Having enjoyed many releases by Martin Pearlman and Boston Baroque in the past (an outstanding Monteverdi Vespers especially), I had high hopes for this new recording of Bach’s B minor Mass. The reality turned out disappointing, though it’s not easy to point the finger at any single fault. The soloists sing well, the chorus is adequate, if hardly the last word in disciplined ensemble, and the playing makes a good impression. But there are serious problems of balance: in the more vigorous choruses (such as the “Et expecto” at the end of the Credo) important instrumental lines fail to penetrate the mass of sound, and on other occasions the instruments obscure the voices. There’s a strained, almost tired quality to much of the singing that’s at odds with the music’s more jubilant qualities, while at the same time Pearlman sometimes selects tempos for the solemn moments (the “Crucifixus”) that minimize the emotional intensity of the text setting. In other words, this is a performance of grammatical correctness, but that expressively has neither “highs” nor “lows”, and the result makes frustrating listening. There are too many fine period instrument performances around today (particularly the stunning Hengelbrock/Freiburger Barockorchester on dhm) for anyone to have to settle for second best.
