BACH’S MASS IN B MINOR
The Chicago Symphony virtually ignores early music, and what token older music (pre-19th century) it does perform is usually done by conductors trained to present it in a bombastic 19thcentury manner: slowly, with romantic phrasing and tempi, an exacting approach to rhythm uncharacteristic of the time, unbalanced orchestra] and choral forces often up to five or six times larger than the pieces were scored for, and hordes of strings employing the vibrato and rubato associated with Brahms. The CSO’s music director, Georg Solti, believes firmly that modern instruments are the end product of a long Darwinian struggle, and that, as he told me recently, “if Bach could hear his music performed on our wonderful and much-improved modern instruments, he would surely prefer it to the out-of-tune, primitive instruments of his day.”
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Chicagoans had the unusual opportunity this fall to hear for themselves what the differences between an “authentic” performance and a modern perform ance of a single baroque masterwork –Bach’s Mass in B Minor –might actually be.
Apparently not. “With the exception of the string bass, the instruments used in this concert are copies or reproductions of authentic baroque instruments,” explained the program. The instruments were made no earlier than the mid1970s–the early-music-instrument revival being so recent -according to what is known about instruments of that day. The best of these instrument makers set out to copy a specific surviving instrument from the period as closely as modern conditions will permit. The irony is that most of these “authentic” instruments are actually newer than the “modern” instruments that they are supposed to predate!
Still, why bother with all this? If the obstacles to performing these earlier works on period instruments, are so great, can any result be worth the effort? In answering, we must recognize that we have created a unique problem for ourselves by becoming more interested in performing music of the past than music of our time (contrary to Bach’s time, for example). Music is created and then re-created. A century from now, performers will have to worry not only about authentic Bach and Mozart but about authentic Mahler ‘and Schonberg as well, to say nothing of authentic George Crumb. After all, what we now call modern instruments will also become museum relics, and future performers will be faced with the same problem: Is it better to attempt to approximate performances of the 20th century by using obsolete instruments. and techniques, or do we perform the music on the instruments that we know, at a sacrifice of the original textures and timbres?
One aspect of “authenticity” that Basically Bach ignores, presumably for practical rather than aesthetic reasons, concerns male and female voices. Throughout most of the 18th century, only male voices were used for choral and solo singing, especially in church (women were not allowed in the sanctuary area); and of course, Bach taught at an all-boys school for the last half of his life. Discussions of sexism aside, a choir made up of boy sopranos -and male altos has a far, different sound than a choir of adult female sopranos and altos. It’s less cluttered, especially for counterpoint. Yet there are very few boys’ choirs in this country properly trained for this kind of singing, and none in the Chicago area.
