The Immortal Bach Ensemble of Leipzig is a chamber choir associated with the Gewandhaus concert hall; it takes its name from a work by composer Knut Nystedt and is not especially oriented toward Baroque music. The group, together with the Leipzig Chamber Orchestra, has released a series of delicate, moderate-sized performances of Schubert's masses, some of them a bit idiosyncratic but all well worth trying out. Danish conductor Morten Schuldt-Jensen forges distinctive readings throughout of the Mass No. 5 in A flat major, D ...
Read More
The Immortal Bach Ensemble of Leipzig is a chamber choir associated with the Gewandhaus concert hall; it takes its name from a work by composer Knut Nystedt and is not especially oriented toward Baroque music. The group, together with the Leipzig Chamber Orchestra, has released a series of delicate, moderate-sized performances of Schubert's masses, some of them a bit idiosyncratic but all well worth trying out. Danish conductor Morten Schuldt-Jensen forges distinctive readings throughout of the Mass No. 5 in A flat major, D. 678, the composer's personal favorite among his mass settings, and one to which he later returned to make revisions, something he very rarely did. As elsewhere in the series, Schuldt-Jensen avoids the warm melodic lyricism that some prize in Schubert's masses (and Schubert in general), but he replaces it with a sort of precise grace that's very appealing. All four of the soloists are excellent, with German alto Bettina Ranch a real standout -- she has a blast furnace of a voice...
Read Less
