The hallmark of Bach’s pedagogical influence on generations of musicians lies squarely with the chorale: the bread and butter of a student’s understanding of harmonic syntax, a microcosm of how ‘voices’ can be both dependent and independent at the same time, and the arteries through which so many of Bach’s creative juices flowed. The range of embellishment in these great hymns is what reveals the inventive musical mind at its apex, whether in cantata choruses, organ preludes, motets or passions. Yet the unfettered beauty of Bach’s crafting of a standard Lutheran chorale requires no special advocacy, as can be heard in this unusual assembly of four-part tunes, joined by miscellaneous organ chorale-preludes from the Orgelbuchlein and Clavierubung III.
Nearly 400 chorale arrangements exist, several originally attached to lost cantatas, and a large selection indexed by collectors from the 1730s to the modern day in various guises, though Bach himself conducted no such creative- cum-archival exercise. With no fixed brief, therefore, this disc is an attempt at ‘an audio hymnbook’, placing choice chorales within a liturgical scheme (hence ‘German Mass’) and, in the process, giving a contextual rationale to a broad selection of them. It doesn’t make for compelling listening, it must be said, beyond small doses. The artificiality of the enterprise is also not relieved by Rilling’s fairly perfunctory readings, despite some colourful and sensitive organ playing by Gerhard Gnann. The Stuttgarters sing with customary panache. There is a feeling, though, that this is more a necessary recording for the library and Hannsler’s Bach marathon than for the record-buyer. I wondered how much care had been taken. There is an edit so rough that one bar is subjected to a syncopated effect, decipherable only by advanced rhythmic dictation. We know the paraphrase in Berg’s Violin Concerto of Bach’s whole-tone phrase in ‘Es ist genug’. How Stravinsky would have gone for a chorale with a bit of 3/16 time (Track 9, 1'27'')! Rag-time Chorale?'