Mass in B Minor, BWV232, No. 15: Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum

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Do not see this window again for the duration of the session. The work was one of Bach's last compositions, not completed until , the year before his death. Much of the Mass gave new form to vocal music that Bach had composed throughout his career, dating back in the case of the "Crucifixus" to , but extensively revised. To complete the work, in the late s Bach composed new sections of the Credo such as "Et incarnatus est". 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 never performed in its entirety during Bach's lifetime; the first documented complete performance took place in Since the nineteenth century it has been widely hailed as one of the greatest compositions in musical history, and today it is frequently performed and recorded. Five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was 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. The petition did not meet with immediate success, but Bach eventually got his title: In the last years of his life, Bach expanded the Missa into a complete setting of the Latin Ordinary.

It is not known what prompted this creative effort. Wolfgang Osthoff and other scholars have suggested that Bach intended the completed Mass in B minor for performance at the dedication of the new Hofkirche in Dresden, which was begun in and was nearing completion by the late s.

However, the building was not completed until , and Bach's death in July, 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. Other explanations are less event-specific, involving Bach's interest in 'encyclopedic' projects like The Art of Fugue that display a wide range of styles, and Bach's desire to preserve some of his best vocal music in a format with wider potential future use than the church cantatas they originated in.

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The piece is orchestrated for two flutes, two oboes d'amore, one natural horn in D , three natural trumpets in D , timpani, violins I and II, violas and basso continuo cellos, basses, bassoons, organ and harpsichord. Its opening has been thought by some commentators to be a reworking of an unknown instrumental composition, to which Bach added chorus parts. The eventual entries of the trumpets symbolically unite earth with heaven. After instrumental solos for violin and flute, the next two movements feature darker colours.

Yet if any proof were needed that Bach, despite this apparent recycling, conceived the overall shape of this work with anything other than a majestically clear vision, it is found in the Symbolum, which contains one of the most perfectly symmetrical, self-contained structures in any of his large-scale works. The three central choruses are surrounded by a double frame, with the overall key structure of the movements forming a cadential progression in D major.

The outer frame comprises a pair of choral movements, one composed in the stile antico and featuring a cantus firmus, the other a concertato fugue. The inner frame comprises two solo movements linked by instrumentation. At the centre come three astonishing choral movements:. The three central choruses are magnificently poised. It is a mournful passacaglia in E minor where the grief of the chorus and the wistful sighs of the flutes and strings are tied over a melancholy, chromatically falling bass.

During the last four bars the key turns to G major, allowing the crucifixion scene to end peacefully. Certainly the orchestral writing is extensive and complex: Here is pure chamber music.

Orchestrally this allows for three separate three-part instrumental groupings upper strings, oboes and trumpets , and the six-part choir too pits three parts against three parts. All this is set over a magnificently inexorable bass line. There is symbolism too in the total of five groups three orchestral, two choral , for the text of the Preface refers to the five groups who give praise to God: Angels, Archangels, thrones, principalities and all the Company of Heaven.

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. Don't show me this message again. Mass in B minor, BWV composer. June Total duration: Other recordings available for download.

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It is unlikely that Bach ever heard or even expected to hear it performed in its entirety. Setting aside the improbability of performing in a religious service a work which is nearly two hours in length that privilege seems to have been reserved, all too frequently, for sermons , a Missa tota could not have been performed in a Protestant Church, for Luther had removed all sections referring to the sacrifice of Jesus from the liturgy. It would have been equally improbable to have performed the Mass in a Catholic church, for its text did not follow the prescribed Roman format and the closing sections were laid out in an unliturgical form.

At the centre come three astonishing choral movements:

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