About this Piece

Of Bach’s major choral works, the Magnificat is the most concise, yet its compactness contains the full range of the composer’s profound religious expressiveness, reaching from the most intimate reflection to massed, fervent exuberance. Bach, not always given to musical economy, was nothing if not a practical professional. He had to be: In whatever important capacity he functioned, whether as a court conductor in Köthen or cantor of St. Thomas’ in Leipzig, the magnitude of his responsibilities was staggering. He thus learned early to conserve time and energy by reusing his own materials whenever possible, recruiting already written secular works for religious service, and vice versa. The Magnificat, being an entirely “original” composition, is a notable exception to this practice. 

In setting the Magnificat text, the Latin version of Mary’s song of praise from the first chapter of St. Luke (verses 46– 55), Bach reveled in his love for musical symbolism, for picturing the word through a tonal equivalent. For example, in the tenor aria, “Deposuit potentes” (He hath put down the mighty), a descending scale leaves no question as to the direction the mighty have been put. Within the relative brevity of the work, Bach attained astonishing variety and dramatic momentum. The orchestral scoring ranges from the full Bachian brilliance of three trumpets, two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, timpani, strings, and continuo, to the austerity of a continuo-only accompaniment for the bass aria. All five choruses are for five parts, developing their texts with florid melismas, contrapuntal textures, and sturdy chordal declarations. 

An important part of Bach’s brevity in the Magnificat obtains from the fact that there are no da capo (back-to-the-beginning-and-repeat) arias; indeed, one of the work’s most remarkable moments occurs when an aria is not even brought to a complete ending: In the soprano’s “ Quia respexit humilitatem” a dominant is reached, but the solo voice is deterred from its final resolution by the entry of the chorus in the section “Omnes generationes.” —Orrin Howard