How Chennai’s MMA ensemble interpreted Bach’s Mass in B Minor -OxBig News Network

It’s not every evening that the vaulted interiors of the Museum Theatre hold within them the weight of an 18th-century European mass, performed in its entirety by a choir of voices and a young orchestra. This past weekend, the Madras Musical Association staged Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor,  not merely as a performance, but as a proposition.

What happens when a work written by a devout Lutheran in Leipzig in the 1740s and never performed in his lifetime as a whole finds its voice nearly 300 years later in a city shaped by altogether different rhythms and rituals? The answer unfolded unhurriedly across the evening as belief in music’s power to bridge distances.

The Mass in B Minor is not designed for easy consumption. There is no narrative, no visual cue, no dramatic arc — only the architecture of the Latin Mass: Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy), Credo in unum Deum (I believe in one God), Agnus Dei (Lamb of God), and so on. The phrases were unfamiliar for some, but  the MMA offered translations in the programme notes, and, more importantly, gave the music enough room to breathe its meanings into the room.

There was no rush, no attempt to dazzle with speed or scale. Conducted by Augustine Paul — who has led the MMA Choir since 2009 — the concert was attentive to the contours of the score, to the shifts between choral massiveness and solo intimacy, and to the acoustic possibilities of the hall itself. The Museum Theatre, with its stone walls and gently worn stage, held the sound carefully, letting the music rise and settle, rather than reverberate.

The MMA Choir, now in its 132nd year, includes singers from across ages and professions, some formally trained, many not. The orchestra  — largely composed of musicians under 25 — approached the score with the kind of directness that comes from being unburdened by performance history. Their focus was just on connection: to the music, to one another, and to the audience. Bach’s writing, which demands clarity of line and structure over flamboyance, benefitted from this unpretentious approach.

The Mass is an edifice. It was never intended for a single liturgical occasion — it’s more a summation of Bach’s sacred music than a service-ready work. 

The MMA Choir, now in its 132nd year, includes singers from across ages and professions, some formally trained, many not.

One of the most striking examples of this structure is in the Credo itself. At its heart lies a mirrored triptych: the Et incarnatus est (And was made flesh), followed by the Crucifixus (He was crucified), and then the Et resurrexit (And He rose again). The Crucifixus  —  sung in low, measured phrases, was particularly affecting, its descending lines seeming to fall through the space rather than move across it. The Et resurrexit followed with a gentle expansion, as if the light were returning one windowpane at a time.

In Chennai, far from the liturgical spaces Bach wrote for, that vision took on a different kind of urgency at the Museum Theatre. And yet, the work spoke. Many had never heard the Mass before. And still, they stayed with it.

For conductor Augustine Paul, the scale and complexity of the piece weren’t fully visible until he was deep in its preparation. “I had not done an in-depth analysis of the work before choosing to perform. I had tried out the choral parts before the pandemic with an ensemble. So, I had confidence that the choir could do it. Only when we decided to perform the Mass, did I start working on the full score. It was then that I really got to see the depth. Though the quality of the music is sure to impress the listener, the length was a bit of a concern from the viewpoint of the audience. But the applause and feedback at the end showed that people loved it.”

There’s something quietly radical about this too: an ensemble of amateurs mounting a performance of one of the most technically and spiritually demanding works in the choral canon, in a city where Western classical music is still a minority language. It wasn’t perfect, and it didn’t need to be. The power lay in the choice — to perform the whole, not just the familiar parts. To offer it live and not trimmed. To trust that the audience  would stay with the music’s long arcs.

There was no rush, no attempt to dazzle with speed or scale.

“Both the choir and orchestra coped with the technical demand very well. The orchestra managed five to six rehearsals, two with the choir, and the growth during that time was impressive. The real coming together happened just about two hours before the concert,” said Paul.

Perhaps, it’s this — the fragility of preparation and the impossibility of perfect control — that gave the evening its resonance. It reminded listeners that great music isn’t a fixed monument. It’s something you step into, with whatever resources you have, and build again from within. It’s a living structure, as vulnerable as it is vast.

Bach closes his Mass not with fanfare, but with a reprise: Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace). In this performance, the movement was sung softly — almost privately — after more than ninety minutes of unfolding sound. That final chord did not feel like an ending, but like a breath held in the air, a note suspended.