Chamber Orchestra Bears Timely Message of Peace in Bach’s B-Minor Mass

Shortly before his death in 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach assembled a high mass from earlier church music he had written throughout his career. The Mass in B minor was not intended for any special occasion, nor was it known to be performed in Bach’s lifetime. Although a setting of the Lutheran mass text, it has always seemed--unlike the vast quantity of Bach’s other liturgical music--to stand apart from any specific denomination, any religion, any place of worship. The B-minor Mass serves, instead, as both a summing up of Bach’s musical technique and as one of the richest expressions of the human capacity for spirituality to be found in any culture.

To put it another way, there never need be an excuse to perform this monumental work that transcends time and place, that suits the secular concert hall just as well as, and acoustically better than, the cathedral. Even so, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra could point to a few appropriate reasons for offering it at Royce Hall Friday night. It served as an ideal way to culminate a year commemorating the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death, and it offered suitable, indeed incomparable, spiritual nourishment during the holiday season.

The B-minor Mass also has a way of creating its own sense of occasion. Before beginning the performance, the orchestra’s music director, Jeffrey Kahane, addressed the audience by saying that it may approach sacrilege to say anything before the B-minor Mass, but events of the day had forced him to speak. Jews and Arabs had been killing each other along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, where Christ had taken his last walk. He knew, he said, that it was hardly enough to stop the killing that he, a Jew, was performing, with joy in his heart, this consummate assertion of Christianity. But it never seemed more important that we hear the final words of the mass, “Grant us peace.”

The Latin words, “Dona nobis pacem,” set as a swelling hymn of thanksgiving for chorus and orchestra, produce, in any competent performance, an incomparable feeling of goodwill. The possibility of peace here stands as the culmination of the greatest spiritual work by the greatest composer of spiritual music. And Kahane’s performance, which utilized members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, was unusual in its driven single-mindedness toward that inevitable conclusion.

There were many inspiring moments to be absorbed along the way. The mass may be something of a treatise in Baroque vocal techniques, but it also highlights instrumentalists. Nearly every solo vocal number includes instrumental soloists as well. Concertmaster Margaret Batjer, flutist David Shostac and oboist Allan Vogel offered stunning contributions. The three trumpets, led by David Washburn, were stellar, adding immeasurably to the sense of peace triumphant by the end.

The vocal soloists were strong too, if not ideally matched. The soprano Janice Chandler had a more robust voice than the others--and not always flexible enough for directed Baroque music--but she produces a gorgeous sound. Susan Platts, a mezzo-soprano both opulently dark and tight, was emotionally gripping in her great solo aria sung to the text of the “Agnus Dei.” Alan Bennett was the fervent tenor, while Jaco Venter was the hearty and more operatic bass.

At times, Kahane seemed to forge ahead with an urgency that pushed the performers to the limits of their capacities. This was especially hard on the Master Chorale, which responded with exciting valor nonetheless. Maybe Kahane was thinking about the day’s killings in the Middle East, or maybe the conductor, who is an exceptional Bach pianist in his own right, simply had an unrealistically ideal performance in his head. But, in the end, the power of Kahane’s convictions convinced. The message of this performance was a vision of a community capable of overcoming obstacles for a great good.

And that transcendence was complete enough that maybe Kahane and his crew might actually be able to change the course of history, if given the opportunity. The next time Israeli and Palestinian leaders get together to seek an accord, let the negotiations begin with such a performance of this magnificent Christian hymn to peace. Perhaps that could begin to open up closed minds on both sides.