verba docent

I finished my last post with this sentence about the generative essence of Bach’s music: “Once you understand what the seed contains, you know what the plant will look like.”  In today’s post, one of the last few about the first Kyrie, I want to follow up with another gardening image.

We already know all the material that is contained in the opening Kyrie, since we have spent so much time examining the instrumental ritornello.

Grafting

Bach uses ritornelli extensively in his vocal works, although he tends to hide the return of the material in quite ingenious ways.  He’ll often use only a section of the ritornello, or he’ll re-organize the material so that something that was not so obvious the first time around is made more prominent the next time.

The very act of turning what was originally instrumental into something vocal also goes a long way to transforming the ritornello material, since the addition of words and vocal timbre instantly transforms the orchestral material.

This process is called Choreinbau in German, literally “choral in-building”.  But I actually prefer the gardening image: I think of this process as grafting vocal parts onto the pre-existing instrumental ritornello, thereby creating a new hybrid.

In the opening Kyrie, we find something that is quite unusual in Bach’s choral writing: the ritornello is repeated in its entirety three times, with choral parts added the second two times.  There are a few interpolations in between these ritornello statements, but the real significance is that the statements themselves are presented in their complete form.  Generally, Bach will use sections of the ritornello in the process of Choreinbau, but to use them as such complete structures is quite rare.

So why would he do that?  Personally, I think this is another manifestation of the Trinity in the B Minor Mass.  We can think of each ritornello statement as representing one “person” of the trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  As I have mentioned in early posts, this doctrine of the Trinity was very important in Lutheran theology, and it was one of the main theological areas that the Lutherans shared with Roman Catholic theology.

In the doctrine of the Trinity, each part of the “godhead” is coequal, so Bach uses the exact same material.  But each has its distinct characteristics, so the rearrangement of the material, and the presentation of it in different keys, represents this “separate but equal” nature of the Trinitarian God.

Here’s the score of that opening ritornello again.  You might want to follow this score while listening to the other two “grafted” ritornello statements, in which the choir sings as well.  You’ll discover that Bach redistributes the parts each time: all the musical material is there, but different bits are highlighted.  That’s why this movement is surprisingly difficult for choirs to learn—it feels straightforward and “familiar”, but the new distribution creates challenges.

Here is the first vocal ritornello, mm. 48-72 if you’re following a full score.  If you follow the score above, you’ll see that everything is there, but in different “relief”.

Recording of 1st vocal ritornello

Now, the second vocal ritornello, from m. 102 to the end.

Recording of 2nd vocal ritornello

The use of these three ritornello sections as structural pillars, separated by shorter fugal sections, provides an extraordinary sense of unity to this movement, reflecting the very meaning of the Trinity: “three in one”.