Mass in B Minor
— Bach’s only complete setting of the latin ordinary of the mass
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J. S. Bach |
Bach re-used some of the missa music in the mid-1740s for the Latin cantata ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ BWV191. It is possible that the D major Sanctus composed for Christmas 1724 was performed on the same day (perhaps celebrating the peace of Dresden in 1745, concluding the second Silesian war). Thus the juxtaposition of these two works, related as they are to the Latin Ordinary, may have inspired Bach to compile a missa tota in the remaining years of his life, perhaps in response to his first and only personal experience of the horrors of war.
However, we know of no definite occasion for the performance of the mass as a whole. There is some circumstantial evidence to link it with further commissions from, or presentations to, the Dresden court but it is eminently possible that Bach compiled it with no specific occasion or performance in mind, and that it belongs among the increasingly abstract and ‘speculative’ cycles from his later years, such as Clavier-Ubung III or The Art of Fugue.
Bach drew much of the material for the Mass in B Minor from existing works, producing a veritable compendium of all the styles he had employed in the composition of arias and choruses throughout his career. There is almost the sense that he was scanning his career to compile some of his ‘greatest hits’. The ‘lack’ of originality is more than adequately compensated by the skill with which he adapted the material to fit the new context. Furthermore, by abstracting movements from some of his finest vocal works, originally performed for specific occasions and Sundays within the Church’s year, he was doubtlessly attempting to preserve the pieces within the more durable context of the Latin Ordinary. Although many of the movements lack existing models is may well be that they reflect lost cantatas — both sacred and secular.
Of the movements for which models survive, ‘Crucifixus’ comes from the earliest traceable source for any movement in the entire mass — the first section of the chorus opening Cantata 12, ‘Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen’, composed in Weimar for 22 April 1714. Here Bach adds the interlocking flute lines, the throbbing crotchet movement in the continuo, and the four-bar introduction of the ground bass. The final four bars, with the extraordinary move to G major, are new in ‘Crucifixus’, perhaps representing Christ lowered into the sepulchre, or the redemption achieved through Christ’s death.
The music for ‘Et expecto’ shows the most complex version. Bach basically took the opening section of a da capo movement (Cantata 120), removed the opening and closing ritornellos, and added a second soprano part throughout. This process of adaptation may provide a clue as to how many of the other movements (for which there are no surviving models) were reworked: elements that might inhibit the momentum of the new sequence of movements were stripped away and the entire texture rewritten to accommodate the fifth voice.
What is most remarkable about the overall shape of the Mass in B minor is the fact that Bach managed to shape a coherent sequence of movements from diverse material. When he presented the B minor missa to the Elector of Saxony in 1733, he clearly viewed it as a complete and independent work with its own proportions and unity. The solo numbers utilize all five voices and each instrumental family is represented in turn. The Gloria begins and ends with paired movements, and another paired group is placed just beyond the midway point (‘Domine Deus’–‘Qui tollis’). ‘Domine Deus’ also forms the symmetrical centre of the Gloria, surrounded as it is by a pair of choruses, then a pair of arias, and, at the outermost point, by the choruses that begin and end the Gloria. Robin Leaver suggests that another form of symmetry places the theologically crucial ‘Qui tollis’ (Christ, through his Passion, taking away the sins of the world) at the centre; the liturgical hymn forming the second section of the Gloria (beginning with ‘Laudamus te’) can be seen as distinct from the first section (‘Gloria’–‘Et in terra’), the biblical hymn, so that within this second section ‘Qui tollis’ forms the central focus. The key scheme of the missa also seems significant, with the Kyrie covering the triad of B minor (B-D-F sharp) and the Gloria based on D major, the key set up by the middle movement of the Kyrie (‘Christe eleison’) and thus perhaps alluding to the new covenant of Christ.
