Collegium Vocal Gent, Philippe Herreweghe

There’s no mightier spiritual or artistic challenge than Bach’s transcendent Mass setting – and few modern performers are better equipped to tackle it than Philip Herreweghe’s pioneering ensemble.

Under Herreweghe’s direction, Collegium Vocale Gent has been performing Bach in a historically informed style for nearly six decades. And after a near-lifetime’s experience, Herreweghe’s ensemble approaches this music with an understanding and a naturalness that’s almost unequalled.

The Guardian sensed ‘a spine-tingling sense of the infinite’ when Herreweghe directed the B minor Mass in London in 2011: and after a whole career spent contemplating Bach’s divine mysteries, his self-effacing manner takes him remarkably close to the soul of this sublime music.