The history of what we know as Bach’s B minor Mass is absorbingly complex. It seems almost certain that its composer never heard it through in the manner of modern performance; indeed, the work’s first complete performance is likely to have been that arranged by the Berlin Singakademie in 1834 - the result of Mendelssohn’s enthusiastic advocacy.

Bach’s autographed full score divides the monumental opus into four distinct sections: i) Missa (in the Lutheran sense of that term, referring to Kyrie and Gloria in Excelsis); ii) Symbolum Nicenum (the Nicene Creed); iii) Sanctus; iv) Benedictus, Osanna, Agnus Dei et Dona nobis pacem. At least ten of the twenty-five movements contained within the Mass as a whole are known to have had their origin in earlier compositions. Despite all this inherent diversity, the Mass in B minor somehow forms a unifying whole; at once artistically, emotionally and spiritually uplifting.

It can be said that no single musical work is greater than Bach’s Mass in B minor; the glorious sonorities of the piece include wonderful settings of the sections of the Creed dealing with the suffering, death, burial and Resurrection of Jesus, making a performance on Good Friday an especially compelling experience.