Mass in B Minor

Abstract

The Mass in B Minor is one of the great art works of modern Western Civilization. And yet, strangely enough, it is actually a composite work, in its present complete form a kind of inspired afterthought on Bachs part; it is in surprisingly large part patched together from ideas borrowed out of earlier Bach works. The complete Mass was never performed as such under Bachs direction. Nor anywhere eise either during his life or for many years thereafter — though probably all of the music was performed, piecemeal. for special Services in Bachs two churches. The Gloria, for instance. was copied out especially for a Christ¬mas Performance some seven years after its composition; the Kyrie and Credo probably were given at other appropriate times. Indeed, the Mass appeared first in a form that included only the first eleven movements (the Kyrie and Gloria) of the present twenty-four, which Bach entitled "Missa." according to the then Lutheran usage. The Missa. clearly intended as a complete work in itself. was submitted in July. 1733, to the new Elector of Saxony at Dresden with a humble request for an appointment as Court Composer. The thirteen additional move¬ments were added to the Missa well after this. evidently to fill out the shape of a grand Mass, supplementing the Kyrie and Gloria with the traditional Credo, Sanctus and Dei sections. The additional music was never submitted to the Elector. When some three years later, Bach belatedly received the nominal title of Court Composer at Dresden he sent a further offering of music; instead of the additional number of the B Minor Mass. he submitted four more works in the same "Missa" form, these quite hastily improvised by the adaptation of earlier works of Bach to the Latin text. It might be added that the manuscript of the B Minor Mass, though it won Bach the desired title, was apparently never performed at Dresden, noreven removed from its wrapper for more than casual inspection. The parts remamed in Dresden, unsullied. almost two centuries later. An immediate query of most listeners may be is the B Minor Mass a "practical" religious work that is. was it intended for use in any actual religious service? The answer is indubitably no, if we speak of the whole as Bach finally compiled it. Nor has it ever been so used. It is a profoundly religious work without question; but it was intended for musical Performance very much in the manner that we now know it best, as a sacred concert or "musical Service" based on religious text and even on religious dogma. but making its effect solely through the musical medium, with¬out accompanying ritual. (Indeed, it is obvious that for practical reasons no existing religious service could be conducted on the huge scale required by the music.) Its presence in recorded form, then, is entirely within Bachs original intention. Is this a Catholic Mass? The answer, again. is no. The circumstances of the presentation of the Kyrie and Gloria to the Elector's Court at Dresden where a Catholic chapel had been maintamed for many years has misled many into assuming that Bach deliberately set a High Mass for use in actual ritual of that faith. The use of Latin text would superficial^ indicate the same. Bach being him-self a Lutheran who composed all his other religious music to German texts. It is quite certam that this was not his intention — not only because of the utterly impractical length of the whole work (nor would the truncated "Missa." the Kyrie and Gloria alone, be of any use in an actual Catholic service) but more particularly because of internal evidence such as Bachs use of numerous ex¬pressive words that did not accord with the accepted Catholic text and thus most definitely could not have been admitted into any official Catholic ritual. (The text of the Mass, it must be remembered. sums up in large part the articles of faith and dogma that have been evolved for centuries and even a change of a Single word can involve enormous areas of belief that have in the past been the Separation between the whole bodies of Christian belief.) What is more, it is not too commonly known that in Bachs day the Lutheran Church made extensive use not only of portions of the original Catholic ritual, outwardly not much altered, but also of the Latin texts. The "Missa" that Bach wrote for Dresden was actually an existing form of ritual in the Lutheran Church of the time, and could theoretically have been used by Bach in an actual service. Every other portion of the B Minor Mass could have been put to Lutheran use as well. Protestant Services of that time were much longer than ours today and were frequently based on the Catholic "frame work" so to speak. with significant alterations and additions. such as the smging of the Choräle hymns in the German.