Magnificat (Bach)

Musical composition by Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243, is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat. It is scored for five vocal parts (two sopranos, alto, tenor and bass), and a Baroque orchestra including trumpets and timpani. It is the first major liturgical composition on a Latin text by Bach. In 1723, after taking up his post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Bach set the text of the Magnificat in a twelve movement composition in the key of E flat major. For a performance at Christmas he inserted four hymns (laudes) related to that feast. This version, including the Christmas interpolations, was given the number 243.1 (previously 243a) in the catalogue of Bach's works. Likely for the feast of Visitation of 1733, or another feast in or around that year, Bach produced a new version of his Latin Magnificat, without the Christmas hymns: instrumentation of some movements was altered or expanded, and the key changed from E flat major to D major, for performance reasons of the trumpet parts. This version of Bach's Magnificat is known as BWV 243.2 (previously BWV 243). After publication of both versions in the 19th century, the second became the standard for performance. It is one of Bach's most popular vocal works.

In Leipzig, the Magnificat was regularly part of Sunday services, sung in German on ordinary Sundays but more elaborately and in Latin on the high holidays (Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) and on the three Marian feasts Annunciation, Visitation and Purification.

Apart from an early setting of the Kyrie, on a mixed Greek and German text (BWV 233a), all of Bach's known liturgical compositions in Latin were composed during his tenure as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, from 1723 until his death in 1750. Compared to Lutheran practice elsewhere, an uncharacteristic amount of Latin was used in church services in Leipzig. An early account of Bach showing interest in liturgical practices in Leipzig dates from 1714, when he noted down the order of the service on the first Sunday in Advent during a visit to the town. At the time Johann Kuhnau was the Cantor in Leipzig. When Kuhnau died in 1722, one of the candidates applying for the post of Thomaskantor was Christoph Graupner, a former pupil of Kuhnau, who reused a Magnificat he had composed for Christmas 1722 as an audition piece in January 1723, three weeks before Bach presented his audition cantatas Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22 and [[Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, BWV 23. Bach assumed the position of Thomaskantor on 30 May 1723, the first Sunday after Trinity, performing an ambitious cantata in 14 movements, [[Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, followed by a comparable cantata, [[Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes, BWV 76 the next Sunday.

The traditional setting of Luther's German translation of the Magnificat ("Meine Seele erhebt den Herren") is a German variant of the tonus peregrinus, a rather exceptional psalm tone in Gregorian chant. The tonus peregrinus (or ninth tone) is associated with the ninth mode or Aeolian mode. For the traditional setting of Luther's German Magnificat that is the minor mode for which the last note of the melodic formula is the tonic, a fifth below its opening note. The tonus peregrinus variant that is associated with Luther's German Magnificat appears in compositions by, among others, Johann Hermann Schein, Heinrich Schütz, Johann Pachelbel and Dietrich Buxtehude. Bach uses the melodic formula as an instrumental cantus firmus in movement 10 (Suscepit Israel) of his Latin Magnificat. He uses it again in his "German Magnificat", i. e. the cantata [[Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10 composed for Visitation of 1724, in the chorale harmonisations BWV 323 and 324, and in the fourth Schübler Chorale BWV 648. Also in BWV 733, Fuga sopra il Magnificat, the melodic formula is used as a theme: this chorale prelude may however be the work of Bach pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs.

Being a quintessential part of vespers, evensong or matins, the Magnificat was, already for over a century before Bach's composition, the liturgical text that was most often set to music apart from the Mass ordinary. In Protestantism there was no Latin text more often set to music than the Magnificat. Also settings of the German text of the Magnificat were current from the early 17th century, without one form suppressing the other. Extended settings of the Magnificat, also indicated as settings in a concertato sectional construction, that is in several movements with chorus, orchestra and vocal soloists, and a non linear treatment of the text (parts of the text repeated multiple times by the singers), go back to the old Italian school of music. Such an example can be found in Claudio Monteverdi's Magnificat a 7 voci, one of two alternative Magnificat settings included in his Vespro della Beata Vergine. In a Lutheran tradition there is for example Schütz' Latin Magnificat, SWV 468. Magnificat composers like Johann Levini, Antonio Lotti and Francesco Durante are cited as possible inspirations for Bach. Around Bach's time there are also examples by Heinichen and by Vivaldi. In many of these settings a single verse of the Magnificat can be sung by one or more soloists alternating with choral singing, as Bach does in his treatment of the third Magnificat verse: the soprano sings the first words of the verse, while the chorus concludes it. This particular split of the third verse, leaving only the last two words (omnes generationes) to the chorus, had been practised before by Ruggiero Fedeli, and in a Magnificat in G minor from 1720 which Bach probably knew (that Magnificat in G minor used to be attributed to Tomaso Albinoni). Also Graupner's 1722 Magnificat had this split. Samuel Scheidt's Geistliche Konzerte III (1635) contained three Magnificats with interpolations, the first of these (SSWV 299 for SSATTB and basso continuo) with the first stanza of "Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her" as first interpolation.

