One could explain away the work’s appeal to historical performers by referring to its status in the standard repertory. But few music lovers would deny that its status reflects its merits. In 1818 a would-be publisher advertised the B Minor Mass as “the greatest musical artwork of all times and people”; and while such hyperbole and ethnocentrism have since gone out of style, the Mass has not. It has easily withstood a century and a half of changing attitudes and probing scholarship. Nineteenth-century devotees might have been disillusioned if they’d known that Bach assembled most of the Mass by re-crafting earlier works (partly in 1733, and finally in 1748-49), but modern enthusiasts have learned as much and do not mind at all.