Bach was born on March 21, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, to Johann Ambrosius Bach and Maria Elisabeth Lammerhirt. Bach spent most of his childhood in Eisenach and began his first formal school in 1690. In 1694 his mother died and soon after Bach’s father remarried. Less then three months after his father remarried, Ambrosius Bach passed away after suffering from a serious long-term illness. Bach was then sent to live with his brother, who was an organist in Ohrdruf. According to Christoph Wolff, “In the obituary Emanuel stated that his father had his first keyboard lessons from Christoph, at Ohrdruf; in 1775, replying to Forkel, he said that Christoph might have trained him simply as an organist, and that S

The idea was that each section of the Mass was divided into movements complete in themselves. Thus the Kyrie could be divided into three parts: (i) Kyrie I, which might be set as a chorus, (ii) Christe eleison, which might be set as a solo aria or duet, (iii) Kyrie II, which might well be a choral fugue. The longer texts . . . would be split into many more movements. The solos naturally took on something of an operatic flavor, for this was, after all, the common style of the time (Arnold, 60)

Bach composed much of his music contained in the mass by parodying his earlier works. In his time parodying was out of respect in which some of the best music resulted (Butt). Bach compiled this work during the end of his life, so he had a wide variety of music to chose from. While composing this mass, Bach’s main concern was adapting the unalterable text to his beautiful cantatas.

To describe the piece as a five-part fugue is misleading; though there are five choral voices, the extraordinarily complex polyphony of this unique composition combines vocal with instrumental lines in as many as seven parts, with six as early as the third entry of the subject in the ritornello. As the voices enter, diverse counterpoints in wind and strings give place to a doubling role, with a gain in weight by produced reduction in the number of parts (Lam, 46)

Some topics in this essay:
Basil Lam, Minor Mass, Mass Minor, Butt Bach, B-Minor Mass, Wolff Bach, Mettenchor Bach, John Butt, Kyrie II, Bach’s Mass, mass minor, bach’s mass, minor mass, kyrie gloria, rilling ix, mass bach’s, butt bach, helmuth rilling, musical style, ritornello form, sections minor mass, bach’s b-minor mass, bach’s mass minor, bach’s organ music, wide variety music,