Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe, conductor
Bach: Missa b-Minor
It is a summation of his life as a composer – in his Mass in B minor, Johann Sebastian Bach once again amalgamated a multitude of influences into extraordinary music. At Musikfest Berlin 2023 the orchestra and choir of Collegium Vocale Gent will come together with a cast of distinguished soloists to perform this interdenominational work. The conductor is Philippe Herreweghe, whose work with Collegium Vocale Gent was celebrated at Musikfest Berlin last year.
Philippe Herreweghe
© Michiel Hendryck
Philippe Herreweghe accomplished first great musical feat in his early twenties. While still a student he founded the ensemble that has been inseparably linked with his own name for over 50 years since: the Collegium Vocale Gent: “Back then my greatest concern was to regain awareness of the correct phrasing, ornamentation and performance technique. Only after ten years of teaching could I treat these stylistic elements as craftsmen’s tools that I could use to help me create the Bach that satisfies me personally.” With his text-centred and rhetorical approach, Herreweghe is regarded as an outstanding interpreter of Bach and his readings of the composer’s works, using historic instruments and a streamlined choral cast have been received enthusiastically all around with world. At Musikfest Berlin the choir and orchestra of Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe will present a guest performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s last great artistic work: the Mass in B minor. Here Bach created an interdenominational work, as a Protestant cantor setting the Latin text of the Catholic liturgical mass. With its wide range of musical forms and styles, contrapuntal density and concert-like ease, contemplative passages and dramatic emotional vocabulary, he once again brought together the entire wealth of his compositional powers. No wonder that the 99-page manuscript of this remarkable work, stored in the Berlin State Library, is included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.
Concert Programme
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Missa b-Minor BWV 232 (1733, 1748/49)
Cast
Dorothee Mields soprano
Margot Oitzinger mezzo soprano
Alex Potter countertenor
Guy Cutting tenor
Peter Kooij baritone
Choir and orchestra of the Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe Herreweghe conductor