Bach’s B Minor Mass Et incarnatus est and Et expecto resurrectionem
Becca Carter MusHis 330 Steib Fall 2011
In the final years of his life, Johann Sebastian Bach arranged and revised a collection of work known as the B Minor Mass. The B Minor Mass was not a piece that was built from the ground up, but rather it was older works that Bach had wrote and arranged to create his masterpiece.[1] Within the Credo section or the Symbolum Nicenum, the fourth section, Et incarnatus est, and the ninth section, Et expecto resurrectionem, are the two sections I am comparing. The et incarnatus est is in the stile antico and the Et expecto resurrectionem is in the modern style. Because of the style difference, there are drastic differences in instrumentation, along with differences in meter, tempo, and expression of the text, but the real genius is how Bach is able to connect this two sections into the same Credo.
Bach started his career in composition at a young age. He quit his job of being the organist of St. Blaise’s Church to pursue his career in composing church music. Bach’s Lutheran faith had a massive impression on his compositional skills. In his career, Bach wrote over 1,130 compositions and almost 450 of the compositions were chorale settings.[2] Most of these compositions fueled later pieces through cantus firmus or simply the same piece reworked into a new piece. At a young age (around 10 years) Bach was orphaned and lived with his older brother in the town of Ohrdruf. Both Bach’s uncle and brother, Johann Christoph, were organist, and while Bach was living with his older brother in Ohrdruf, he studied organ.[3]
As a budding young musician and almost to the age of being old enough to take care of himself (15 years old). Bach applied to study at the St. Michael’s Church School in Luneburg. He acquired a scholarship through his financial state and his impressive soprano voice. At St. Michael’s, Bach studied Latin and Greek, logic and rhetoric, and religion and music. It was while at school his organ skills flourished.[4] After graduation, Bach spent a year without employment, but was finally able to local a job as a violinist for a small orchestra. And in 1703, Bach secured a job as the organist at New Church (St. Boniface). It was here that Bach was really able to explore his compositional skills behind the keyboard of the organ. He would practice and experiment with his composition in private and not have to worry about the public eye watching him as he bloomed into the compositional master that we know him today.[5]
Bach’s last post was his duties as the Kantor of St. Thomas and Town Music Director of Leipzig, Germany. He was not the first choice for the job, and to make up for that, Bach produced five annual cycles of church cantatas within his first six years at St. Thomas.[6] After 1729, it seems as though Bach went through a mid-life crisis and suffered from a fear of a blank page. It was within this mid-life crisis that Bach went through a compositional change that directly affected and lead to the composition of the B Minor Mass. Bach refined his skills in parody writing and wrote some of his masterpieces – Clavierubung III, “Goldberg” Variations, and Art of Fugue.[7]
The start of the B Minor Mass occurred during 1714 with the composition of “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” of Cantata 12 of 1714. The Crucifixus portion of the Credo can be found within this cantata. In around 1738, Bach set music that contained both the Kyrie and Gloria of the mass, but it was not until winter 1745 that Bach thought to set the entire Mass Ordinary. Evidence suggests this because soon after, Bach starts to move past the Kyrie and Gloria and write the nine movements of the Credo.[8]
The B Minor Mass was one of Bach’s last great works before his death in 1750. But the mass was not written at the same time; in fact, the Kyrie and Gloria were written approximately fifteen years earlier than the Credo and remaining sections of the mass. Bach’s last active period of composition was from August 1748 to October 1749. It was within this time that he assembled the Symbolum Nicenum (Credo), Sanctus, and Agnus Dei of the mass.[9]
Bach used a combination of both the stiles antico and stile nuovo or modern style. In the Credo portion of the mass there are four movements that are set in the stile antico; they are Credo in unum Deum, Et incarnatus est, Crucifxus, and Confiteor in unum batisma. On the other hand, there are three movements in the Credo that are in the modern concerto style; Patrem omnipotentem, Et resurrexit, and Et expecto resurrectionem. The remaining two movements are solos instead of choral works.[10]
Stile antico is the style of counterpoint that is related back to Renaissance polyphony and Palestrina. The stile antico consists of imitative textures, the traditional approach to dissonances and resolving them, and a balanced melodic style. Bach uses the stile antico in places of structural importance in the Credo portion of the mass because these movements were where the text and music related the most and were most intimate with each other.[11] In Et incarnatus est, Bach uses alla breve meter, or non dance-like rhythms. He also uses the traditional approach and resolve of dissonances. Et incarnatus est is scored for five voices: Soprano I and II, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. Scoring for a full choir also falls under the characteristics of stile antico.
