Bach’s Job Application: The Mass in B-Minor

Johann Sebastian Bach’s job was in danger. In 1733 Bach was working as a music teacher at a Lutheran church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. The church and town leaders, Bach's bosses, accused Bach of being a poor teacher and wanted to fire him. Bach replied that his students were untalented and unreceptive to teaching. 

Bach managed to keep his job, but tensions were high and he was tired of Leipzig. Bach applied for the position of Court Composer for Elector of Saxony Friedrich Augustus II’s court in Dresden. The title of Court Composer was purely honorary and non-residential. Bach would continue to work at Leipzig whether or not he obtained the position. But, being the honorary Court Composer would allow Bach to mentally escape Leipzig and mingle with the elite Dresden music scene.

Friedrich Augustus II was a great patron of the arts, and he was a Catholic. As a nod to the Elector’s tastes, Bach sent a short Latin Catholic Mass (the first half of the Mass in B-Minor) with his application. Bach did not compose this Mass completely from scratch. Instead, he took some of his best musical themes from the past and used them as inspiration. The mini Mass was dramatic, which suited the current fashion in Dresden. The instrumental parts of the Mass were written to especially compliment the talents of the Dresden Court musicians, and the vocal parts were perfect for the popular opera singers of the day. 

First page of the Benedictus from Bach's autograph score of the B-Minor Mass.
A public domain image. Source.

Three years later, Bach obtained the coveted title of Court Composer and set the Mass aside, but that wasn't the end of the piece. In 1745 Bach set to work on the B-Minor Mass again.

What prompted Bach to pick up the Mass in 1745 and add the second half?

The true answer to this question is no one really knows.

One theory, illustrated by John Eliot Gardiner in his book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, is that Bach was inspired by the Second Silesian War. This war ravaged Leipzig, and after peace was declared, Bach revived and revised the shorter Mass for a war memorial service. Coming back to the Mass for this service may have inspired Bach to transform the piece into a full Mass ordinary.

 John Eliot Gardiner's book.
Photo taken by blog author.

Or, perhaps Bach always intended to complete his great Mass. The great composers before Bach like Palestrina, and Josquin des Prez, all wrote Catholic Masses. By writing a Mass ordinary, Bach was putting himself in the category of these musical giants and preserving his legacy. 

 

First Page of the Credo from Bach's autograph score of the B-Minor Mass.
A public domain image. Source.

Or maybe Bach wanted to challenge himself with the B-Minor Mass. Bach had written 150 or more church cantatas by the time he started on the Mass. Composing a Mass would allow him to experiment with a new and unfamiliar musical terrain. 

Despite the sheer number of cantatas and other compositions Bach produced, he may have been scared that his music wouldn’t survive long. Church music in Bach’s time was not valued very highly and the paper it was written on was often used as scrap paper or kindling for fires. By composing the B-Minor Mass and preserving a copy of at least half with Friedrich Augustus II, Bach made sure his music would be remembered, even if his cantata scores were burned.

Whatever the motives or inspiration behind the B-Minor Mass, I think it is Bach’s greatest work. Since Bach composed the Mass over the span of many years, it contains compositions and themes from across his lifetime, giving the listener the full picture of his musical ability. The Mass also serves as showcase of the best Western musicals styles, from the Medieval era to the late Baroque. Throughout the Mass, Bach seamlessly blends movements which were ultra-modern in his time, like the Domine Deus, with pieces based off of ancient Gregorian chants, like the Gratias.

 

Photo of program for Trinity Church Wall Street's performance of the Mass in B-Minor.
Photo taken by FAA. Used with permission.

I was lucky to see the B-Minor Mass performed live—it’s something. Bach himself never did. He died soon after he finished the Mass. The score lay dormant for just over a hundred years, before the full Mass was first performed in 1859. Now, the Mass in B-Minor is one of Bach’s most loved compositions.

 

Author's ticket to the B-Minor Mass.
Photo taken by author.

Listen to the full Mass in B-Minor here!

Sources.

Coffee, I Must Have Coffee

From the minute coffee arrived in Europe in the early 17^th Century the robust brew won admirers ranging from businessman Edward Lloyd to Pope Clemente VII.

Morning coffee, Author's own image.

Along with coffee came the coffeehouse, an import from the Middle East, just like coffee itself. Coffeehouses were cultural hubs attracted artists, businessmen, and intellectuals—all drawn to the drink which drove away drowsiness. For a mere penny one could buy a cup of coffee and gain admission to the coffeehouse, a place teaming with characters ready to discuss the latest innovations in art, politics, and music. These characters included intellectual giants like Isaac Newton, Abraham de Moivre, John Dryden, and Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition to coffee and conversation, coffeehouses hosted chess matches, scientific lectures, mathematical consultation, and musical concerts.

Coffeehouse soon replaced taverns as gathering places for conversation and business meetings as coffee promotes intelligent thinking while alcohol promotes drunken babbling, bad conversation, and bad business.

