BIS / BIS2171
Following the 2015 release of Mozart’s Requiem, Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan have recorded the composer’s Mass in C minor, K427, known as the ‘Great Mass.’ As the nickname suggests, this work is unusually grand for a mass from the Classical period—though it remains incomplete, as Mozart did not finish it. The specific occasion for which Mozart intended the work is unknown, but a letter to his father, Leopold, dated January 4, 1783, suggests he may have begun it in connection with his marriage to Constanze and a planned visit to Salzburg.
A performance of parts of the Mass took place in Salzburg in October 1783, featuring Constanze in the prominent soprano role. Two years later, Mozart reused music from the Kyrie and Gloria sections in his sacred cantata Davidde penitente, K469, but the Mass itself remained unfinished. The current performance includes the sections that Mozart completed himself, along with parts for which he left extensive sketches, which were completed by Franz Beyer in 1989.
Three of Suzuki’s soloists from the Requiem recording also participate in this performance, while Dutch mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen makes her debut on BIS, shining in the aria “Laudamus te.” The disc concludes with the celebrated cantata Exsultate, jubilate, where soprano Carolyn Sampson dazzles in the virtuosic solo part. As an appendix to the program, she and the Bach Collegium Japan orchestra also perform the initial aria in a less-known later version, which features a slightly different text and substitutes flutes for the oboes used in the original.