Then on the other hand, Bach uses the stile moderno, or modern concerto style, for the last movement of the Credo, Et expecto resurrectionem. Stile moderno is classified as the counterpoint of the seventeenth century or seconda practica. It was thought by composers, like Monteverdi, that the text was more important than the music, and therefore the traditional rules of counterpoint could be broken if it helps portray what the text is trying to express.[12] It also meant for more instrumentation, which Bach used to the extreme in the ninth movement. The instrumentation in the movement is trumpet I, II, and III, timpani, flute I and II, oboe I and II, violin I and II, viola, and continuo. And on top of all the instrumentation that Bach wrote, he scored this last movement for a full choir with five voice parts.
Bach’s background was of Lutheran, not Catholic. But he took his background and related the ideas of the importance of the trinity into the mass. The Credo section is one of the most famous examples of this symbolism. Bach arranges the text into nine separate movements that are all centered around the Crucifixus movement.[13]
In the Credo section of the mass, Bach spilt the words of the section into nine movements. In each of the nine movements, the musical style and setting reflects the words that are in the section. In the fourth section, Bach singles out the words “Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine et homo factus est.”[14] Translated, the words are, “By the power of the Holy Spirit He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” Reflecting on the words of this specific movement, Bach uses symbolism in the violin and voice parts to match what is being said in the text. The violin motive that begins and continues to the end of the piece uses a visual reference to the cross. (See example 1). In the vocal line of the movement, Bach sharps the fourth note of the bass. The words sharp and cross are identical in German. Bach uses the sharp note to relate back the violin motive and the texts in the movement.[15] Lastly, the violin accompaniment part is always descending, just as Christ descended from heaven to earth to take on the form of a man.[16]
In the ninth movement of the Credo, Bach singles out the remaining words in the Credo. They are, “Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.”4 When translated, the words are “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.” This last movement is a reworking of Bach’s earlier choral movement from the contata, Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, BWV 120. But Bach takes the time to arrange the four voice movement of the cantata into a five voice arrangement for the ending movement of the Credo.[17] This is because the eighth movement of the Credo, the Confiteor, is arranged for five voices, and Bach did not want the ending of the Credo to seem smaller and less of an impacted because it was arranged for four voices instead of five
While looking at the Mass as a whole, the tonality of the piece is really not in B minor, but it is in D Major. The main key that is reverted back to throughout the Credo and the entirety of the mass is D Major.[18] When Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, Bach’s second surviving son, produced performance parts for the Credo, he named the catalogue, “Die grobe catholische Messe”. This is translated into the “Great Catholic Mass”.[19] B minor and D major are relative keys of each other and therefore make it easy for Bach to transition in between the two keys. Et incarnatus est is in the key of B minor and Et expectoresurrectionem is in the key of D Major. Bach used the two keys to reflect the mood and text of each section. The solemn birth of Jesus Christ in movement two is reflected with the stile antico of light accompaniment in B minor. Et incarnatus est is one of the most expressive movements of the entire piece.[20] In movement nine, the key changes to D major, and again the key is symbolic of the text of the last movement in the Credo. Bach writes the accompaniment in ascending D major triads and its inversions to symbolize the resurrection through the upward movement.[21] (See example 2).
When analyzing Et incarnatus est, the basic things to consider are the key, meter, tempo and instrumentation. The key of the fourth movement is B minor and throughout the movement there leading tone is raised to create the feeling of B harmonic minor. The meter is in ¾ time and the tempo is Andante maestoso. The instrumentation is set for violin I and II and a basso continuo part. And finally, it is set for five voices.
