Musicologists have long debated numerous questions about the work's origins, with some remaining unresolved. Why did a Lutheran composer write a so-called missa tota, meaning a complete cycle including the full mass, when Kyrie-Gloria masses were the usual practice in his church? What year does the composition date from? What were Bach's intentions regarding the work? Why did an otherwise pragmatic composer write a work that exceeds the scope of a regular church service in terms of the difficulties involved in performing it and, most of all, its unusual vastness? Enough answers - often profuse in their mutual contradictions - have been provided to all these questions to fill volumes.
One thing is assured: The Mass in B minor is not only one of the most monumental of Bach's works, it is also among the greatest achievements in music history. It is apparent that the work is a compilation, meaning that it originated from different phases of Bach's career and was stitched together from parts that were originally unrelated. If this was the case, however, a new question also immediately arises: how does it create such an impression of perfection and uniformity? This is one of the work's many mysteries. What is certain is that the self-consciously modest Bach intended the work as a demonstration of his skill, a kind of summary similar to several other large compendiums in his oeuvre: The Well-Tempered Clavier, The Art of the Fugue, Musikalisches Opfer and the Clavier-übung.

The concert will be preceded from 6.30 pm by a conversation entitled Prelude, where ticket holders will be invited to get to know the performing musician and the works to be performed more closely.