Magnificat, BWV 243

Bach took up his final post as cantor of St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig under less than auspicious conditions. He was the third choice for the job and only appointed hesitatingly after the first two candidates—Telemann and Graupner—declined the post. Bach was nevertheless eager to get straight to work and put his best foot forward. Sadly, relations with his employers would sour fairly quickly. The Magnificat heard this evening was one of the first works completed by Bach in Leipzig. It was performed with added hymns at Christmas 1723. Originally set in E-flat major, Bach transposed it with slight revisions for subsequent occasions; the hymns were removed and the key changed to D major to accommodate natural trumpets. This version, a Latin setting of the complete Magnificat text, has become the standard concert version.
Bach divided the text across twelve movements. Luke 1:46 – 55 comprises the first eleven movements, and the whole work is crowned with a doxology (a hymn of praise traditionally used at the close of psalms and canticles). Each line of verse occupies one movement with the exception of verse 48, which is spread across the linked third and fourth movements. The work is scored for orchestra and five-part chorus with divided sopranos, though the full ensemble only appears together in certain key situations. These include the anchoring movements #1, #7, and #12. Bach built the total structure of the Magnificat as an approximately symmetrical arch. Movement #7 stands at the center; certain pairs of movements moving outward from the center share the same tonality:

Movement: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Tonality: D D b f# A e D f# E b D D

Moreover, the closing theme is a quotation of the opening, thereby again drawing attention to the work’s form and symmetry.

This Magnificat is unique among Bach’s output and, alongside the B-Minor Mass, is one of only two large-scale sacred works in Latin that he created. Nearly everything else Bach wrote uses German texts and borrows heavily on Luther’s precedent. The Magnificat is much more “southerly” in its outlook, straying close to opera at times. The chorus and orchestra step forth majestically in the first movement, and the use of timpani and brass signal a festive mood. This kind of work would have been performed only high holidays, such as Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, as well as the Marian feast days. All of the arias, such as Et exultavit (#2) for mezzo-soprano and strings, use reduced scoring. They are usually quite florid and happily eschew the conventional da capo form. This allows the drama to continue moving forward rather than awkwardly doubling back to repeat earlier material. This is particularly effective in the powerful tenor aria (#8). The lack of da capo form also keeps the entire work to a taut 30-minute duration. In the case of the dolorous soprano aria in B minor, accompanied by oboe d’amore, Bach can also proceed without pause into the boisterous chorus Omnes generationes. Indeed, he dovetails the aria’s end with the downbeat of the chorus, creating a clamorous, hurried affect.
Throughout, Bach attends to opportunities for word painting. Consider the tender Misericordia. Scored as a duet for alto and tenor, the E-minor key and triple meter produce a hypnotic, humbling mood. Bach elicits a heightened effect through striking chromatic touches (typically the lowered-2nd and lowered-5th scale degrees). At times the sound strikingly reminds one of the poignant vocal mannerisms of a Renaissance madrigal. In the choral centerpiece (#7), Bach scatters the vocal lines at dispersit, pauses for rhetorical effect on superbos (“the proud”), and writes an adagio in antique style for “the imagination of their hearts.” After two powerful arias (for tenor and then alto) and an austere trio for female voices with oboe accompaniment, the chorus returns to carry forward toward a grandiose conclusion. The finale begins with a fugal Sicut locutus est back in the key of D major, followed by the final Gloria. In this last movement, Bach plays with a series of imitative entries for all five voice parts—sometimes building up from the bottom of the texture, sometimes reversing the effect to descend gradually from sopranos down to basses. As mentioned, this final material also recycles the first movement, a unifying strategy with additional liturgical possibilities: “In the end is my beginning.”
This Magnificat marked the beginning of Bach’s tenure at Leipzig. In a sense, it is hard to imagine how he could have made a better start. By comparison to the massive Passions and the B-Minor Mass, this Magnificat seems light, even lightweight in an emotional sense. But taken in a different vein, it is simply pared down to essentials, incredibly concise and filled with masterful small touches. Bach would write hundreds of other vocal works for Leipzig, but none finer than this Magnificat.

(c) Jason Stell