Lloyd's Coffeehouse. A public domain image. {PD-1923}

A coffeehouse in London owned by Edward Lloyd was popular among mariners who would go there to do business and insure their ships. Lloyd began creating lists of all the ships represented by his customers, their cargo, and their schedules. Insurance providers found these lists so useful that Lloyd’s coffeehouse became better known for its marine insurance than its coffee! The coffeehouse transformed into Lloyd’s of London, the famous insurance company which is still in operation today.

Lloyd’s was not the only coffeehouse to grow into a larger business. The London Stock Exchange, Sotherby’s Auction House, and Christie’s Auction House all grew out of coffeehouses. Even the Royal Society has its roots in the Oxford Coffee Club.

Zimmermann's coffeehouse. A public domain image. {PD-1923}

Johann Sebastian Bach frequented Zimmermann’s coffeehouse in Leipzig, Germany, a gathering place for local musicians. It’s no wonder the Bach was a coffee drinker given his hectic schedule as a teacher, composer, conductor, and father of ten children. Bach arranged and conducted weekly concerts performed by musicians from the collegium musicum at Zimmerman’s coffeehouse for ten years.

Bach, being the overachiever that he was, was not content only enjoying coffee and conducting concerts at Zimmermann’s. Inspired by the delicious drink, Bach composed BWV 211, better known as the Coffee Cantata. Bach is seen as a serious, cerebral composer, but the Coffee Cantata shows that he had a lighter side. (Listen to BWV 211 here, and read an English translation of the text here.)

Author's own image.

 Christian Friedrich Henrici, also known as Picander, a poet and librettist, collaborated with Bach on the text for BWV 211 which recounts the story of a young coffee drinker, Liesgen, and her father Schlendrian (his name literally translates to “lazy bones”). Schlendrian who vehemently opposes his daughters coffee habit. Liesgen agrees to give up most pleasures in life, like new clothes and the view from her window, if she can keep drinking coffee. But when her father threatens to prevent her from getting a husband, Liesgen gives in and agrees to give up coffee—or so she says.

Here’s where Picander original libretto ends, but Bach was not about to finish his cantata with Liesgen’s defeat. Bach had Picander add a second half to the story in which Liesgen goes behind her father’s back and forms a contract with her future husband which will allow her to drink all the coffee she wants. In the end, Schlendrian admits that it is impossible to keep women from their coffee.

Despite their love of coffee, Baroque women, aside from disreputable “coffee-trollops,” were not allowed in coffeehouses. However, like Liesgen, they were not about to let anything keep them from enjoying coffee on their own. Women formed coffee societies where they met in one another’s homes to drink coffee and talk.

A public domain image. {PD-1923}

English women were not satisfied with coffee societies and became increasingly irritated with men and their coffeehouses. In 1674 British women produced the Women’s Petition Against Coffee where they insisted that coffee made men weak. In their words: “Some of our Sots pretend tippling of this boiled Soot cures them of being Drunk; but we have reason rather to conclude it makes them so, because we find them not able to stand after it[.]”(Read the full text of the Women’s Petition Against Coffee here.)

Pietist preachers insisted that coffee drinking was as evil as using inappropriate music in church. This jab may have been particularly aimed at Bach who was a known coffee drinker and who was considered to make radical music choices for Sunday’s service.

Johann Heinrich Zedler praised the energizing effect of coffee, but mentioned its drawbacks which included weakness and a yellow complexion. Others complained that drinking coffee wasted time and distracted people from their work.

Charles II, king of England, opposed coffee and the progressive thinking promoted by coffeehouses. He was concerned the coffee drinkers might rebel against his noble rule. Charles’ answer to this problem was to ban coffeehouses. This outraged his citizens and instigated more resistance to Charles’ rule than coffee drinking did. The British government was forced to withdraw the ban after a mere eleven days.

The Baroque era was the golden age for coffee in Europe. After the 1700s the aristocrats began to drink the next popular drink, tea, and the common people soon followed. I’m normally a tea drinker myself, but while writing this post I drank a cup of coffee and enjoyed it almost as much as Liesgen did.

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The Misshapen Pearl: A Brief Description of the Baroque Era

The Baroque period (1600-1750) marks a time of great artistic innovation, strong perfumes, and gentlemen with luscious locks. During this age, music was seen as a form of communication, paintings were filled with dramatic effects of light and shadow, and bathing was considered dangerous. Famous artistic people who lived and worked during the Baroque era include: Bach, Bernini, Purcell, Rembrandt, and Monteverdi.

A copy of Elias Gottlob Haussmann's original portrait of Bach.
This copy was made by Haussmann in 1748. The original was painted in 1746.
A public domain image.

Today, we use the word baroque to describe the period of history from 1600-1750, but that is not how the word was originally used. Baroque, which comes from the Portuguese word for misshapen pearl, barroco, was first used as a derogatory term by 19^th century critics who found Baroque art to be old fashioned. Misshapen pearls may not be as popular as their uniform counterparts, but I find that the abnormalities of these odd pearls make them appealing. In the same way, Baroque art and culture, though no longer mainstream, offer a unique beauty of their own.

Misshapen pearls also known as Keshi pearls. A public domain image.

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