advertisement


Bach's Te Dium

ClaraBannister

pfm Member
No, not a spelling mistake (I should have to shoot myself), but a comment on something I listened to last night. My old friend, the lovely Hochgrafin Katarina, is spending a few days with me before we depart on our Hellenic adventure. We decided to listen to the Proms yesterday evening - the Bach B minor Mass. It turned out neither of us had ever heard it before, although I have a Deutsche Grammophon set with Karajan conducting it. However, the announcer claimed it was possibly the finest piece of music ever written, so you may imagine with what anticipation we settled down with our brandy to listen. Despite belonging to the Church of Ireland, I'm familiar with the text of the Latin Mass, and I was expecting them to kick off with Introibo ad altare Dei, or something of the sort. Instead, they started off with Kyrie Eleison. "That's Greek, not Latin," Kat said, in the hurt tones of one who has been lied to. I explained that the Kyrie is the only Greek bit in the Latin Mass. On and on they went, with Kyrie Eleison, in that circumlocutory way that Bach has. After ten minutes, they'd only sung those two words. Then came a pause, as after a first movement. The usual coughing and shuffling. Then off they went again, this time with Christe Eleison. We looked at each other, and burst out laughing. "Oh my God," I said. "Ten minutes of this, then back to Kyrie Eleison again." At that stage, by mutual agreement, we decided that life was too short, declared our own "Ite, missa est" and put on some Schubert. Anyway, we're off tomorrow morning for a spot of island-hopping, as one does, and I hope to see you all again in a few weeks. I nearly said "I'll be Bach," but thought better of it. Tschüß!
 
Bach was a Prod, so unsurprising he got the Mass all wrong. Father Brennan would have put him straight.
 
He was also handy with his fists and spent a lot of time in the organ loft with a woman who wasnt his wife.
 
Bach and brandy, and then Hellenic island-hopping with a German super-countess (if that's what a hochgrafin is) sounds VERY 1920s decadent-romantic. Maybe you should have listened to Mahler or Strauss. All my envy!
 


advertisement


Back
Top