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The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude – Johann Sebastian Bach: Magnificat in D major, BWV 243
December 5, 2025 in Music | Tags: BWV 243, The DWR Friday Baroque Interlude - Johann Sebastian Bach: Magnificat in D major | by The Arbourist | Leave a comment
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 (1733), is the polished, definitive version of his radiant setting of the Virgin Mary’s hymn from Luke 1:46–55. Revised from an earlier E-flat major Christmas piece (BWV 243a), it discards the four seasonal interpolations, sharpens the structure into twelve continuous movements, and transposes everything up a semitone into blazing D major, the key of Baroque triumph. With three trumpets, timpani, and a five-part choir (SSATB), the work erupts in roughly half an hour of unremitting splendor.
The architecture is masterful. An exultant opening chorus gives way to a chain of solos and ensembles that trace the text’s emotional arc: ecstatic leaps in “Et exsultavit,” tender humility in the soprano/oboe d’amore “Quia respexit” answered by the sudden choral avalanche of “Omnes generationes,” fierce scattering of the proud in “Fecit potentiam” and “Deposuit potentes,” and the serene threefold remembrance of mercy in “Suscepit Israel.” Every gesture is vivid; plunging bass lines topple tyrants, soaring melodies fill the hungry, fugal entries multiply generations.
The final doxology recycles the opening material on a grander scale, ending with a “Sicut erat in principio” that feels like the turning of cosmic wheels. Compact yet sumptuous, theologically precise yet viscerally thrilling, the D-major Magnificat stands as Bach’s most brilliant large-scale Latin work outside the B-minor Mass: a sun-drenched palace of sound where heaven and earth rejoice in perfect alignment.
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