New York Classical Review

For your “only in New York” file, there have been two entirely separate, full-dress performances of J.S. Bach’s epic Mass in B minor in Manhattan in one month. (The elegant power of Sae Hashimoto’s timpani helped to drive both.)

On Tuesday, just ten days after the Dessoff Choirs’ rendering of the work at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem, the Baroque ensemble The Sebastians performed the Midtown edition at St. Peter’s Church on Lexington Avenue.

In a sign of the depth of period-instrument talent in this city, only three orchestral players besides Hashimoto participated in both performances. But the most conspicuous difference between the two was in the choruses.

Following the pioneering, and still controversial, scholarship of Joshua Rifkin in the 1980s, Tuesday’s performance deployed not a choir numbering in the dozens, but only eight individual singers, performing not just solo arias but the choruses as well, one singer to a part.

Whether or not this was Bach’s own practice—the B minor Mass was not performed in its entirety during his lifetime—the work seemed to emerge in a new light, theologically and musically.  In place of the communal experience of a large choir, the spotlight seemed to turn toward individual devotion.

And for listeners who missed the virtuosity of a well-drilled large chorus singing “as one,” there was the compensation of hearing Bach’s vocal counterpoint in X-ray, so to speak, the individual voices bumping and interacting with each other.

In fact, the singers seemed to have been cast specifically for the individuality of their voices rather than for how they would blend in ensemble. For example, the full-bodied soprano of Sherezade Panthaki contrasted with the forward-placed, articulate projection of soprano Clara Rottsolk in the first duet, “Christe eleison,” and later with the fine thread of Brian Giebler’s tenor in “Domine Deus.”

Those three singers combined with the round, creamy countertenor of Jay Carter and the slightly buzzy but solid bass of Paul Max Tipton to make a most heterogeneous chorus in the Kyrie and the Gloria, the aural equivalent of disparate objects tumbling in a kaleidoscope.

In solo turns, Rottsolk shone bright and agile with Daniel Lee’s energetic violin obbligato in “Laudamus te,” a strong Carter took the corners fast in “Qui sedes,” and Tipton eloquently held his own opposite Todd Williams’s golden-toned horn and Ezra Seltzer’s vigorous cello in “Quoniam tu solus sanctus.”

The concert’s second half brought additional voices, beginning with tenor James Reese’s trumpet-like affirmation on the word “Credo.” Besides strongly articulating the tenor part in the choruses, Reese sang an affecting “Benedictus” near the work’s close, the Baroque curves of his phrases matching those of David Ross’s flute obbligato.

Duetting with the large-voiced Panthaki in “Patrem omnipotentem,” soprano Meg Bragle countered with fetching phrasing; the two even managed a sweet vocal blend by the end of their number. Bragle’s well-supported long lines and pianissimos distinguished her solo, the penultimate “Agnus Dei.”

Harrison Hintzshe’s woody lyric baritone didn’t stand out in the choruses, but expounded Trinitarian theology most eloquently in his solo “Et in Spiritum Sanctum.”

Bach’s setting of “Osanna in excelsis” for double chorus became a visual as well as aural experience when all eight singers were arrayed across the front of the stage, merrily exchanging phrases as if vying to see which group could praise God the best.

The singers deftly—at times almost magically—negotiated cold starts and tempo changes with their backs to leader Jeffrey Grossman at the organ.

Under Grossman’s direction, the orchestra made the most of Bach’s ever-changing scoring, with woodwinds keening or bubbly, strings dancing or groaning low, trumpets and timpani blaring out royal splendor for the King of Kings. The Mass’s opening music was a miasma of shifting B minor harmonies, a world of sin from which the faithful begged for mercy in the Kyrie.

Similarly, the darkening tones of “Et incarnatus est” epitomized the irony of the Godhead encased in sinful flesh, leading to the final horror of death and entombment in “Crucifixus.” (Here is where this listener missed a large chorus the most; perhaps under the influence of Bach’s Passions, one pictures the Crucifixion as a crowd scene of general lamentation.)  Overdoing emotional contrast somewhat, the very fast tempo and helter-skelter execution of “Et resurrexit” sounded more hysterical than celebratory.

But all such quibbles were forgotten as even this modest-sized ensemble built a Baroque “wall of sound” brick by brick with the steadily climbing phrases of “Dona nobis pacem.” The sound was angelic—at least until Hashimoto and three trumpets kicked in to close the work in a blaze of blessed sunshine.

The Sebastians perform “Bach to the Future,” a program of works by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Karl Hinze and Carson Cooman, 5 p.m. May 16 at the Chapel of Brick Presbyterian Church, 1144 Park Avenue. sebastians.org