by Peter Feher
The 2024–2025 season for Apollo’s Fire may be coming to a close, but the group’s performances of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor will continue to resound throughout Northeast Ohio. Just like those listeners who are forever returning to the work for comfort, cogitation, or a glimpse of transcendence, Cleveland’s Baroque orchestra isn’t finished with this all-embracing masterpiece.
On Saturday, April 5, at Trinity Cathedral, the consoling final notes of the “Dona nobis pacem” — Bach’s “vision of peace,” as AF artistic director Jeannette Sorrell has described it — seemed to linger in the stone vaulting long after the music had died away. The effect was a sublime example of the ensemble making the most of the space, the combined period-instrument forces of woodwinds, brass, strings, and organ supporting the uplifting message sung by the chorus.