Peter Whelan, conductor

Helsingin Chamber Choir

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B minor BWV232

Thoroughly immersed in historically informed performance practice, Peter Whelan takes on one of the greatest challenges in Baroque repertoire with the professional singers of the Helsinki Chamber Choir. Though Bach was a staunch Protestant, he wrote an expansive setting of the Catholic Mass to curry favour with Elector August III of Saxony in hopes of being appointed court composer. Saxony was a bastion of Protestantism, but when the Elector became eligible for the throne of Poland, he had to convert to Catholicism in order to become King. For Bach, the connection to the court at Dresden served as leverage in his constant conflicts with the bureaucrats in Leipzig. Over the years, the Mass in B minor grew into a portfolio of Bach’s finest work, a synthesis of musical and spiritual ideals that surpasses all else in his substantial output. It is a veritable encyclopaedia of and monument to the musical art of the Baroque era.

Tapiola Sinfonietta 2025-2026