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| Bach - Mass in B minor / Argenta, Nichols, Chance, Stafford, Milner, W. Evans, Gardiner |
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List Price: $33.98
Our Price: $30.49
You Save: $ 3.49 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Archiv Produktion
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028941551429
Label: Archiv Produktion
Manufacturer: Archiv Produktion
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Archiv Produktion
Release Date: 1990-10-25
Studio: Archiv Produktion
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Editorial Reviews:
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One of the most frequently mentioned "favorite" works of Bach, the B Minor Mass is not really a functional liturgical work, but an assemblage of movements written over a period of many years. Its grand scale is certainly awesome, but its musical and spiritual unity is more remarkable, considering its origin and the fact that it contains several different compositional styles--not to mention some of Bach's most profound and beautiful music. Performing this work and preserving a sense of its grand design while bringing out the considerable musical details is a challenge that most choirs, orchestras, and conductors are not up to. Almost by consensus, however, John Eliot Gardiner's version is the most successful--and it is indeed a phenomenal recording--at once sumptuous and penetrating, with gorgeous choral and solo singing, and spacious, vibrant sound. --David Vernier
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: I do not understand what exactly was the thought behind this performance. The tempi are all displaced, they sound either rushed or sluggish. There is no motivation or expression in the sound of either the choir or the soloists and the Kyrie is just awful! I have never heard such disjointed and pretentious phrasing. There is no feeling for the style nor the words! I'm a professional musician so I know a thing or two, and I would not recommend this recording to anyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bach - Mass in B minor / Argenta, Nichols, Chance, Stafford, Milner, W. Evans, Gardiner
Comment: Bach - Mass in B minor / Argenta, Nichols, Chance, Stafford, Milner, W. Evans, Gardiner is a grand recording with the fine work done by Gardiner. The Monteverdi choir sings with conviction and being a devout person at heart I verily felt moved by the conviction of their singing. The book-let is a mixed bag. Well-written esays and a wonderful cover picture and then you have an atrocious photograph. It looks like it was shot with a polaroid camera by a friend of Gardiner and not done by a professional photographer. Regardless, this is not a recording to missed and I give it 5 stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Skipping Bach
Comment: I have owned this recording since it first came out. The big attraction was the period performance on authentic instruments, as up to date as scholarship (well, scholarly fashion at the time) could desire. The other reviewers have fairly described the sound and the singing, both of which are excellent, BUT --- And here lies the rub. The intolerably mannered conducting vitiates almost all the rest. It's the same as with Gardiner's Handel recordings--no suggestion of dignity or weight or, as another reviewer has said, of spirituality, that other dimension that lies behind the notes on the page. The myth of objectivity in conducting has led to performances like this one, technically proficient but hollow and self-satisfied. Fortunately it is not hard to hear where things go wrong and to describe the effect--musical lines reduced to mannered little phrases with staccato endings, a style of conducting that goes against the players' natural tendency to play their hearts out, so the effect is of cramped and bloodless note-spinning, tempi that are capriciously hurried even for a choleric man like Bach. Try the Gloria, which scampers along so fast that the words become as meaningless as the music: clearly a refusal to allow any weight or grandeur in music from an age that loved pomp and drama. There were other places where faster tempi might have worked, but this prestissimo must have been chosen deliberately to show off how progressive the conductor thought he was. This is turning Bach into some kind of skipping courtier like Mozart in AMADEUS or Osric in HAMLET. Gardiner is a man playing in the shallows when the whole ocean lies before him. Avoid this set - it's like asking for bread and getting a stone. As another reviewer has said, it takes a great deal to remove the spiritual from Bach; Gardiner has managed it triumphantly.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Get It While the Recording is Still Available...
Comment: Easily one of today's available outstanding Bach choral recordings, Gardiner's work should be marked with a "must have" rating for any Bach enthusiast or for anyone interested in the baroque choral genre. As someone once said, there are so many superlatives about the Mass in B-minor that the work sometimes defies rational description. Surely any work often cited as "the greatest work of western music ever written" can never live up to expectations, and thus it would be natural to expect to be in some small way disappointed by the imperfections found in any performance of the piece. Nevertheless, it's difficult to find any place where Gardiner and the English baroque Soloists let us down. The recording itself is superb, the choir, instrumentation, and the soloists perform with aplomb, and Gardiner's direction make it all come together in silky-smooth sound that makes us forget we are listening to period instruments.
This recording is part of a larger set of recordings done in the early 1980's with Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, including Bach's Magnificat, St. John's Passion, St. Matthew's Passion, and the Christmas Oratorio. There are many recordings of each of these specific pieces ( try doing a search on "the Mass in B-minor" on Amazon and see the number of hits that are pulled up), and there are divergent opinions as to the "best" of these recordings and performances. Often, there are some PEROFRMANCES that are exceptionally well done while the RECORDING itself may not be, and vice-versa. People (and perhaps with good and defendable reason) spend egregious amounts of time debating the specifics of recordings and performances, and it can certainly be difficult (and, unfortunately, hideously EXPENSIVE) to follow these discussions to their logical conclusions and make up your own mind. Although the Gardiner/English Baroque Soloists certainly represent a non-budget-based series of entries, if you will take the time to browse through the reviews, you will likely find that there are few individuals that have much negative to say about any of them. The works represent outstanding achievement in the field of performance, and Deutsche Grammophon's recording expertise clearly shines through in each set. It's difficult to go "wrong" with these recordings, and you may find, like myself, that they become standards by which other performances are judged.
If you are finding the price a bit steep, check to see if any used versions are available. As long as the discs are not scratched, you shouldn't have any trouble with a used copy, and you can build your library further by adding these wonderful works to your collection. The Mass in B-minor is the perfect recording with which to start.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Gardiner's Masterpiece
Comment: This is the greatest recording
Of the greatest work
Of the greatest composer
That ever was.
If I am biased
John and Johann have made me so.
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