We start the yr by celebrating a milestone at The Listeners’ Membership. That is our 2,000th submit.
I’ve loved exploring all of this music with you throughout these years, and I stay up for persevering with the journey.
For immediately, I’ve chosen the transient and festive Osanna in excelsis (“Hosanna within the highest”) which opens the fourth part of Bach’s Mass in B minor, BWV 232. Set in 3/8 time, its full of life ahead movement suggests the French courtly dance of the passepied. Starting as an ecstatic whisper, its contrapuntal voices develop right into a jubilant and hovering proclamation, punctuated by trumpets and timpani. The counterpoint takes on magical, angelic qualities. Simply after the 1:00 mark, discover the best way the rising voices enter and float on high of each other in an ever intensifying celestial pyramid. The road is picked up and introduced again to earth by the instrumental basso continuo.
Bach compiled the monumental B minor Mass over a long time and accomplished the work in 1759, a yr earlier than his loss of life. Mixing the Lutheran cantata and the Catholic Mass, it was not written for a particular event, however as a present to posterity and as an impressive summation. The Mass in B minor was premiered 84 years after Bach’s loss of life. We’ll discover the whole work in a future submit.
Recordings
- J.S. Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent Harmonia Mundi
Featured Picture: “The Rocket” (1909), Edward Middleton Manigault
