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

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.

A fair amount of Bruckner gets performed in Vienna, but it’s rare to hear a Bruckner Mass and even rarer to hear one programmed alongside a piece like Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna.