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Oct 11
Kyrie I: The Fugue Subject
I apologize for having disappeared for a little while. At the same time that I’m writing this blog and rehearsing the B Minor Mass in New York and Worcester, I’m also working on the final few chapters of my PhD dissertation, so I’ll probably go AWOL from time to time. But don’t worry—I’ll be thinking about Bach either way!
So we resume our look at the opening Kyrie, now that we’ve established some of Bach’s language as revealed in the “seed” of the work: the cross, the incarnation and the trinity. Now onto the rest of the movement.
On the face of it, the main body of this first movement is a fugue. Simply put, a fugue is really just a very sophisticated kind of canon or round—a piece in which the subject is introduced by one voice, then repeated by another while the first one goes on to new material, called the countersubject.
The subject of this particular fugue is quite extraordinary, and includes, I believe, many theological references.
Fugue subject
We see in this fugue subject the same kind of upward yearning that we saw in the opening four bars. If you following the upper notes of the subject, they form the same general outline as the first four bars at the opening of the piece.
1st four bars
There’s a new element here, though, which I think is included for theological reasons. Yes, the movement is upwards, but then there are the pairs of lower notes that interrupt the upward motion.
I’ve always felt that this gives the subject “two steps forward, one step back” kind of feel.
It reminds me of the wonderful duet from cantata BWV78, the text of which is Wir eilen mit doch emsigen Schritten—“We hasten with weak yet eager steps”. You can see from this excerpt of the continuo part from that cantata movement that the upper notes form a scale—the eager steps; but they continually return to the repeated Fs below—the weakness.
Weak yet eager steps
I think that Bach is doing the same thing in this fugue subject. In theological terms, it is the true sense of the Kyrie, “Lord have mercy”. The Lutherans put a great deal of emphasis on sin, so the meaning of the Kyrie is not just asking God for mercy, but also at the same time admitting one’s own need for mercy. In order to understand what this meant for Bach, we shouldn’t whitewash the depth of emotion attached to this cry for mercy. Even in the 2006 Lutheran Book of Worship, the admission of sin is pretty strong stuff:
“O Almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner, confess to you all my sins and iniquities, with which I have ever offended you and justly deserved your punishment now and forever.”
So this idea of the lower notes representing the individual being pulled back down to their own sinfulness is a powerful one, even though we would prefer to think of the more cheerful idea of mankind reaching up towards God with the rising scale.
Bach returns to this idea of being back down into the mire later in the movement. Listen to these couple bars. Now that I’ve given you the full score, you’ll see the slurs in the instrumental parts, which make the feeling even more gutwrenching.
Slurred figures
One of things that I was working on for my thesis while I was away from the blog was an analysis of different recordings of this movement, something I’ll write more about later. For now, I’d just make the point that different conductors have come up with MANY different ways of phrasing this fugue subject. It turns out that Suzuki (whose clips we use here with his label’s permission) does what I have always done myself: separate the upward steps, while slurring the downward “backsliding” figure, as marked in the instruments. It certainly makes for more contrast between the two ideas.
This is a good time to restate one of my basic premises about Bach: that all of the musical material is presented at the very start of any movement, and is then developed and referred to throughout the rest of the movement. This is what I keep referring to as the idea of the “seed” in Bach’s music—the concept that Bach’s compositions unfold organically, revealing their form only later. I suppose it’s not altogether different from the Hollywood idea of the “slow reveal”.
Keeping this in mind, I need to point out one more musical idea from the fugue subject, since it will become important later in the movement.
Have another look at that fugue subject. If you find the second time the word “Kyrie” is set, you’ll see that it’s (a) on a high note and (b) is syncopated—that is, it begins after the downbeat.
Fugue subject
This use of syncopation—not a bouncy kind of syncopation, but a deeper, more “tugging” sensation—becomes a major feature of the phrasing later in the piece. And why shouldn’t it? This fits the idea of yearning, an impassioned cry. In an echo of those first four bars of the work (the seed), it can also be seen as an “incarnation” figure—God’s descent to answer man’s upward cry.
Listen to how that syncopation becomes something quite powerful later in the movement. In this very short excerpt, first the altos (third line), then the two sopranos and tenors have this syncopated “Kyrie” figure. One of the images that I use in rehearsal for interpreting this short motive is the idea of pulling on a rope—as if you were to wrap a rope around a tree and pull on both ends against the tree. I think of this because it’s really a yearning figure, almost a “gathering in” of the notes—not the accented kind of syncopation that we find in Bach’s festive movements.
Final "kyrie" syncopated figure
Maybe this is a good time to stop, and just let you enjoy the movement for yourself on your own! Even just following the fugue subject all the way through the movement gives the listener plenty to do. Incidentally, if you would like to follow along with a very clean full score, go to http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/5/56/IMSLP24490-PMLP04197-CCARH_Mass_in_b_minor.pdf My clips in this blog are taken from that source.
I can’t post the recording of the entire first movement performed by the Japan Bach Collegium with Suzuki conducting, but I can send you to a lovely performance conducted by Herbert Blomstedt in Thomaskirche. Click on the link below and enjoy! I’ll be back again soon to talk more about the “slow reveal” of the first movement.