“The bass has precious little to do in this work. He joins the others for “Benedictus qui venit,” and that’s it. I think of something that Michelle DeYoung, the American mezzo, once told me. I had observed to her, “Frankly, I can barely hear the mezzo-soprano in the Ninth.” (Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, whose concluding movement, the choral movement, has a quartet of soloists.) She said, “You know what I tell singers who do that part? ‘Wear a pretty dress.’” Our bass, Mikhail Timoshenko, a Russian, did not wear a pretty dress. He wore a good tux, however (as I recall), and he showed a beautiful voice, in his moment in the sun — or that shared moment. I might mention too that “our bass,” Timoshenko, is a baritone. But I am talking trivialities, and the important thing to say is that, in Salzburg this year, we had a strong, smart, uplifting performance of the C Minor Mass. And one left the church that way: uplifted...”
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