Bach was a staunch Lutheran. Jeannette Sorrell was raised in the Lutheran church and feels that her conception of Bach’s spiritual message draws on that background. “Martin Luther wanted music to speak directly to the people. He was famous for saying, ‘When I hear music, joy bubbles up inside of me. Anyone who does not respond to this gift is a Clod and not fit to be called a man.’ I think the emotional depth that we feel in Bach’s sacred music came directly from Luther. Bach evokes the same despairing lamentation that one reads throughout Luther’s own writings, but he also brings us later to joyous, dance-like celebrations, with blazing trumpets and thrilling choral virtuosity. This is a piece of light, life, and hope.”

Martin Luther retained the Kyrie and Gloria from the Latin Mass, the former a plea for God’s mercy, the latter a great song of joy, and both remain central to the Lutheran Divine Service. Bach composed four settings of the so-called Lutheran Mass and wrote a Sanctus for the Christmas Day service in Leipzig in 1724, which he later revised for use in his Mass in B minor.

This recording marks the fruitful ongoing partnership between Apollo’s Fire and AVIE Records. “I am grateful that Avie give me total artistic control over our recordings,” says Jeannette Sorrell. “I can choose my recording engineer, the venues we use and so on. That has been a really big part of why it has worked so well over the past sixteen years. We know what’s going to work for us so we can sound our best.”

Tracklist:

Mass in B Minor, BWV 232

I. Missa (Kyrie & Gloria)
1. I. Kyrie eleison
2. II. Christie eleison
3. III. Kyrie eleison II
4. IV. Gloria in excelsis Deo | V. Et in terra pax
5. VI. Laudamus te
6. VII. Gratias agimus tibi
7. VIII. Domine Deus | IX. Qui tollis peccata mundi
8. X. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
9. XI. Quoniam tu solus sanctus | XII. Cum Sancto Spiritu

II. Symbolum Nicenum (Credo)
1. XIII. Credo in unum Deum | XIV. Patrem omnipotentem
2. XV. Et in unum Dominum
3. XVI. Et incarnatus est
4. XVII. Crucifixus
5. XVIII. Et resurrexit
6. XIX. Et in Spiritum Sanctum
7. XX. Confiteor | XXI. Et expecto

III Sanctus
8. XXII. Pleni sunt coeli

IV. Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei et Dona nobis pacem
9. XXIII. Osanna
10. XXIV. Benedictus
11. XXV. Osanna
12. XXVI. Agnus Dei
13. XXVII. Dona nobis pacem