The entire movement is seen as an anticipation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Bach creates the feeling of anticipation through three different techniques. The first of the three techniques is the pulsating basso continuo part underneath everything. The continuo part sits on tonic for the beginning and eventually transitions to the dominant in m. 20 and from there it repeats the sequence. The second technique that Bach used to create anticipation was the jagged and syncopated violin line. (See example 3). Both of these techniques were taken from Bach’s own St. John and St. Matthew Passions. The third technique Bach used was the different and seeming random order of entrances of the vocal parts. (See example 3). Throughout the first part of the vocal lines, the entrances start at different measures and finally come together on the words, “ex Maria virgine”. This is where the continuo line finally makes its way to the dominant so that the two parts land on the dominant together.[22] When broken down, the continuo sits on tonic mm 1-8. In m 9 there is a slight inflection to “di” or B#, but then the continuo moves right back to tonic in m 10. It is in m 22 that the sequence begins. The progression in the continuo is D (scale degree 3), C# (2), F# (5), and E (4). (See example 3). Finally, as mentioned earlier; at m 20, the continuo hits the dominant right as the choir has “ex Maria virgine”.
The sequence that occurs after the continuo sits on scale degree 5 for 8 measures is B, E, A#, B, F#, and B. If put into solfege syllables the progression is do fa ti do sol do. (See example 4). The progression includes standard voice leading and nothing that is out of the question when it comes to the stiles antico.
The last 5 bars of the piece are where the only major change in the upper violin parts occurs. Throughout the entire movement, the listener hears the violins keeping the same rhythmic motive. But within the last 5 bars, the upper two string voices are written in a short cannon with each other. (See example 5). It is the first time in the entire piece that the motive is broken up and the two violins are not playing together. The second violin comes in one count in front of the first violin playing the same rhythmic motive heard throughout the piece just two counts later that what is expected. This adds to the jagged feeling the two violins have been creating the entire movement and sets up the most emotional movement of the Credo, the Crucifixus.
As stated previously, the ninth movement of the Credo, Et expecto resurrectionem, is in the modern concerto style or stile moderno. Bach felt it essential that he keep the stile antico alive in his music, but Bach also was one to expand and explore the styles and genres around him and of his day. Therefore, just in the Credo alone, we see both styles used in different key movements. The main differences between this last movement and the one studied earlier in the piece are the key, meter, tempo, but most distinctly the instrumentation. Et expecto resurrectionem is in the relative key of the fourth movement, D major. The meter of the movement is in cut time. The reasoning for Bach writing this movement in cut time instead of in common time like the piece it was composed from, Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, is because the tempo of the last movement is marked at vivace e allegro. So instead of having instrumentalist and vocalists reading a lot of sixteenth notes at a fast tempo, Bach doubled the length of the notes and wrote the piece in cut time. It makes it easier for the ensemble as a whole to count and stay together at the driving tempo.
The last movement starts right where the eighth movement ends. There is a pick up from the first soprano and the basso continuo and then the voices come in at different spots in the music, very similar to the fourth movement’s entrances. In the m. 2, the instruments enter with the motive that will be carried throughout the piece. (See example 2). As mentioned earlier, the motive has the same rhythm and it is a D major triad and its inversions arpeggiated. In mm 11-17 the voices break off and the instruments take over for a short ritornello of the music after the choir finishes the text that read, “I look for the resurrection of the dead …”. (See example 6). After this short 7 bar break with the instruments, the voices pick up in m. 18 with the remaining text of “…and the life of the world to come.” Again, in the second entrance of the voices, the entrances are staggered, and is followed by a second ritornello from the instruments. In fact the only time in the piece that the voices are ever singing in unison rhythm is at the end of phrases. The voices towards the end, when they are singing the text “Amen”, are climbing higher and higher. Just as the voices in Et incarnatus est descend down to earth, the chorus is reaching up to heaven along with the instruments to symbol the resurrection of the dead.
