Deutsche Grammophon: J.S. Bach - Mass in B Minor BWV 232 - Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker (2CD)

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Product Details:

• Product Type: Audio CD - 2-disc set
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• Catalog Number: 459 460-2
• UPC: 0028945946023
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
• Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker
• Chorus: Wiener Singverein
• Soloists: Gundula Janowitz (soprano) - Christa Ludwig (contralto) - Peter Schreier (tenor) - Robert Kerns (baritone) - Karl Ridderbusch (bass)
• Original Recording Year: 1974
• Genre: Classical - Choral - Baroque
• Country of Manufacture: Germany

Product Features

• Format: Audio CD - 2 discs
• Audio: Stereo - Original-Image Bit-Processing (OIBP) remaster
• Total Playing Time: Disc 1 - 61'27 / Disc 2 - 64'48
• Remaster Technology: Original-Image Bit-Processing - added presence and brilliance, greater spatial definition
• Condition: Factory Sealed - never opened, original shrink wrap intact

Overview

Karajan recorded Bach's Mass in B Minor in 1974, and the reading has never quite left the conversation. The forces are large — the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Singverein, five soloists anchored by Gundula Janowitz and Christa Ludwig — and Karajan deploys them with the kind of unhurried authority that only comes from complete command of the material. This is not a period-practice performance. It is grand, direct, and built to last.

BWV 232 is Bach's only complete setting of the Latin Mass and his largest choral work. He assembled it across several decades, drawing on earlier cantatas and newly composed movements, finishing it in the final years of his life. The scope is enormous: intimate two-voice duets give way to massive double-choir fugues, the bare simplicity of the Agnus Dei sits alongside the driving energy of the Et resurrexit. Fitting it across two discs makes complete sense — the work demands space.

This Deutsche Grammophon reissue applies Original-Image Bit-Processing to the 1974 analogue master. The remastering adds presence and spatial definition that earlier CD transfers of this recording lacked — Janowitz's soprano sits cleanly above the texture, and the bass voices of the Singverein finally have room. Printed and manufactured in Germany.

Interesting Facts

• Bach assembled the Mass in B Minor over roughly two decades; the earliest sections date to 1724, the latest to around 1748-1749, making it a summation of his entire compositional life rather than a single project.
• The work was never performed in full during Bach's lifetime — the first complete documented performance took place in 1859, more than a century after its completion.
• Gundula Janowitz (born 1937) was one of the defining sopranos of the Deutsche Grammophon catalogue in the 1960s and 1970s, celebrated above all for the purity and control she brought to long Baroque lines.
• Christa Ludwig (1928-2021) is widely regarded as the finest German contralto of the postwar era; her recordings with Karajan for DG span nearly three decades and remain benchmarks of the repertoire.
• Herbert von Karajan served as chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker for 35 years, from 1955 until his death in 1989 — one of the longest tenures in the history of any major orchestra.
• Original-Image Bit-Processing (OIBP) was developed by Deutsche Grammophon in the late 1990s to recover detail and spatial information lost in early CD transfers from analogue masters.
• The Wiener Singverein, founded in 1858, is the professional chorus of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and has been the preferred choral partner for DG's major orchestral recordings since the postwar period.

Track Listing

Compact Disc 1 - [61'27]

Kyrie [18'03] 1-3. Kyrie

Gloria [43'24] 4-12. Gloria

Compact Disc 2 - [64'48]

Credo [36'00] 1-9. Credo

Sanctus [17'13] 10-13. Sanctus

Agnus Dei [11'35] 14-15. Agnus Dei

Publishers

© 1974 Polydor International GmbH, Hamburg. Printed in Germany by Münstermann, Hannover. A Universal Music Company release. Further information at www.dgclassics.com.

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