Johann Sebastian Bach - booksnow.scholarsportal.info

——THE B MINOR MASS—ITS SYMBOLISM. 49which cannot be understood but by a reference to it. Theviolins and violas playing con sordini the pizzicato in thebasses, and the fantastically wandering passages for theflutes have a very mystical effect.The musical germ which diffuses its life through everyportion of the piece is a motive of four notes :It is, as it were, the musical symbol of the Unity whichthis dogma inculcates, and is thus put forsvard at the verybeginning of the piece. The phrases Domine Dens rexccelestis, Dens Pater omnipotens— Domine Fili nnigenite, JesuChriste altissime, are not sung straight through as the masstext gives them, but the tenor addresses himself to God theFather, and the soprano, beginning a bar later, to God theSon ; each develops the melody, which proceeds in imitation,by extensions of the motive quoted above, and presentlyboth sing it together in its original form. The way in whichthe motive constantly recurs, not prolonged to any fullermelody, but isolated, distinct, and stern as a dogma, isunique among Bach's compositions. In bar 42, thedescending passage of octaves for the whole body of violinsand violas can have none but a symbolical meaning, comingin as it does without any organic sequence, and quiteunexpectedly, in a way which is not usual with Bach. Comparingit with the duet. Et in uniim (in the Credo), whichresembles it in many respects, we may fancy it intended tosuggest the descent of God to assume the form of men.^''^ An observation as to the performance of this may find a place here.first bar for the flute part is thus written by Bach :TheLater on, where the theme recurs, we find, in the second half of the bar,simple semiquavers, phrased in pairs ; thus the dotted mode of notation onlyindicates that the first is closely joined to the second, and to be accented, andnot that it is of less value than the second. A manual of music byJ. G. Walther, of 1708, of which I possess the original autograph, says onIII.E