Like the missa, the Symbolum Nicenum (Credo), seems to have its own cohesive structure. Many have observed that it is a superlative example of Bach’s concern with symmetry, something which was undoubtedly facilitated by the addition of the independent movement for ‘Et incarnatus est’ at a late stage in the compilation. With this insertion in place, ‘Crucifixus’ becomes the central pivot and the centre of the trinity of movements concerning Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. Flanking this are two solo numbers, the duet ‘Et in unum’ and the aria ‘Et in Spiritum sanctum’. The Symbolum begins and ends with pairs of choruses, each consisting of one movement in the Palestrinian stile antico (complete with Gregorian cantus firmus) and one in a festal concerted style. This pairing also helps to focus and complement the central choruses, where the contrast of affect between two successive movements chould hardly be greater (‘Crucifixus’–‘Et resurrexit’).
Clearly the symmetrical design reflects the doctrinal function of the Credo as the cornerstone of the Christian faith. The use of arachaic elements (the references to Gregorian chant and the stile antico) underline both the tradition and the ‘timeless’ qualities behind the text. But Bach is anxious to show the Credo as a living and relevant testimony: he employs modern, almost galant idioms (‘Et in unum’ and ‘Et in Spiritum sanctum’) and utilizes the most affective and emotional musical means at his disposal for the poignant ‘human’ components of this ancient text (‘Et incarnatus’ and ‘Crucifixus’).
Bach seems to have given considerable thought to the cohesion of the work as a whole. That he had some notion of a cycle of related works is also suggested by the Christmas Oratorio, in which the first chorale melody heard in Part 1 is also that which closes Part 6 (each part being likewise performed on a separate occasion). In the case of the mass, the most obvious cyclic feature is the return of the music of ‘Gratias agimus tibi’ (from the Gloria) for ‘Dona nobis pacem’, which closes the entire work. Furthermore, both B minor and D major function as points of reference throughout, and Bach seems to have carefully devised the overall key schemes.
Bach’s score of the mass was inherited by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who clearly allowed many scholars and collectors access to it, and who performed at least part of it himself: the Credo (Symbolum Nicenum) at a charity concert in Hamburg in 1786. By the beginning of the 19th century J. N. Forkel and Haydn possessed copies, and Beethoven made two attempts to acquire a score. During the second decade of the century the Berlin Singakademie rehearsed the entire work, and further performances of parts of it are evident throughout the next two decades. However, there is no firm evidence of a complete performance until that of the Riedel-Verein in Leipzig in 1859.
The comparative lateness of the first complete performance may be partially explained by the fact that there was not a complete edition of the work until 1845, when Simrock completed the edition of which Nageli had issued a first instalment in 1833. The Bach-Gesellschaft produced an edition in 1856, which it reissued a year later after having gained access to the autograph score.
With the new editions and first complete performance, many performances were to follow in the latter half of the century, and the work soon became the object of extensive music criticism. Spitta, for instance, tried to unite the Catholic flavour of the work with the essence of Lutheranism, noting that Luther’s original intention was to reform rather than to destroy the established Church. He is particularly enlightened regarding the issue of parody, suggesting that Bach chose pieces of appropriate ‘poetic feeling’, ‘precious gems’ awaiting a ‘new setting’. Schweitzer likewise saw the union of Catholic and Protestant elements, the sublimity of the one sitting beside the intimacy of the other.
The Neue Bach Ansgabe produced a new edition in 1954 under the editorship of Friedrich Smend, who drew attention to the structure of the score as four separate manuscripts bound together; he was also a perceptive scholar of Bach’s compositional process and his methods of revision and parody. However, the edition soon came in for stern criticism for its faulty evaluation of the sources, such as Smend’s use of manuscripts from after Bach’s death and his underestimation of the value of the Dresden parts. The recent edition by Christoph Wolff rectifies these shortcomings and there is now a plethora of material on its history and impact. It has become one of the ‘key works’ in the movement promoting historically informed performance, a tradition that The Academy of Ancient Music continues with its forthcoming concert in Frankfurt. [September 1997]
This article is an excerpt from J. S. Bach, in the series The Oxford Composer Campanions, and is reproduced with the kind permission of Oxford University Press.
The Academy of Ancient Music would like to thank Malcolm Boyd and John Butt, for their very kind assistance.