July 30: Missæ Breves (BWV 232-236); Pygmalion; Raphaël Pichon, conductor.
Bach releases his own Greatest Hits.
The greatest orchestral recordings knock you over — you feel the reverberations of the giant Hydra, dozens of artists moving in perfect tandem. This requires (I imagine) an ungodly amount of rehearsal. Some examples, volume up:
The opening moments of Carlos Kleiber’s Beethoven’s 5th Symphony:
Teodor Currentzis’s group MusicAeterna punching out Tchaikovsky’s 6th:
And here’s our record from today, Raphaël Pichon’s Pygmalion Ensemble playing Bach’s short masses:
What a sound — the musicians are right up in your face. The period instruments sound very 21st century.
That’s a clip from the Pygmalion Ensemble’s complete recording of Bach’s short masses, conducted by its founder, this handsome youngish fella, Raphaël Pichon:
These pieces were new to me, and I was surprised about the pleasurable density of the compositions. Everything was especially good. I later learned that the masses are composed of adapted movements from Bach’s other cantatas.
In other words, these are Bach’s self-selected greatest hits. To that end, this is a great entryway into Bach’s choral music.
Another take: maybe all the cantatas are actually this good, but the greatest complete set of cantata recordings has yet to be made. That’s inspiring! (But pity the Baumol effect, or let’s hope Monsiuer Pichon gets some more euros for a big project.)
(Apple Music, Spotify, Youtube)
Here are highlights from the Missæ Brevis:
The strings are so good in this ensemble (BWV 236, Gloria):
A brain breaking amount of criss-crossing, callbacks, and overlapping lines in the Kyrie to the “1733 Mass”, BWV 232:
Heavy drama in the sixth movement of BWV 232:
The transitions in the second movement of BWV 234 are great and put me in the mind of James Brown shouting at Bobby Byrd, “Can I take ‘em to the bridge?” and Bobby screaming, “YEAH!!”
Bach (0:37 for our bridge):
The other JB, for reference (Live in France, 1971):
The fifth movement of BWV 235 has a great song with great singing (from tenor Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro), everything hits right:
We’re cooking in the final movement of BWV 235, a nice place to end today.
Bonus:
There’s lots of great video of the Pygmalion group playing these pieces — watch how it comes to life. I imagine most will join in my mild crush on Lea Desandre:
I thought I liked the Nederlands Bach society recording. I might like this one better!
What brought you to featuring this recording over the others out there?
Do you prefer the period instruments?
Great stuff Evan, thanks. Fun fact: I always hear the Crucifixus in my mind when I'm doing something especially irksome, like waiting in the dentist's chair, or looking at my rear-view in a two way mirror... and then I laugh.