In Leipzig, the Magnificat was regularly part of Sunday services, sung in German on ordinary Sundays but more elaborately and in Latin on the high holidays (Christmas,
Easter and
Pentecost) and on the three Marian feasts
Annunciation, Visitation and
Purification.
Bach's tenure as Thomaskantor in Leipzig Apart from an early setting of the
Kyrie, on a mixed Greek and German text (
BWV 233a), all of
Bach's known liturgical compositions in Latin were composed during his tenure as Thomaskantor in
Leipzig, from 1723 until his death in 1750. Compared to Lutheran practice elsewhere, an uncharacteristic amount of Latin was used in church services in Leipzig. An early account of Bach showing interest in liturgical practices in Leipzig dates from 1714, when he noted down the order of the service on the first Sunday in Advent during a visit to the town. At the time
Johann Kuhnau was the
Cantor in Leipzig. When Kuhnau died in 1722, one of the candidates applying for the post of Thomaskantor was
Christoph Graupner, a former pupil of Kuhnau, who reused a
Magnificat he had composed for Christmas 1722 as an audition piece in January 1723, three weeks before Bach presented his audition cantatas
Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22 and . Bach assumed the position of on 30 May 1723, the first Sunday after
Trinity, performing an ambitious cantata in 14 movements, , followed by a comparable cantata, the next Sunday.
Traditional setting of the German Magnificat setting of
Luther's German Magnificat, which is a particular German version of the
ninth tone or tonus peregrinus The traditional setting of
Luther's German translation of the Magnificat ("
Meine Seele erhebt den Herren") is a German variant of the , a rather exceptional
psalm tone in
Gregorian chant. The tonus peregrinus (or ninth tone) is associated with the
ninth mode or Aeolian mode. For the traditional setting of Luther's German Magnificat that is the
minor mode for which the last note of the
melodic formula is the
tonic, a
fifth below its opening note. The tonus peregrinus variant that is associated with Luther's German Magnificat appears in compositions by, among others,
Johann Hermann Schein,
Heinrich Schütz,
Johann Pachelbel and
Dietrich Buxtehude. Bach uses the melodic formula as an instrumental in movement
10 (Suscepit Israel) of his Latin Magnificat. He uses it again in his "German Magnificat", i.e. the cantata composed for Visitation of 1724, in the
chorale harmonisations BWV 323 and 324, and in the fourth
Schübler Chorale BWV 648. Also in BWV 733,
Fuga sopra il Magnificat, the melodic formula is used as a theme: this
chorale prelude may however be the work of Bach pupil
Johann Ludwig Krebs.
Extended settings of the Magnificat Being a quintessential part of
vespers,
evensong or
matins, the Magnificat was, already for over a century before Bach's composition, the
liturgical text that was most
often set to music apart from the
Mass ordinary. In Protestantism there was no Latin text more often set to music than the Magnificat. Also settings of the German text of the Magnificat were current from the early 17th century, without one form suppressing the other. Extended settings of the Magnificat, also indicated as settings in a concertato sectional construction, that is in several movements with chorus, orchestra and vocal soloists, and a non-linear treatment of the text (parts of the text repeated multiple times by the singers), go back to the old Italian school of music. Such an example can be found in
Claudio Monteverdi's Magnificat a 7 voci, one of two alternative Magnificat settings included in his
Vespro della Beata Vergine. In a Lutheran tradition there is for example Schütz'
Latin Magnificat, SWV 468. Magnificat composers like Johann Levini,
Antonio Lotti and
Francesco Durante are cited as possible inspirations for Bach. Around Bach's time there are also examples
by Heinichen and
by Vivaldi. In many of these settings a single verse of the Magnificat can be sung by one or more soloists alternating with choral singing, as Bach does in his treatment of the third Magnificat verse: the soprano sings the first words of the verse, while the chorus concludes it. This particular split of the third verse, leaving only the last two words (omnes generationes) to the chorus, had been practised before by Ruggiero Fedeli, and in a Magnificat in G minor from 1720 which Bach probably knew (that Magnificat in G minor used to be attributed to
Tomaso Albinoni). Also Graupner's 1722 Magnificat had this split.
Samuel Scheidt's
Geistliche Konzerte III (1635) contained three Magnificats with interpolations, the first of these (SSWV 299 for SSATTB and basso continuo) with the first stanza of "
Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her" as first interpolation.
