The "K" of the first <em>Kyrie </em>shot straight down the middle of Yale University’s impressive Woolsey Hall like a burning arrow; a foretaste of the drama to come.<br><br>At the end of last month the <a href="https://ism.yale.edu/academics/ensembles/yale-schola-cantorum"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Yale Schola Cantorum</mark></a> was joined by the New York-based period instrument ensemble called <a href="https://www.juilliard.edu/music/historical-performance/performance-opportunities"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Julliard415</mark></a> for a performance of the Mass in B Minor – one of the jewels in Johann Sebastian Bach's dazzling crown.
The Mass shows the mature Bach at the height of his powers. Even by Bach’s standards it is a work of sensational variety and contrast, heightened by the apposition of bright D major and solemn B minor. The counterpoint is on the grandest of scales.
This concert formed part of the ongoing celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, as well as an opportunity to celebrate and thank David Hill as his eleven-year tenure as the choir’s principal conductor concludes.
Hill has enjoyed a distinguished career. He has held appointments with the BBC Singers and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and has directed the music Westminster Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He currently conducts London’s Bach Choir, and is in demand as a guest conductor across Europe. He was awarded an MBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours.
It is well known that Bach held a sincere Lutheran faith, a faith that informed every aspect of his being. But why, you may well ask, would this poster boy of Protestantism, the embodiment of the Lutheran work ethic, have composed a 2-hour setting of the Latin Ordinary? It was, at least in part, a combination of professional enterprise and irk.
Whilst genuinely pious and fanatically industrious, Bach was not always an easy man to get on with. In 1733, a decade into his role at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, a disagreement with the authorities (a <em>leitmotif </em>of his life) impelled Bach to seek a side-hustle/back-up in the court of the new Elector of Saxony, Fredrick Augustus II – a Catholic convert.
In a bid to curry favour, the cantankerous Kantor hand-delivered his new <em>Kyrie </em>and <em>Gloria</em> to the Prince-Elector. The plan worked, and Bach was duly appointed <em>Hofcompositeur</em>.
Although recitation of the Greek <em>Kyrie </em>and Latin <em>Gloria </em>was sanctioned for use in worship by Luther himself, the fact that Bach composed so few suggests choral settings were rarely called for. It took until the last years of his life for Bach to complete his Mass in B Minor, adding the remaining movements in 1748-9. Given Bach’s strong sense of structure and cohesion, you could be forgiven for thinking the work was imagined in one go.
As was common practice at the time, he reused and reworked older musical material. The <em>Sanctus, </em>for example, derives from a 1724 opus, recast here on an imperial scale. Above the regal exclamations hover the heavenly hosts, the gentle beating of their angelic wings represented by airy triplets. These triplets, along with three trumpets, three oboes, and the choir in six-parts, gives the movement strong Trinitarian symbolism.
Bach reused music from a (now lost) wedding serenade of 1725 for the <em>Agnus Dei </em>(and also for an aria in the Ascension cantata, BWV 11)<em>. </em>It is undoubtedly one of his most poignantly beautiful arias.
The oldest musical material can be found in the <em>Credo</em>. The opening movement incorporates plainsong melodies, whist the centrepiece, the <em>Crucifixus</em>, is refashioned from one of Bach’s earliest cantatas, <em>Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen </em>BWV12.
Bach employs a descending chromatic bass line – a gesture present in so many genres of Western music throughout history to express pain and lament – as well as anguished discords and a staccato ictus, perhaps suggesting droplets of blood falling to the ground or the echo of hammers striking nails.
In a piece brimming with invention and contrast, one of the most pronounced juxtapositions is between the <em>Crucifixus </em>and the following movement, <em>Et resurrexit. </em>The darkness is suddenly completely consumed by white light. Not only did the Yale singers respond with a new timbre, their faces lit up with beaming smiles. It was a memorable moment of authentic joy shared between choir and audience.
Whilst architecturally magnificent, Yale’s 2,500-seat auditorium is not acoustically ideal for a Baroque band and a relatively small group of younger voices. Despite this, the performers’ alacrity and commitment shone, and Hill’s love of every contour of the score was obvious. The extended standing ovation at the end was heartfelt and well-deserved.
It is not known what prompted Bach to complete the Mass in the late 1740s. Perhaps, sensing the end was near, the sedulous composer simply wanted to tie up loose ends. Perhaps he determined to leave his own complete contribution to the genre, a modern successor to the Renaissance Masses he studied and venerated. Maybe it was an offering to the God who had sustained him throughout his life.
What is clear is that Bach’s potent, steadfast faith is woven into every bar of the piece, from the gut-wrenching <em>Kyrie</em> to a <em>Dona nobis pacem </em>that basks in the serene light of Christ. <em>Soli Deo Gloria </em>indeed.<br><br><em>Photo: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750), the German musician and composer playing the organ, circa 1725. From a print in the British Museum. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images.)</em>
<em>Alex Hodgkinson is Director of Music at St. Theresa’s Church, Trumbull, Connecticut.</em><br><strong><em><br>In May and June, the Yale Schola Cantorum with Julliard415 take Bach’s Mass in B Minor on their UK tour, a veritable lap of honour for David Hill on his home soil. For further details see: <a href="http://ism.yale.edu/events/upcoming-events"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">ism.yale.edu/events/upcoming-events</mark></a>.</em></strong>