What Bach does that is different is that he does not have an opening ritornello that the last movement begins with. The vocals start with the basso continuo and then the rest of the instruments join in. In Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille, the piece opens with the beginning ritornello. Instead of this ritornello beginning the last movement, Bach writes the Et expecto bridge that links the Confiteor to Et expecto resurrectionem. In this bridge the enharmonic modulations point to what Beethoven and later composers wo;uld be writing in years to come. And the Et expecto resurretionem’s harmonic structure is very similar to the Preclassical harmonic structures that would come a generation later. The harmonic structure of the Et expecto resurrectionem is a classic tonic-dominant polarity fighting back and forth throughout the movement. A strong and sound way to end the Credo of the B Minor Mass.[23]
Another interesting characteristic of the last movement is the unusual vocal and timpani solo. In the second time through the words, “I look for the resurrection of the dead…” The ensemble alternates with a timpani solo in mm 26-33. (See example 7). The vocal line is stagnant whenever the ensemble is playing with them except for a few exceptions in the soprano and bass, but when the timpani comes in with its one bar solo, the vocal line picks up and becomes active again.
The masterpiece known today as the B Minor Mass is Bach’s last and one of his greatest masterpieces. It is the product of a new direction of thinking after taking his job in Leipzig, Germany as the Kantar to St. Thomas Church. But the Kyrie and Gloria were written approximately fifteen years earlier than the rest of the mass, and it was not until around the winter of 1745 that Bach even started to consider the idea of setting the whole Mass Ordinary into one great piece.
Bach had a passion and the knowledge required to write in both stile antico and stile moderno. He understood the importance of keeping the knowledge of writing in the stile of antico in music for the structural value and characteristics that match the text. Bach uses a full choir and light instrumentation that is consistent with the stile antico for the Et incarnatus est that sets up the next movement, the Crucifixus. Through the birth of Jesus Christ and him becoming a man, the crucifixion was made possible. Bach wrote the Et incarnatus est as a movement full of anticipation to leave the listener hanging and ready for the crucifixion of Christ. The two string parts play a syncopated and jagged part in a rhythm motive that continues throughout the entire piece from beginning to end. The basso continuo has a pulsating rhythmic motive from the beginning to the last few measures where it joins the violins with the syncopated rhythm. Finally, the very entrances of the voices stir up the anticipation of the movement.
Then Bach moves onto the stile moderno with the last movement of the Credo, the Et expecto resurrectionem. The piece is still scored for five voices because Bach wanted to end on a strong note instead of going from five voices in the eighth movement to four in the ninth, and the instrumentation moves from being scored for two violins and a basso continuo to three trumpets, timpani, two flutes, two oboes, two violins, a viola, and basso continuo. Bach also takes the ritornellos of the piece that the movement is based off of (Gott, man lobet dich in der Stille) and transfers them into the Et expecto resurrectionem. What is truly impressive is that these movements that are written in two distinct styles of composition and therefore have completely different characteristics can be found in the same section of a piece. Bach uses the two different styles to tell the story that is in the text and to move the audience the way he wishes them to be moved.
[1] Helmuth Rilling, Johann Sebastian Bach’s B-minor Mass (Princeton: Prestige Pulications, 1984), xi. [2] Raymond Erickson, The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach (New York: Amadeus Press, 2009), 229-230. [3] Russell H. Miles, Johann Sebastian Bach: An Introduction to His Life and Works (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962), 8-9. [4] Miles, 12-16. [5] Miles, 19-21. [6] George B. Stauffer, The Mass in B Minor: The Great Catholic Mass (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997), 24-26. [7] Stauffer, 27-30. [8] Stauffer 32-34. [9] Stauffer 43-47. [10] David Humphreys, “The Credo of the B Minor Mass; Style and Symbol”, The Musical Times 140, no. 1867 (1999): 54. [11] Stephen R. Miller, “Stile Antico.” In Grove Music Online. Accessed 15 November 2011. <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/> : 1. [12]Miller, 1. [13] Robin A. Leaver, “Motive and Motif in the Church Music of Johann Sebastian Bach”, Theology Today, 63 no. 1: 42-43. [14] Rilling, 51-52. [15] Rilling, 69-70. [16] Stauffer, 116. [17] Rilling, 103-104. [18] Melvin P. Unger, J.S. Bach’s Major Works for Voices and Instruments: A Listener’s Guide (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 102-103. [19] Stauffer, 46. [20] Unger, 114. [21] Unger, 117. [22] Stauffer, 116-117. [23] Stauffer, 140-142.