Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki - Mozart: Great Mass in C Minor & Exsultate, Jubilate (2016) [24/96]

Following on the 2015 release of Mozart's Requiem, Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan has gone on to record the composers Mass in C minor, K427 the 'Great Mass'. As the nickname indicates it is a work of unusual proportions for a mass of the Classical period or would have been so, had Mozart completed it. It is not known for what occasion Mozart intended the work, but a letter to his father Leopold dated 4 January 1783 indicate that he may have committed himself to writing it in connection with his marriage to Constanze and a planned visit to Salzburg. A performance of parts of the Mass did take place in Salzburg in October 1783, with Constanze performing the prominent soprano part. Two years later Mozart reused the music from the Kyrie and Gloria sections in the sacred cantata Davidde penitente, K469, but the Mass itself was left incomplete. The present performance includes the sections completed by Mozart himself, as well as those sections for which extensive sketches by Mozart provided a basis for completion (by Franz Beyer in 1989). Three of Suzuki's soloists also took part in the recording of the Requiem, while the Dutch mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen makes her first appearance on BIS, shining in the aria Laudamus te. The disc closes with the celebrated cantata Exsultate, jubilate in which the soprano Carolyn Sampson glitters in the virtuosic solo part. As an appendix to the programme she and the Bach Collegium Japan orchestra also repeats the initial aria, in a less well-known later version with a slightly different text and with flutes replacing the oboes of the original.

“The Mass survives as one of the great unfinished works. Suzuki’s famed period forces are significantly enlarged here (24 choristers), but are quite small for this work. His tempi are surprisingly spacious, but the dramatic impact of the double-choir Qui tollis in the Gloria comes across with full force.” (Sunday Times)

Tracklist:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91)

Mass in C minor, K427
01 Kyrie eleison 7'36
02 Gloria in excelsis Deo 2'23
03 Laudamus te 4'35
04 Gratias agimus tibi 1'20
05 Domine Deus 2'38
06 Qui tollis peccata mundi 5'36
07 Quoniam tu solus sanctus 3'32
08 Jesu Christe 0'40
09 Cum Sancto Spiritu 3'36
10 Credo in unum Deum 3'27
11 Et incarnatus est 8'14
12 Sanctus - Hosanna 3'35
13 Benedictus - Hosanna 5'11

Exsultate, jubilate, K165
14 I. Exsultate, jubilate 4'21
15 II. Fulget amica dies 0'45
16 III. Tu virginum corona 6'15
17 IV. Alleluja 2'32

Exsultate, jubilate (version with flutes) - excerpt
18 Aria: Exsultate, jubilate 4'54

Personnel:
Carolyn Sampson, soprano
Olivia Vermeulen, alto
Makoto Sakurada, tenor
Christian Immler, bass
Bach Collegium Japan
Masaaki Suzuki, conductor