Cheap Bach: Mass in B minor (Music) (Johann Sebastian Bach, Andrew Parrott, Rogers Covey-Crump, Emily van Evera, Panito Iconomou, Emma Kirkby) Price

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Customer Reviews of Bach: Mass in B minor

Better than Gardiner's Set.
This is some of the best music I have ever heard and I am a Muslim. Andrew Parrott's outstanding version easily towers over Gardiner's attempt. For one thing, the music is more intricate and the complex contrapuntal lines can be easily heard. The choir and the orchestra are outstanding. Unlike Gardiner, who just rushes through the magnificent choruses, Parrott's tempos dance and are just right. This is the set to own, but if your somebody who hates the "one voive per part" to the mass in b minor then you should check out Phillipe Herreweghe's recording on Harmonia Mundi. But in my opinion nothing can surpass Parrott's account.

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Intimate and gorgeous
This is my favorite recording of the Mass in B Minor. Working on a small scale (one singer per part, as opposed to the more usual larger chorus), Parrott creates a performance that is warm, intimate, and joyous. Kirkby's and Van Evera's sopranos blend beautifully. The alto parts are taken by a boy whose voice is passionate and not all that smooth, which only adds to the overall "human" feeling of the performance. There's a lot of disagreement about whether Bach should be performed "big" or "small." (This is probably very much a matter of personal taste. Parrott's small-scale version of the St. John Passion, for instance, seems thin to me -- I like Suzuki's bigger recording with the Bach Collegium Japan.) But with the B-minor Mass, in this particular version, small works. The richness of the music is still there, but with the grandeur and remoteness of the larger chorus pared away, you're somehow aware that real people (albeit gorgeous-voiced ones) are singing it. Other recordings make me admire the Mass; this is the one that makes me love it.

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Don't make the same mistake I did...
I bought this as part of a box set that came with Bach's St. John Passion and Christmas and Easter Oratorios--a great bargain (or so I thought...) The singing is very precise technically, but incredibly lifeless and dull. For example, "Ladaumus te" is sung as if it was an exercise in breath control and diction and the singer conveys not one iota of joy. All of the climactic moments (Gloria, Gratias agimus, Et resurrexit..) become depressingly anti-climactic as the "choir" (which is actually only 1 person per part) drones on, singing notes but not music. Every piece is sung in the same flat way. I *love* the B Minor Mass and I can barely stand to listen to this CD...get the Gardiner or Herreweghe instead.