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Magnificat (Bach)

Johann Sebastian Bach's Magnificat, BWV 243, is a musical setting of the biblical canticle Magnificat. It is scored for five vocal parts (two sopranos, alto, tenor and bass), and a Baroque orchestra including trumpets and timpani. It is the first major liturgical composition on a Latin text by Bach.

Magnificat

D major

BWV 243.1 (1723)

Lutheran vespers on feast day

  • Latin

Leipzig, c. 1733

12

SSATB choir and solo

In 1723, after taking up his post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, Bach set the text of the Magnificat in a twelve movement composition in the key of E-flat major. For a performance at Christmas he inserted four hymns (laudes) related to that feast. This version, including the Christmas interpolations, was given the number 243.1 (previously 243a) in the catalogue of Bach's works.[1]


Likely for the feast of Visitation of 1733, or another feast in or around that year, Bach produced a new version of his Latin Magnificat, without the Christmas hymns: instrumentation of some movements was altered or expanded, and the key changed from E-flat major to D major, for performance reasons of the trumpet parts. This version of Bach's Magnificat is known as BWV 243.2 (previously BWV 243).[2]


After publication of both versions in the 19th century, the second became the standard for performance. It is one of Bach's most popular vocal works.

Magnificat

E-flat major

BWV 243.2 (c. 1733)

Lutheran vespers on feast day

  • Latin
  • German

Leipzig, 1723

12 (+ 4 for Christmas)

SSATB choir and solo

in the early 1740s Bach copied 's Magnificat in C major, arranging its Suscepit Israel movement (BWV 1082).[51][52][53]

Antonio Caldara

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.[54][55]

BWV Anh. 30

A: Hymn by Martin Luther

B: Verse attributed to

Sethus Calvisius

C:

Luke 2:14

D:

Fragment of a Christmas hymn

by the Netherlands Bach Society (video and background information)

Performance of the Magnificat in D major (BWV 243)

Magnificat in D major (BWV 243): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project

Magnificat in E-flat major (BWV 243a)

: Free scores at the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Magnificat (Johann Sebastian Bach)

. Auction catalogue. Sotheby's. Retrieved 18 November 2014.

"Frontispiece of the 1811 first edition"

from impresario.ch, with practice files for choristers

Magnificat (MIDI)

a 2011 Gresham College lecture by Christopher Hogwood

Keep it Short: J S Bach Magnificat