|
|
Precisely what Bach had in mind while composing the B Minor Mass remains one of the intriguing mysteries of music. Bach, born into a Lutheran family, remained a Lutheran throughout his life 1, could not have written a mass meant for the Catholic Church alone. Yet he wrote a Mass Ordinary in Latin, complete with all its sections, which is unique to the Roman Catholic Churches during Bach・s time as the Latin Ordinary had long since been replaced by German equivalents in most other Lutheran congregations.2 Instead of performing the entire Catholic mass, the Missa, which contained only the Kyrie and Gloria, were often used in Protestant churches. However, Luther had retained not only the Kyrie and Gloria in excelsis, but also the Credo, and Sanctus movements of the Catholic Ordinarium Missae for use in Protestant churches. Thus, in Leipzig, performances of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Sanctus were not uncommon during Bach's lifetime 3, which may explain why Bach・s Mass contained these 4 sections instead of just the Kyrie and Gloria. Bach could have stopped there but he went on to include the Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and Dona Nobis Pacem, which was highly unusual for a Lutheran Mass. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff explains that the Mass could not be performed in a Protestant church, since Luther had banned the sections of the ritual relating to the sacrifice. Furthermore, the proportions of the work, in no less than twenty-four movements, would have ruled it out. On the other hand, the Mass was also unusable on the Catholic side, because of textual and formal differences. 4. The composition of the Mass was stretched over a very long period of time, with the Kyrie and Gloria completed in 1733, and the Credo in 1747.5 The Mass was completed only towards the end of Bach・s life. With this timeline, we could tell that Bach was in no hurry to neither complete the Mass nor intend it for performance on any special occasions. Thus as Christoph Wolff has mentioned, it might have been Bach completing the Mass for the sake of completing it, to make it a full Mass Ordinary and for no ：discernible practical purpose；. Bach was the unhappy music director of Collegium Musicum at the point of time when the Missa (the Kyrie and Gloria) was completed. He had had many disputes with the rector of the school, Johann August Ernesti, since 1730, whose ambitious nature often challenged Bach・s authority.6 It was noted that Bach wrote a request humbly applying for the position of court composer when he presented the Missa to the new Elector of Saxony Frederick Augustus II (king Augustus III of Poland) in 1733.
|
