Tuesday 26 May 2026
The Royal Festival Hall, London
★★★★★
The Bach Choir’s moving and supremely human interpretation marks the 150th anniversary of their first performance of Bach’s masterpiece
Tuesday night’s concert marked another significant milestone in The Bach Choir’s 150th anniversary season, which opened late last year with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with The Philharmonia conducted by David Hill at St Paul’s Cathedral. The Choir first performed Bach’s Mass in B minor exactly 150 years and one month ago, on 26 April 1876. This was the first British performance of Bach’s masterpiece, and Tuesday night marked the choir’s 70th performance of the work.
Bach never heard the piece in full; remarkably, it took over a century after Bach’s death for his works to enter the English choral repertoire, with the first English performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1854 by William Sterndale Bennett. In autumn 1875, the German musician Otto Goldschmidt, who had married the Swedish operatic soprano Jenny Lind and settled in London with her, worked with the lawyer Arthur Coleridge to form a choir to perform the Mass in B Minor. The first concert, at St James’s Hall, set the standard for future performances, at least according to one critic, ‘Choral singing, such as we heard on the present occasion, is rarely met with in this or any other country.’
The first time I heard David Hill conducting the B Minor Mass was two years ago in Manchester, with a much smaller choir: the student choir Yale Schola Cantorum and the student musicians of Juilliard415, so I was very much looking forward to hearing a much larger choir performing the work. In his programme note, conductor David Hill describes the piece as one of the finest works in the western musical canon,
‘A summation of Bach’s genius as a writer for voices and instruments with equal brilliance. There is joy, sadness, melancholy and, above all, inspired melodic material interweaving throughout the work. The Mass in B minor is a consecration of a whole life…’
In my review of Yale Schola Cantorum/Juilliard415, I wrote, ‘The most remarkable aspect of Sunday’s concert was how pure it felt, allowing direct access to the emotions and intellectual power of the music itself, to the mind and soul of Bach himself.’ Tuesday night’s concert felt very different, bringing out the work’s deep humanity rather than its intellectual and spiritual aspects. It’s a credit to Hill that he can create such superb performances from such different forces.
Under Hill’s subtle and undemonstrative direction, Florilegium played elegantly, with lovely poise and lilting rhythms, dancing joyfully, with natural trumpets adding bite to the sound. This was early music filtered through modern performance practice, but historically informed, bringing the best of both worlds. There were excellent instrumental solos from Ashley Solomon (flute and director of Florilegium), Huw Daniel (violin and leader), Gail Hennessy and Andrés Villalobos (oboe) and Anneke Scott (horn), each player standing for their solo as a jazz musician would in a big band. Philip Scriven was a tireless continuo player on chamber organ.
The vocal soloists were: Nardus Williams (Soprano), who sang Laudamus Te with a rich and florid voice and superb legato in a duet with the solo violin; Sam Furness (Tenor), who sang the Benedictus with a gently ardent, plaintive tone in duet with solo flute; and Neal Davies (Bass-baritone), who played Jesus in the choir’s St Matthew Passion. On Tuesday night, he again proved himself to be an excellent communicator, with excellent diction, superb word-painting, and lovely phrasing. But the highlight of the vocal solo performances was Helen Charlston (Mezzo soprano) singing Agnus Dei from the heart with a commanding stage presence, a velvet-hued tone, and at one point a gorgeous sotto voce on the words ‘Agnus Dei.’
But the evening belonged to the choir in their anniversary year. The piece opened with Bach’s magnificent Kyrie, sung initially without scores. The pace was fairly slow and majestic, Hill bringing out fabulous detail from the massed forces, and accentuating the pointed rhythms in both choir and orchestra. There were some lovely, deep bass voices, and lyrical tenors, and the women sang with lovely legato. In the fast running passages of the Gloria, the singing was spritely and virtuosic, incredibly controlled for such large forces; it was easy to forget that this is an amateur choir. The choir’s word-painting was excellent throughout. For instance, in Et Terra Pax, the choir reached longingly for peace as a remarkable orchestral passage rose in search of the light. In Gratias agimus tibi, the choir sang with gratitude and great humanity. Qui tollis peccata mundi was spellbinding; the choir singing was warm yet melancholy, bringing out Bach’s superb harmonies in supplication, as they prayed for mercy. The first half ended with the Cum Sancto Spiritu, featuring an exuberant entry from the choir and very fast singing, beautifully controlled by Hill. To be clear: this music is difficult to sing, but with the choir and Hill, we were always in safe hands.
The Credo sets the words of the Nicene Creed, the central affirmation of Christian belief, written over 1,700 years ago. Again, the choir’s word-painting was superb, starting with a robust statement of faith from the tenors in the word ‘Credo’. The sequence describing Christ’s birth, crucifixion, and resurrection was stunning. Et Incarnatus Est was thoughtful and reverential. It was as if the world had stopped turning; the words of the carol came to mind, ‘The world in solemn stillness lay.’ The Crucifixus was heart-rending. After a short gap, Et resurrexit was joyful, exciting, and visceral. Some of the men sang the very difficult passage ‘et iterum venturus est’ without scores, carrying it off with aplomb. Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum was quietly hymn-like, moving from humble, contemplative hope to certainty, with a magnificent ‘Amen’.
The Sanctus was stately but superbly rhythmic, a supreme statement of faith. The overlapping voices in ‘pleni sunt coeli’ reminded me of the same words used in Britten’s War Requiem performed by the choir a couple of years ago. After a joyful Osanna in Excelsis, the humanity and humility of the choir’s interpretation were again highlighted with a prayer for peace, calm and deeply moving, gradually building to a passionate plea. At the end of the concert, conductor David Hill and the four soloists were given flowers. In a lovely gesture, Hill waved his flowers at the choir, acknowledging their remarkable contribution. There was a huge, and well-deserved cheer for the choir: here’s to the next 150 years!
David Hill dedicated the concert to the choir’s Vice President, Dame Felicity Lott, who died on 15 May, ‘a kind and generous, humorous, very humble and self-effacing artist.’
Performers
David Hill Conductor
Nardus Williams Soprano
Helen Charlston Mezzo soprano
Sam Furness Tenor
Neal Davies Bass-baritone
The Bach Choir
Florilegium: Ashley Solomon Director, Huw Daniel Leader
Repertoire
JS Bach Mass in B minor BWV 232
Now read on…
The Bach Choir, David Hill and Florilegium – St Matthew Passion
Bach in Leipzig
David Hill, Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415 – the B Minor Mass in Manchester
The Bach Choir, David Hill and the Philharmonia – opening concert of the Choir’s 150th anniversary season
