The Mass in B minor (BWV 232) is a musical setting of the complete Latin Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach. The work was one of Bach's last, not completed until 1749, the year before his death in 1750. Much of the Mass consisted of music that Bach had composed earlier: the Kyrie and Gloria sections had been composed as a Lutheran Missa in 1733 for the Elector of Saxony at Dresden. The Sanctus dates back to 1724, and the Qui tollis movement was based on an cantata chorus dating from 1714. To complete the work, however, in the 1740s Bach composed new sections of the Credo such as Et incarnatus est. The completed Mass was his last major composition.
It was unusual for composers working in the Lutheran tradition to compose a Missa tota and Bach's motivations remain a matter of scholarly debate. The Mass was most probably never performed in totality during Bach's lifetime, and the work largely disappeared in the 18th century. Several performances in the early 19th century, however, sparked a revival both of the piece and the larger rediscovery of Bach's music. Today, it is widely hailed as a monumental work of the late Baroque and is frequently performed.
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Bach did not give the work a title; instead, in the score four parts of the Latin Mass are each given their own title page—"Missa" (consisting of the Kyrie and Gloria), "Symbolum Nicenum" (the profession of faith or Credo), "Sanctus", and "Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei et Dona nobis pacem"—and simply bundled together. Indeed, the different sections call for different numbers and arrangements of performers, giving rise to the theory that Bach did not ever expect the work to be performed in its entirety. On the other hand, the parts in the manuscript are numbered from 1 to 4, and Bach's usual closing formula (S.D.G = Soli Deo Gloria) is only found at the end of the Dona Nobis Pacem.
In 1733 Bach had composed a Lutheran Missa (Kyrie and Gloria) for the court of Dresden. Although he was a committed Lutheran, it is uncertain whether he composed it for the Lutheran liturgy or composed it for the Elector of Saxony who had just been elected king of Poland and therefore had to convert to Catholicism.
Early in 1733 Augustus II, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, died. Five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was temporarily suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a Missa, a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites.
His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign Augustus III, a Catholic, and by doing so to hope to improve his own standing. On its completion, Bach visited Augustus and presented him with a copy of the Missa, together with a petition to be given a court title, dated July 27, 1733. The petition did not meet with immediate success, but Bach did eventually get his title: he was made court composer to Augustus in 1736.
Some scholars have assumed that the Missa was first performed in Leipzig in April, 1733 during the festival of the Oath of Allegiance to Augustus III. It consisted of settings of the Kyrie and Gloria that now comprise the first part of the Mass in B minor. There is, however, no proof for this assumption and no manuscript parts for a performance in Leipzig exist.
The performance material Bach submitted to Augustus on July 27, 1733 was written on Dresden-made paper, in the hand of Bach, his wife Anna Magdalena, sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, and a Dresden copyist. This suggests the piece was written out in Dresden by the Bach family for a July performance in the Sophienkirche (where Wilhelm Friedemann was organist), or perhaps the Hofkirche im Theater.[1]
Bach composed four Missae for liturgical use around 1738/39. At what point Bach decided to expand the 1733 Missa into a complete setting of the Catholic Mass is not known. Some researchers believe that parts of the Symbolum Nicenum (or the Credo) were composed between 1742 and 1745. The Sanctus was composed for Christmas 1724. The remaining parts were added in the late 1740s.[2] The last movement to be added was Et incarnatus est. The words had been included in the preceding duet, but then Bach treated them as a separate movement for the choir, giving them extra weight and improving the symmetry of the Credo.[3]
Wolfgang Osthoff and other scholars have suggested that Bach assembled the Missa Tota for performance at the dedication of the new Hofkirche in Dresden, which was begun in 1738 and was nearing completion by the late 1740s. However, the building was not completed until 1751, and Bach's death in July, 1750 prevented his Mass from being submitted for use at the dedication. Instead, Johann Adolph Hasse's Mass in D minor was performed, a work with many similarities to Bach's Mass (the Credo movements in both works feature chant over a walking bass line, for example.)[4]
According to Mellers, the chronology of the sections of the Mass is obscure.[5]
Although only some movements of the work can be specifically identified as being reused from earlier music, some scholars such as Joshua Rifkin believe, on the basis of manuscript evidence and compositional models, that the majority of the music was reused.[9] Exceptions are the opening four bars of the first Kyrie,[10] and sections of the Credo, Credo I, Et incarnatus est and Confiteor. Erasures and corrections on the manuscript make this evident.[11] Details of the parodied movements and their sources are listed in the movement listing.
The Mass in B minor is widely regarded as one of the supreme achievements of classical music. Alberto Basso summarizes the work as follows: "The Mass in B minor is the consecration of a whole life: started in 1733 for 'diplomatic' reasons, it was finished in the very last years of Bach's life, when he had already gone blind. This monumental work is a synthesis of every stylistic and technical contribution the Cantor of Leipzig made to music. But it is also the most astounding spiritual encounter between the worlds of Catholic glorification and the Lutheran cult of the cross.".[12]
Scholars have suggested that the Mass in B minor belongs in the same category as the Art of Fugue, as a summation of Bach's deep lifelong involvement with musical tradition—in this case, with choral settings and theology. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff describes the work as representing "a summary of his writing for voice, not only in its variety of styles, compositional devices, and range of sonorities, but also in its high level of technical polish...Bach's mighty setting preserved the musical and artistic creed of its creator for posterity."[13]
The Mass was announced in the 19th century by the editor Hans Georg Nägeli as "The Greatest Artwork of All Times and All People" ("Ankündigung des größten musikalischen Kunstwerkes aller Zeiten und Völker").[14] Even though it had never been performed, its importance was appreciated by some of Bach's greatest successors—by the beginning of the 19th century Forkel and Haydn possessed copies, and Beethoven made two attempts to acquire a score.[15]
C. P. E. Bach made annotations and corrections to his father's manuscript of the Mass, while also adding emendations and revisions of his own.[16] For this and other reasons, the Mass in B minor poses a considerable challenge to prospective editors, and substantial variations can be noted in different editions. The manuscript is in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin[17]
The work consists of 27 sections.
In 1786, thirty-six years after Bach's death, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach performed the Symbolum Nicenum section (under the title "Credo") at a charity concert in Hamburg.[19] Scholars believe the Mass was not performed in its entirety until the mid-19th century; according to Bach scholar John Butt, there is "no firm evidence of a complete performance before that of the Riedel-Verein in Leipzig in 1859".[20]
The Bach Choir of Bethlehem performed the American premiere of the complete Mass on March 27, 1900 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, though there is evidence that parts of the Mass had been performed in the United States as early as 1870.[21]