A Conversation with Washington Bach Consort's Dana Marsh: Bach's B minor Mass

There have been many musical settings of the words Kyrie eleison, the Greek words that mean "Lord have mercy", perhaps the phrase that most succinctly sums up the essence of all religions, but perhaps no setting evokes the primal longing behind that phrase as does  the opening of the Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. We hear the collective voice of humankind, we hear pain, we hear shame, perhaps even a bit of anger, but we also hear the attitude of the supplicant, one who raises one's voice to be heard but knows that the power lies in the silence that responds to that cry, a silence filled with faith. And then we hear the orchestra play a melody that seems to slowly lurch ahead, two steps forward, two steps back. It's been said that a fugue is an illustration of how God hears humanity, and in this fugue we hear the voices of many peoples woven into a tapestry of  longing. There's something so powerful and so universal about Bach's setting of these well-known words that burrows deep into their meaning.

And this is only the first of the 24 remarkable movements that make up what many consider to be Bach's masterpiece, the Mass in B minor, in which every word of the traditional Catholic mass is given the same depth, consideration and universality that he gave those first two words - with the result that the entire mass lasts almost two hours. One could never utilize the entire work in a church service; in fact, technically it should really be regarded as a compilation rather than a composition. There are so many mysteries about this work, chief of which is: why would a devoted Lutheran write a full-length setting of the Catholic Mass? He put it together from sections of various works he had written throughout his career. It would have been impossible to have performed the complete work during his lifetime, and indeed the first complete performance did not take place until over a century after Bach's death. Since then, generations of music lovers have embraced it as an organic whole to be enjoyed as a concert work - the most spiritually uplifting concert work ever written. We in the nation's capital will be able to have this profound experience Saturday and Sunday, April 25th and 26th, when the Washington Bach Consort concludes its 2025-2026 season with Bach's Mass in B minor, both performances taking place at the National Presbyterian Church at 4:00 pm. Conducting this mammoth undertaking will be the Bach Consort's Artistic Director Dana Marsh, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking about these upcoming performances.