Christmas Day, and time to celebrate with Bach's Mass in Minor and a bottle of 10 year old Laphroaig whisky. I have always considered the Bach Mass to be one of the three peaks of music. It never fails to move and invigorate me with its sheer level of inspiration and supreme craft. I have seven recorded versions on my shelves, accumulated over the decades. But the one I chose today was the 1967 recording with Otto Klemperer conducting the Philharmonia, with Agnes Giebel, Janet Baker, Nicolai Gedda, Hermann Prey, and Franz Crass.
Klemperer was no old-fashioned traditionalist, but he was steeped in the German idiom of Bach performances. He refused to record the work when Walter Legge was in charge, since Legge insisted on using the full Philharmonia Chorus, whereas Klemperer insisted on a choir of no more than six singers per part in the choir. For this EMI recording, Klemperer used a choir of 48 voices, with the Philharmonia reduced to 50 instrumentalists. Ideal, in my view (and probably also in Bach's who would probably have been appalled at a Joshua Rifkin approach with just a choir of eight for his magnificent music).
In this performance we can admire the clarity of the music – both choral and orchestral. You can hear everything. Particularly memorable is Klemperer's insistence on clear balance, a forward trumpet, and an omnipresent bass part – something many German conductors appeared to favour, including Furtwängler. We can admire the top-quality singing and instrumental playing, together with the recorded quality and the balance. The only thing that jars a little to modern ears is the strong vibrato from the two female soloists; they don't sound like that nowadays when singing Bach, but in the end it's all a question of current fashion. All together, with Otto in charge, this jewel in music's crown receives a truly great performance; my other six recorded versions can stay on the shelves (I ditched Joshua Rifkin's version years ago).
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