In the Gospel of Luke the words of the Magnificat are spoken by Mary when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, both being pregnant, Mary with Jesus and Elizabeth with John the Baptist. In Christianity, the feast commemorating that visit is called Visitation. It is a chosen opportunity to give more than ordinary attention to the Magnificat canticle in liturgy, while the feast celebrates the event tied to its origin. In Bach's time the feast day of Visitation fell on 2 July. The D major version of Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243.2) may have been performed on 2 July 1733, as part of the church service in the St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. That year there had been a period of mourning after the death of the sovereign, Augustus the Strong. During that mourning period, which ran from Sexagesima Sunday (15 February) to the fourth Sunday after Trinity (28 June), no concerted music was allowed in the churches. During that period Bach had been composing a Kyrie Gloria mass in B minor which he dedicated to the successor, Frederick Augustus II, in a letter signed 27 July 1733. The first occasion after the mourning period that re allowed concerted church music was the feast of Visitation, Thursday 2 July 1733. It is possible that Bach produced his new version of the Magnificat for this occasion, although Christmas of the same year as first performance date for the new version is possible too: it can not be determined with certainty on which day around 1732–1735 the D major version of the Magnificat was first performed, and until when Bach amended the score to its final state. Around 1733 Bach filed two cantatas by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, for the fifth and the sixth Sunday after Trinity (5 and 12 July in 1733): Bach may have relied on church music by other composers for the services in Leipzig in July 1733, while composing and copying out the performance parts of the extensive first part of the Mass in B minor. In 2003 Bach scholar Andreas Glöckner argued that the very first version of Bach's Magnificat, that is the E major version before the four Christmas interpolations were added to the autograph, was first performed on 2 July 1723. That would have been exactly ten years before the transposed version, and composed for the same Marian feast. Bach had taken up his post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig on 30 May, the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723. Visitation was the first feast day of his tenure, which called for exceptionally festive music.

Before Glöckner's 2003 article on the origin of the Magnificat, and for some authors still after that, it was generally assumed that Bach had composed his Magnificat in the quiet time of Advent 1723 for a first performance at the Christmas vespers. For that performance Bach composed four laudes, songs of praise partly in German, partly in Latin to be inserted at certain points in the E flat major version of the Magnificat. The E flat major version of the Magnificat including these interpolations is known as BWV 243.1 (previously BWV 243a). The text of these laudes had been used in Leipzig in a Christmas cantata by Bach's predecessor Kuhnau. Possibly those settings in C major of the same four texts as the laudes Bach had included in his Christmas Magnificat were not a self contained cantata, but laudes Kuhnau had composed for insertion in his C major Magnificat when it was to be performed at Christmas. These laudes illustrate what the Gospels describe as the circumstances around Christ's birth, and were embedded in an old tradition named Kindleinwiegen (rocking of the cradle). As these laudes were to be performed with a very limited accompaniment of instruments, they were supposedly performed from the small loft in the high choir of the Thomaskirche, opposite to the large organ loft where the other movements of the Magnificat were performed. Apart from the extant copies of the Latin Magnificat BWV 243, of the German Magnificat BWV 10 and of the chorale harmonisation BWV 324, a Magnificat for soprano solo was considered lost in the 19th century. The score of that so called "little" Magnificat (Kleine Magnificat) was rediscovered in the 20th century, and listed as BWV Anh. 21; however, its authenticity was doubted. In 1982 Melchior Hoffmann was identified as the composer of this German Magnificat Meine Seel erhebt den Herren. A similar cantata on a German paraphrase of the Magnificat, Meine Seele rühmt und preist, BWV 189 for tenor solo and composed for Visitation, has also been attributed to Hoffmann. Another German libretto paraphrasing the Magnificat, published by Picander in his 1728–29 cantata cycle for performance on 2 July 1728, may have been set by Bach. Similarly, a Meine Seele erhebet den Herrn cantata by an unknown librettist for Visitation 1725. BWV Anh. 30 is a Magnificat in C major for double SATB choir and orchestra, copied by Bach around 1742. The manuscript score indicates no composer, but in 2012 it was discovered that it is Bach's arrangement (by adding parts for timpani and for a third trumpet) of a late 17th century composition by Pietro Torri. An earlier attribution of the work had been to Antonio Lotti.

