Magnificat in D Major

It may seem strange that the Lutheran Church of Bach’s time—founded on the use of the vernacular—should have allowed the singing of Latin texts. But there were at least 16 feast days a year when the choir was allowed to sing the Magnificat in Latin to elaborate music. Bach’s Magnificat was written for his first Christmas in Leipzig (1723), and the original score (in E flat) included four extra movements with Nativity texts to celebrate Christmas Day. These were removed in the early 1730s, when Bach revised the score and transposed it to D major—the version usually performed today. Although Bach used the largest forces available to him—including three trumpets, drums, flutes, oboes, bassoon, strings and a five-part choir—the Magnificat is a masterpiece of concision. While Bach’s ideas remain rich and expansive, the musical forms are tightly controlled: compared with the long arias of his cantatas, the solos here are memorably short and sweet. He looked to Italy for traditional methods of setting the text, giving each verse a separate movement, alternately choral and solo. We get a typical piece of Italian drama at the phrase “Omnes generationes”, where the chorus unexpectedly enters to emphasise the sheer magnitude of “all generations”. Bach ends with a traditional musical pun, returning to the opening music at the words “Sicut erat in principio” (“As it was in the beginning”).