CPE Bach: Heilig ist Gott; Mozart: Mass in C Minor ‘Great’
Anna Dennis, Lucy Crowe (sopranos), Jess Dandy (contralto), Nicholas Mulroy (tenor), Robert Davies (baritone); Dunedin Consort/John Butt
Linn Records CKD721 60:11 mins
Mozart’s ‘Great’ Mass in C minor is, like his Requiem, unfinished and shrouded in mystery. Written in 1782 when the composer was 22, the work may have been a gift to his future wife Constanze Weber, proof that, after a bumpy courtship, he was worthy of her hand.
The Mass has a big-boned ambition, full of grandeur in the double-choir choruses, interspersed with more reflective, intimate passages for soloists. This period-instrument performance by the Dunedin Consort is of the 2018 edition by Dutch musicologist Clemens Kemme, with added instrumentation in the work’s incomplete movements. All of this is captured with cool clarity in Linn’s recording.
Conductor John Butt’s vision for the Great Mass underlines Mozart’s debt to Bach and Handel, full of ecclesiastical brilliance in the Credo and Sanctus thanks to Kemme’s historically informed trumpet and timpani additions. The instrumental phrasing is highly detailed, while the choral textures are clean and free of vibrato.
The quality of the soprano solo singing is essential to the success of any performance of this work. Lucy Crowe and Anna Dennis are closely matched in the intertwining lines of the Domine Deus. Crowe brings a focused, luminous beauty to the Et incarnatus while Dennis adds lightness to the Laudamus Te.
The Mass is paired with the short double-choir cantata by CPE Bach, Heilig ist Gott, published in 1779 and a clear influence on Mozart’s work. A highlight is Jess Dandy’s characterful alto solo in the opening ‘Ariette’.
The fascination of this new recording is how it places the Great Mass in its historical sacred context. However, I missed the secular élan that infuses this score, looking forward to Mozart’s emergence as theoperatic genius of Enlightenment Vienna. Ashutosh Khandekar