The movements 1 (Magnificat), 7 (Fecit potentiam) and 12 (Gloria patri) are the cornerstones of the composition: they are in the tonic key (E major for BWV 243.1, D major for BWV 243.2), and are the only movements that feature a five part chorus as well as a tutti orchestra. The chorus also sings in movement 4 (Omnes generationes), accompanied by an orchestra without trumpets and timpani, and in movement 11 (Sicut locutus est), there only accompanied by the continuo. The first three choral movements are, in the version without the Christmas hymns, followed by two movements for a vocal soloist, the second one often with richer scoring. In the movements for vocal soloists the instrumentation is as usual in Bach's cantata's: the soloists are accompanied by an obbligato instrument, only strings and/or continuo. Movement A (Vom Himmel hoch) is the only a cappella movement. As natural trumpets were usually tuned in D in Saxony, this is given as a reason why Bach transposed the initial E flat major version to D major.

Bach set the Magnificat for SSATB five part choir. Five vocal soloists are required: two sopranos (sI, sII), alto (a), tenor (t) and bass (b). In movement 10 (Suscepit Israel) both sopranos sing together with the alto.

The Baroque orchestra for BWV 243.1 consists of "due violini, due oboe, tre trombi, tamburi, basson, viola e basso continuo", i. e. two violins (Vl), two oboes (Ob), three trumpets (Tr, tonic), timpani (Ti, tonic and dominant), bassoon, viola (Va) and basso continuo (Bc). Two recorders (flauto dolce, Fl) are required for aria No. 9 Esurientes, but are not part of the tutti. For the 1733 version, Bach used a somewhat more extended orchestra: the recorders are replaced by traversos (Fl) and they get separate parts in all four choral movements. In movements three and four the oboes are replaced by oboes d'amore (Oa). In the 10th movement (Suscepit Israel) the oboes replace the trumpet for the obbligato instrumental part. The continuo part is played by organ, bassoon, cello and violone in most movements. In the 1723 version movement 10 (Suscepit Israel) has a bassett (Ba) part played exclusively by violins and viola in unisono. In the 1733 version this continuo line is given to a continuo that includes cello, but not bassoon and violone.

After the composer's death the autographs of both the E flat major and the D major version of the Magnificat were owned by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. By the end of that century "The Magnificat in D (was) considered one of the grandest illustrations of Bach's genius." Generally it was also the D major version without the Christmas hymns that was chosen for performance.

The score of the E flat major version of Bach's Magnificat was first published by Simrock in 1811, edited by Georg Pölchau, however with printing errors, and without the Christmas hymns. It was the first composition of Bach for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra that was printed in orchestral score, but at the time this publication had little success in sales. When in 1822 young Felix Mendelssohn composed a Magnificat in D major he showed that he knew Bach's version. The D major version of Bach's Magnificat didn't appear in print before the Bach revival that followed Mendelssohn's 1829 performance of the St Matthew Passion. In the 1840s a piano reduction by Robert Franz of Bach's D major version of the Magnificat appeared. In 1862 the orchestral and vocal score was published in Volume 11/1 of the Bach Gesellschaft edition. The same edition printed the Christmas interpolations for the first time. A year later Robert Franz complained the composition had still received too little attention from music critics and so remained virtually unknown to the general public. A year later he published the D major version of the Magnificat with an orchestral score in line with 19th century performance practice, for example expanding the "organ and continuo" single stave with annotated bass from the autograph and the Bach edition into several separate staves for organ, bassoon and celli. Novello printed an Octavo edition of the D major Magnificat in 1874, using a translation to English which John Troutbeck based on the text in The Book of Common Prayer. In 1880, when Bach's autographs of the composition were already kept in the Royal Library (later State Library) of Berlin, Philipp Spitta devoted many pages to the Magnificat in his Bach biography, considering it recognized as one of the greatest achievements of the composer's genius.

