I was emailing a colleague a few weeks back about today’s performance and he replied immediately, “Day-um gurl!!! B minor mass!!! Lucky you!! Any time I rehearse Bach, I think….why bother with anything else. You can spend hours on 8 bars and never get bored.” And that does sum up neatly why musicians love this work. Bach is the ultimate mind-stretcher: the singers of the Chorale and I have learned to sing bushels of small black notes over and over until they magically formed into comprehensible patterns; we have been bowled over by beautiful harmonies but unable at first to duplicate them; we have been jolted by moving abruptly from a stile antico fugue to an expressive movement to a wildly exuberant dancing fugue (i.e., the “Gratias”, the “Qui tollis” and the “Cum Sancto Spiritu”). And though we have mastered much of the work, we have not tired of it. We will miss rehearsing it.
Bach did not expect to hear the Mass performed in its entirety – there would have been no opportunity, no service that would have accommodated a two hour work which has elements of both the Catholic and the Lutheran masses. “In the late years of his life when it came time for summing up, Bach set to work on his sacred magnum opus. His labors on the composition we know as the B minor Mass were spread over many years (the title is a nineteenth-century invention; Bach himself never gave the work a single, collective designation). The Mass is in many respects an anthology, a retrospective of a lifetime’s work not unlike other of the kunstbücher , or “books of art” (such as The Art of Fugue ), he assembled during the 1730s and 1740s. As such, it is not the product of one inspired moment, or of any one particular period of the composer’s life, but truly an encyclopedic fusion of every possible Baroque compositional style and form, embodying the very essence of the Baroque art.” (Justin Flossi)
The two first movements, the Kyrie and the Gloria, make up the Lutheran Mass of Bach’s time (another term for this is Missa brevis). The Missa was composed in 1733 as a gift to Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Dresden, who Bach was soliciting for the title of court composer. This very long Missa was performed in Dresden, and there are surviving orchestra parts from the performance, giving generations of musicologists lots to argue about.
Here are just a few things to listen for during the Kyrie:
• The highly expressive nature of the opening Kyrie (“Lord have mercy”), with the dominant musical cell of a sighing half step countered by an affecting upward leap of a sixth. This is a complex movement with, fortunately, a distinctive subject, heard first in the oboes and then throughout the movement in all of the voice parts. The final section of the fugue begins with the basses singing the theme in B minor and the other voice parts (tenor, alto, soprano 1, soprano 2) following; Helmuth Rilling has described this as “pleading for mercy from the depths.”
• The Christe (“Christ have mercy”), which one would think would still be somewhat morose, is lively and rhythmic, with a repeating violin figure throughout. “Addressing the Second Person of the Trinity by two voices is one of the numerous musical symbols to be found throughout the Mass.” (Peter Berquist)
• The next Kyrie is a stile antico piece, meaning it is in the old Renaissance motet style of composition, as in the works of Palestrina. It is again a fugue, in F# minor. Listen for the wonderful syncopated entrances of “Kyrie” in the final section.
The Kyrie is complex, inward, concentrated. The Gloria is a whole different beast – it carries one along, gasping at Bach’s ingenuity in changing styles and at his masterful orchestration. Here are some highlights:
• The opening “Gloria in excelsis” is reminiscent of the Brandenburg Concerti and gives us our first dancing jig in the work. It is connected with a pastoral fugue (“Et in terra pax”).
• The completely Baroque-styled “Laudamus te” is followed with another stile antico fugue (“Gratias agimus tibi”) – the music was originally from Bach’s cantata 29 from 1731, and you will hear it again at the end of the Mass.
• “The duet “Domine Deus” and aria “Qui sedes” frame the chorus “Qui tollis,” the central portion of the text for Bach, in which Jesus Christ is asked for forgiveness.” (Peter Berquist)
• The bass soloist then gets the most-oddly scored work: two bassoons and a French horn. Absolutely luscious. The movement ends with the brilliant “Cum Sancto Spiritu” – listen for the different families of instruments (woodwinds, strings, brass) and then comes the fantastic and highly decorated fugue.
After intermission we come to the central movement of every Mass, the Credo, or as Bach titled it, the Symbolum Nicenum (the Nicene creed). At its heart are the fundamental tenets of Christian faith, Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Here is the structure:
“Credo in unum Deum” – a stile antico fugue stating belief with an old chant tune
“Patrem omnipotentem” – the Baroque orchestra joins the chorus
“Et in unum Dominum” – in this duet, listen for the imitation in the oboes, violins, and voices, denoting the Father and the Son
“Et incarnatus est” – you will hear the sigh motive in the violins. Listen for the rising alto line at “et homo factus est”, which is an inversion of the bass line in the next section.
“Crucifixus” – this chorus with its lamenting bass was first composed in 1714 and revised for the Mass.
“Et resurrexit” – another concerted piece with full orchestra and chorus
“Et in Spiritum sanctum” – a bass solo with two oboi d’amore
“Confiteor” – a stile antico fugue. You will hear the cantus firmus throughout, sometimes in canon and in the final section sung by the tenors in augmentation (longer note values).
“Et expecto” – probably the most amazing movement in the entire work.
The Sanctus, composed in 1724, is a majestic 6-voice setting of angels, followed by the “Pleni sunt coeli”, one of the pieces I refer to as a ‘washing machine movement.’ The text derives from Isaiah 6:
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
3 And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
4 And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. These two sections stand in contrast to each other: the stately, gently floating angels followed by a sort of manically joyful fugue that never seems to stop until it propels us wonderfully to its end.
The Osanna continues in the “unrelenting joy” mode, with the orchestra punctuating the choir’s statements in a very cool way. This is followed by the tenor’s spare, sweet Benedictus, so we go from absolutely everyone on stage playing together to four people.
After one more pass at the Osanna, the mezzo-soprano sings the Agnus Dei, reworked by Bach from his Ascension Oratorio (BWV 11, which was itself a parody of from a work from 1725). It is a beautiful and affecting prayer. The choir and orchestra then conclude the Mass with the Dona nobis pacem, sung to the same music as the “Gratias agimus tibi”. For us it feels exactly right to come back to this beautifully-crafted fugue at the end of our performance, and it also encapsulates what we have heard from Bach throughout: his re-cycling of earlier works, his reverence for the Renaissance motet style, and his beautiful use of the Baroque festival orchestra.
“The universal spirit of Bach which manifests itself in the B-Minor Mass produces… the paradox that one of the most Christian works in all of sacred music transcends and dissolves its confessional limits, serving instead the whole of humanity – non-Christians included.
“It may seem odd at first glance that as a Buddhist I have theologically come to terms with one of the most Christian works of European music history, Bach’s B-Minor Mass. The conciliatory spirit which manifests itself in this work nevertheless encouraged me to do so.”
-Yoshitake Kobayashi, Bach scholar (1987)
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