Bach, h-Moll Messe (Mass in B minor) BWV 232

Karl Richter (1926-1981), founder of the Munich Bach Choir and Munich Bach Orchestra, was a noted conductor, organist and harpsichordist. The B minor Mass was one of his "warhorses", which he often performed on concert tours. One of the most perceptive assessments of Richter's reading of the B minor Mass appeared in a Munich daily following his last performance of the work in November 1980: "One of the reasons why Richter's account of the B minor Mass is so compelling is that, in contrast to the historicizing Bach readings of today, it takes into account both the present and the 250-year-old history of Bach interpretation." The work was filmed in the splendid Baroque abbey church of Diessen in Bavaria, which dates from Bach's time.