In 1924 Arnold Schering edited the full orchestral score of the D major version of Bach's Magnificat for publication by Ernst Eulenburg and Edition Peters. Performances of the Magnificat by, among others, Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra were recorded in the 1940s and appeared on 78 rpm records. LP recordings of the early 1950s included live performances of the Magnificat directed by Otto Klemperer and by Herbert von Karajan, the last one with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as soprano. The Neue Bach Ausgabe published Bach's Magnificat (both BWV 243.1 and BWV 243.2) in 1955, edited by Alfred Dürr. This Urtext score was reused in several ensuing publications by Bärenreiter, among which several with an English translation. More recordings of the Magnificat became available, for instance directed by Kurt Redel, Leonard Bernstein, Karl Richter and Karl Ristenpart. The second half of the 1960s saw the first recordings of the Christmas version of the Magnificat BWV 243.1 including the laudes, and new recordings of the D major version by von Karajan, Karl Münchinger and Daniel Barenboim. The earliest LP releases that contained the Christmas laudes of BWV 243.1 inserted them, transposed, in the D major version BWV 243.2 of the Magnificat. In this form Helmuth Rilling's recording with the Bach Collegium Stuttgart and the Figuralchor der Gedächtniskirche Stuttgart appeared in 1967 with a performance time of 40:06. Wolfgang Gönnenwein's Bach: Magnificat in D (Including Christmas Interpolations), with the Deutsche Bachsolisten and the Süddeutscher Madrigalchor appeared in the 1970s. Bruno Maderna recorded BWV 243.1, with the choir and orchestra of the Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk, and Hedy Graf, Hildegard Laurich, Adalbert Kraus and Michael Schopper as vocal soloists, in 1971. Its CD release as volume 8 of the Maderna Edition by Arkadia was in 1991. Nicolaus Harnoncourt's first recording of the D major version followed in 1984. Also Helmuth Rilling and John Eliot Gardiner had by then recorded the D major version of the Magnificat. 20th century Magnificat composers often refer to Bach's composition in their new setting: Vaughan Williams (1932) and Rutter (1990) include hymns and songs outside the liturgical text in their extended settings, like Bach's Christmas version; Penderecki's extended setting (1973–74) makes musical associations to Bach's D major setting; Pärt uses a SSATB choir in his a cappella setting (1989). Philip Pickett's 1995 recording of the E flat major version appeared on L'Oiseau Lyre. In 2003 Ton Koopman recorded the Christmas version of Bach's Magnificat with Amsterdam Baroque in the St. Thomas church in Leipzig. A DVD of the recording, which included a performance of Kuhnau's Magnificat with his four Christmas interpolations, and of Bach's German Magnificat BWV 10, was released in 2004. Thomas Hengelbrock's recording of BWV 243.1, with the Balthasar Neumann Chor and Ensemble, was released by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 2008. In 2009 Philippe Pierlot performed the D major version of the Magnificat with the Ricercar Consort, with five vocal soloists without choir. Facsimiles of Bach's autographs of both versions of the Magnificat became available on line. Bärenreiter published a critical edition of all score versions, based on Dürr's 1955 edition, again in 2014/15. The "synthetic" D major version, that is the D major version of the Magnificat with the Christmas laudes transposed to fit in that version, now published both by Novello and Bärenreiter, found performers and audiences. That the composition ranges among Bach's most popular vocal works is illustrated by its regular appearance in classical music polls like Klara's Klara's Top 100. In December 2016, Bach's autograph of the D major version of his Magnificat was among the top three most visited scores at the Bach Digital website.