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Detail from Dürer, Adoration of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit

In the last post, I talked about the vocal duet in the Christe eleison representing the “consubstantial” (that is, shared substance) between the Father and the Son.  Based on my premise that Bach’s B Minor Mass is all about the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this supports the idea that the Christe eleison deals with the nature of Christ.

In this post, I want to explore the instrumental ritornello a little bit, because I think that the very nature of the texture of this movement supports my theory about the Trinity, and the musical material of the violin part adds further hints as well.

First, the texture:

As we saw, the vocal part is a duet between two sopranos.  Note—Bach does not say soprano and alto, even though the Soprano II part is quite low.  It is essential that they be equal voice parts, because Bach is reinforcing the equality of the Father and the Son.

Leaving aside the ubiquitous basso continuo part—required for all Baroque music—the other textural element in this movement is all the violins playing in unison, a part that is largely sixteenth notes.

Using unison violins for an aria is not as rare as one might imagine in Bach’s arias, though it is true that Handel uses that texture much more than Bach, who tends to use either a full string complement, or a single violin solo.  But since I believe that Bach never does anything in his sacred music without some theological reason, I think we can assume that there is significance to this rather sparse texture.  Personally, I think it’s meant to represent a “third voice”—in this case, symbolizing the third “person” of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

As we will see throughout Bach’s B Minor Mass, Bach depicts the Holy Spirit in a number of different ways—just as the Holy Spirit is depicted in several ways in theological terms.  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is seen as tongues of fire; other times, the spirit is wind, other times as water being poured out, such as in baptism.

If you go to Bach’s famous Pentecost cantata, O Ewiges Feuer, BWV 34, you can see how Bach uses running 16th-notes to depict the Holy Spirit as the fire that descends on the day of Pentecost.  Here is a performance by Helmuth Rilling, as well as a link to the full score.

Full Score, BWV34 (1st movement begins on third page)

Using this as a model, I believe that the running 16^th-notes in the unison violins in the ritornello of the Christe eleison represents the Holy Spirit, completing the Trinity.

Here is the opening ritornello of the Christe eleison, with the 16^th-note material, I believe, representing the Holy Spirit.

Christe eleison, opening ritornello

Audio clip: Christe eleison, ritornello

This is an important idea: in Lutheran theology, since the Trinity is indivisible, the “persons” of the Trinity never operate without all aspects being present in some sense.

The Nicene Creed speaks of the Holy Spirit “proceeding from the Father and the Son”.  Musically, this seems to be true in this duet, since once all elements are intertwined, the violin part seems to emerge from the more rhythmically and texturally “solid” soprano parts.  Even the opening “motto” of the violin part, with its expectant eighth-rest followed by three eighth-notes, in a sense “proceeds” from the missing downbeat.

In this short excerpt, performed as always by Masaaki Suzuki and the Japan Collegium Musicum (with their kind permission), you can hear the Spirit weaving around the Father and Son, with the ritornello “proceeding” from the Father and the Son at the end of the vocal section.

Spirit "proceeding from" Father and Son

Audio clip: Spirit “proceeding from” Father and Son

Two final thoughts about the “Christ” nature of this movement.  As I wrote in an earlier blog post about the Kyrie I, on the one occasion when the fugue subject was presented in D major instead of the tonic B minor, the key of D major was associated with the kingship of Christ, because D was the key of the Baroque trumpet.  (Trumpets are associated with kings because their heralds announce their arrival with trumpets.)

And finally, perhaps the most tenuous of my links to the second “person” of the Trinity, and yet still intriguing.  Many musicologists have used this duet as an example of the style galant, the pre-classical style—more melodic and with simpler harmonies—that characterized the generation of Bach’s sons.  Bach had come under strong criticism in music periodicals about how he was so old-fashioned, and many scholars believe that he turned to the fashionable style galant (particularly in his later years) to prove his ability to write in any style.

If that is true, then perhaps Bach chose the “new” style to symbolize the New Testament aspect of Christ’s identity, in contrast to the rather imposing sense and architecture of the Kyrie I, representing God the Father—the God of the Old Testament.

I admit that’s a bit of a reach, but you never know what Bach was thinking!