Extracts from a review by Shelagh Godwin which first appeared in the Surrey Advertiser in January 2010:

The Rodolfus Choir … graced Holy Trinity, Guildford, on New Year's Eve, with their performance of the Mass in B Minor, a work, which, unlike the Passion, was never performed in its entirety during Bach's lifetime.

Its quality was evident from the outset: the big bold opening to the Kyrie followed by a fugue of remarkable complexity.

Here, accompanied by the skilled strings and woodwind of the Southern Sinfonia, they rose to a magnificent climax, echoed in subsequent movements, such as the fugal Gracias agimus with its radiant trumpet parts ringing out, as they would have done in Bach's day, on natural trumpets.

It would be hard to find fault with this performance: quiet emotion in the Crucifixus, effervescent virtuosity in the Et Resurrexit, exquisite grandour in the six-part Sanctus. The great Leipzig Cantor might have been well pleased, particularly when his extraordinary harmonies and key-changes towards the end of the archaic Confiteor melded into a vibrant Et expecto resurrectionum, complete with trumpets and drums, in an amazingly effective manner, enhanced by Allwood's deft treatment of that moment.

Outstanding was alto Clint van der Linde's rendering of the touching Agnus Dei.

Soprano Caroline Backhouse and tenor Ben Johnson provided some glorious singing, partnered by excellent flute playing, in the radiant duet Domine Deus, and bass Colin Campbell sung a wonderfully wide-ranging Et in Spiritu Sanctum. Not to mention his deep-toned Quoniam, in which the terrific sounds of Gavin Edwards's natural horn were very apt.

[The Choir will be recording Bach's B Minor Mass this year. You will soon be able to pre-order this CD online.]