"John Eliot Gardiner's slap brought the intrinsic brutality of the 'B minor Mass' back to the center."

A critic of the past called Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor "the most magnificent musical work the world has ever seen." I share this opinion. Especially when conducted by John Eliot Gardiner in a version unanimously praised for its splendor, its perfection, as well as its energy and power.

I don't know how many times I can listen to it on repeat, performed by the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir. The interminable Kyrie fugue completely captivates me; it gives me the impression of experiencing, while listening to it, a moment of grace.

Since the incident of August 22, 2023, however, my apprehension of this version has evolved. On that day, Gardiner, enraged by the fact that a singer had left the stage the wrong way during a performance of Berlioz's Les Troyens , slapped and punched him. This incident stunned everyone.

Everything, in my eyes, was gentleness and benevolence in this man (whose character and personal life I knew nothing about, to tell the truth). His surname and his physiognomy gave me a glimpse of harmonious bucolic landscapes. In the manner of this air celebrating love in Dido and Aeneas , by Purcell: "To the musical groves/And the cool, shady fountains/Let the triumphs of love/And of beauty be shown."

The doughnut: goodbye to the walled garden, the lush hortus conclusus bathed in harmony. I imagined musicians terrified at the idea of ​​making a mistake, of hitting a wrong note, of knocking over their music stand, prey to the anxiety of upsetting Grosbaff, the conductor. A climate of tension set in. No doubt it was totally fantasized on my part. Gardiner does not have the reputation of being a hitter. On the contrary, he is described as "loving" , "benevolent" .

Yet nothing helped. Was I doomed to never be able to listen to his version of the Mass in B minor again as I had on the first day? Probably. But was it really that dramatic?

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