The heart opens [in the Kyrie of the B-Minor Mass]
and it leads us to the hill of the crucified one.
and it leads us to the hill of the crucified one.
— Carl Hermann Bitter (Bach biographer)
In 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis and U. S.-Soviet tensions, the late choral conductor, Robert Shaw (1916-1999), led his famed Robert Shaw Chorale on a six-week tour of Russia. They performed three different programs of choral literature, but the biggest hit was the Mass in B-Minor of J. S. Bach (1685-1750), which often held audiences well beyond the final curtain call. Shaw recalled leaving the stage in Moscow, for instance, after numerous encores, then changing clothes and returning to the hall for one last look. To his amazement, the audience was still in the theatre, some thirty minutes after the conclusion of the concert. And they were standing in silence! (Keith C. Burris, Deep River: The Life and Music of Robert Shaw, pp. 122-123)
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