The Visitation version(s) In the
Gospel of Luke the words of the Magnificat are spoken by
Mary when she visits her cousin
Elizabeth, both being pregnant, Mary with
Jesus and Elizabeth with
John the Baptist. In
Christianity, the feast commemorating that visit is called
Visitation. It is a chosen opportunity to give more than ordinary attention to the Magnificat canticle in liturgy, while the feast celebrates the event tied to its origin. In Bach's time the feast day of Visitation fell on
2 July. The D major version of Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243.2) may have been performed on , as part of the church service in the
St. Thomas Church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. That year there had been a period of mourning after the death of the sovereign,
Augustus the Strong. During that mourning period, which ran from
Sexagesima Sunday (15 February) to the
fourth Sunday after Trinity (28 June), no concerted music was allowed in the churches. During that period Bach had been composing a
Kyrie-Gloria mass in B minor which he dedicated to the successor,
Frederick Augustus II, in a letter signed . The first occasion after the mourning period that re-allowed concerted church music was the feast of Visitation, Thursday . It is possible that Bach produced his new version of the Magnificat for this occasion, although Christmas of the same year as first performance date for the new version is possible too: it can not be determined with certainty on which day around 1732–1735 the D major version of the Magnificat was first performed, and until when Bach amended the score to its final state. Around 1733 Bach filed two cantatas by
Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, for the fifth and the sixth Sunday after Trinity (5 and 12 July in 1733): Bach may have relied on church music by other composers for the services in Leipzig in July 1733, while composing and copying out the performance parts of the extensive first part of the
Mass in B minor. • • timpani • • •
strings •
continuo}} }} In 2003 Bach scholar
Andreas Glöckner argued that the very first version of Bach's Magnificat, that is the E major version
before the four Christmas interpolations were added to the autograph, was first performed on 2 July 1723. That would have been exactly ten years before the transposed version, and composed for the same
Marian feast. Bach had taken up his post as in Leipzig on 30 May, the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723. Visitation was the first feast day of his tenure, which called for exceptionally festive music.
The Christmas interpolations Before Glöckner's 2003 article on the origin of the Magnificat, and for some authors still after that, it was generally assumed that Bach had composed his Magnificat in the quiet time of
Advent 1723 for a first performance at the Christmas vespers. For that performance Bach composed four
laudes, songs of praise partly in German, partly in Latin to be inserted at certain points in the E-flat major version of the Magnificat. The E-flat major version of the Magnificat including these interpolations is known as BWV 243.1 (previously BWV 243a). The text of these
laudes had been used in Leipzig in a Christmas cantata by Bach's predecessor
Kuhnau. Possibly those settings in C major of the same four texts as the
laudes Bach had included in his Christmas Magnificat were not a self-contained cantata, but
laudes Kuhnau had composed for insertion in his C major Magnificat when it was to be performed at Christmas. These laudes illustrate what the
Gospels describe as the circumstances around
Christ's birth, and were embedded in an old tradition named (rocking of the cradle). As these
laudes were to be performed with a very limited accompaniment of instruments, they were supposedly performed from the small loft in the high choir of the Thomaskirche, opposite to the large organ loft where the other movements of the Magnificat were performed. Apart from the extant copies of the Latin Magnificat BWV 243, of the
German Magnificat BWV 10 and of the chorale harmonisation BWV 324, a Magnificat for soprano solo was considered lost in the 19th century. The score of that so-called "little" Magnificat () was rediscovered in the 20th century, and listed as however, its authenticity was doubted. In 1982
Melchior Hoffmann was identified as the composer of this German Magnificat
Meine Seel erhebt den Herren. A similar cantata on a German paraphrase of the Magnificat,
Meine Seele rühmt und preist, BWV 189 for tenor solo and composed for Visitation, has also been attributed to Hoffmann. Another German libretto paraphrasing the Magnificat, published by
Picander in
his 1728–29 cantata cycle for performance on 2 July 1728, may have been set by Bach. Similarly, a
Meine Seele erhebet den Herrn cantata by an unknown librettist for Visitation 1725. • is a Magnificat in C major for double SATB choir and orchestra, copied by Bach around 1742. The manuscript score indicates no composer, but in 2012 it was discovered that it is Bach's arrangement (by adding parts for timpani and for a third trumpet) of a late 17th-century composition by
Pietro Torri. An earlier attribution of the work had been to Antonio Lotti. == Structure and movements ==