Bach is back!

The 110th Bethlehem Bach Festival is imminent. The next two weekends, May 13 & 14 and May 19 & 20, will bring instrumental and choral music, lectures, and informal evenings at the festival’s very own Zimmermann’s Coffee House, named for the 18th century venue at which many of Bach’s pieces received their first public performances. Musical highlights will include a performance of the Mass in B minor, an annual tradition, and a new work, “The Nightingale,” after the fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen, presented in collaboration with Mock Turtle Marionette Theater. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem gave the first American performance of the Mass in B minor in 1900.

To get everyone in the mood, today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network will feature Bach Choir performances from a March 26 concert, held at the First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem, of the Motet BWV 227, “Jesu, meine Freude” (“Jesus, my joy”), and selections from Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS.”

Bernstein composed his Mass on a commission from Jacqueline Kennedy, to memorialize her husband, John F. Kennedy, America’s first Catholic president. The work was given its premiere at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, in 1971.

Originally, Bernstein had intended to adhere to the Traditional Latin Mass, but as the project became more personal, he began to view it as a point of departure, from which a perceived crisis in faith and cultural breakdown of the era in which it was written might be explored. “MASS” is very much a product of its time, though the issues it addresses continue to resonate.

The musical content is eclectic, juxtaposing Broadway and opera, rock ballads and blues, with a narrative that blends Hebrew and Latin texts. There’s a celebrant in the form of a Catholic priest, three choirs, a rock band, marching band, street musicians and dancers. The work was as controversial as it was ambitious. It was not a success with the critics, and its anti-establishment flavor served to beef up Bernstein’s FBI file. The Bureau advised President Richard Nixon not to attend the premiere.

In recent years, the work has undergone something of a rehabilitation, with acclaimed performances by Marin Alsop in Baltimore and Yannick Nezet-Seguin in Philadelphia. Part of the Mass’s continued fascination is the fact that the piece is such a glorious mess. Bernstein poured everything he had into the 90-minute work. Any performance of “MASS,” in the form the composer intended, is an event, yet its extravagant requirements have also ensured its limited exposure. In 2007, composer Doreen Rao distilled Bernstein’s epic social and spiritual odyssey to a more manageable 40-minute concert piece. That is the version we’ll hear this afternoon, with soprano Barbara Kilduff and tenor Isaiah Bell, speaker Anthony R. Pompa, and singers from the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and Bel Canto Children’s Chorus.

The Bach Festival is held in historic Bethlehem, Pa. Directed by Greg Funfgeld since 1983, the Bach Choir was founded in 1898 for the express purpose of studying Bach’s Mass in B minor. For more information, visit http://www.bach.org.

I hope you’ll join me for Bach and Bernstein, today at 12:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.