Johann Sebastian Bach - booksnow.scholarsportal.info

EARLY ITALIAN MASSES. 2gback than Lotti, Bach also devoted much attention toPalestrina, and copied out a grand mass of his in partsfor the singers and the supporting instruments, witha figured bass.^"^ He also wrote out a short mass inC minor, in full score, by an unknown Italian composer ofhis time.''^ A Magnificat by Caldara, in C major, exists inBach's handwriting^ and one by Zelenka, in D major,in that of his son Wilhelm Friedemann.^^ A number ofother settings of the Magnificat by anonymous butcertainlyItalian composers exist, partly in Bach's writing and inscore, partly in separate parts, which are most of themwritten by Anna Magdalena Bach, and supplemented hereand there by additions in her husband's hand.^^From this we may conclude that he not merely studiedthese works, but had them performed. It even appearsthat he introduced into them subjects of his own composition.We have already seen that he extended hisown grand Magnificat by inserting four Christmas h3-mns.He did the same with a Magnificat in D major by anotherhand; but, with the exception of " Freut euch und jubilirt,"the hymns are inserted in different places. In the C minormass just alluded to, the Christe eleison—a short but veryartistically-written duet Vv-ith Basso quasi ostincdo — is hiswork. He also collected Latin masses or portions of themass by other composers ; for instance, a mass by Wilderer(Capellmeister to the Elector Palatine), and various . otherswhich were long erroneously supposed to be his own compositions.^'^3- MS. in the Berlin Library.33 MS. in the possession of Messrs. Breitkopf and Hartel, Leipzig.3* Berlin Library.35 Thomasschule Library.^^ Berlin Library.37 Rust has given a list of these in the preface to B.-G. XI.^ We must,however, eliminate from this catalogue the mass in E minor (No. 3)—a workby Nikolaus Bach which is not in Bach's writing. (See Vol. I. p. 132 and note293, on p. 574). Breitkopfs List for Easter, 1769, like that for Michaelmas 1761,mentions, on pp. 12 and 13, six masses by Seb. Bach, of which four arecertainly not genuine. The first must be No. 5 of Rust's Syllabus (C minormass, with the interpolated Christe eleison) ; the fourth No. 4 of Rust ; thefifth No. 10 (G major mass for three choruses) ; the sixth No. 3.