Magical and overwhelmingly powerful setting of the Polish Mass by Jan Maklakiewicz (1899-1954) and JS Bach’s (1685-1750) “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” performed by an orchestra of ‘deaf-mute’ children as conceived by the consistently challenging contemporary artist Artur Zmijewski. The first side comes from a 2002 performance that took place in St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, the church in which Bach served as a cantor for many years and in which he is buried. Accompanied at points by a professional mezzo soprano the ‘deaf-mute’ choir are conducted through a reading that is upsettingly beautiful, with a vocal performance that is so removed from any kind of formal concerns or even any way of fully registering or measuring the individual’s contribution that it’s like hearing music for the first time. Up against the beautiful, ‘formal’ trappings of the accompaniment the effect is of an otherworldly zone of pure unselfconscious body sound, the sounds of praise minus any kind of established vocabulary. The second side, the version of the Polish Mass recorded in 2001 at the Ausburg Evangelical Holy Trinity church in Warsaw Poland sees the choir accompanied simply by a church organ and it includes long seconds of deep black silence. Supported by the slightest of defining structure the voices rise and fall, combing sudden shrieks and moans with barely-articulated whisperings and beautifully circuitous off-melodies. Indeed, the stunning vocal on “Kyrie” is one of the most affecting and uncomfortably beautiful solo voice performances I’ve ever heard, and the confession of faith that is central to the piece cannot help but move even the hardest of hearts: “In this holy place, in this holiest place, our voice rises to you and erupts as the sea roars from the deepest abyss. O Christ, hear us! O Christ, listen to us!” Some of the most otherworldy, incomprehensibly beautiful tragic Holy Music this side of Arvo Part and Albert Ayler. I only hope that the listing of “Polish Mass” on the inner sleeve as “Polish Mess” is an inadvertent typo, if not I suspect Zmijewski of undermining the piece and exercising the kind of arbitrary critical judgement and schoolboy prankster aesthetic that is normally absent from his work. It really is a lesson in how to sing. Simply cannot recommend this LP enough, profoundly affecting. Highest possible recommendation. PS - just heard from the label and "Polish Mess" is indeed, thankfully, a typo...