Oeuvre: Mass no. 2 in E minor, WAB 27

Programa dedicado a los padres de la música sacra del Renacimiento y al romanticismo de Anton Bruckner, junto a uno de los conjuntos más emblemáticos de la interpretación historicista actual.

Taiwan is barely on the radar as far as most Western classical music aficionados are concerned. A recent visit, however, by the 40-member Taiwan National Choir certainly alerted those who heard it that something extraordinary must be going on over there.

The two masses in this intriguing and very enjoyable programme made a thought-provoking contrast. Stravinsky was anxious that his mass be cold – indeed, as the bass singer Simon Scott Plummer’s useful programme notes told us, he wanted the music ‘very cold, absolutely cold, that will appeal directly to the spirit.