Magnificat - Meine Seele preist die Größe des Herrn

Mary's song of praise in compositions from three centuries

The order of service in Bach's time is well documented by the Leipzig chronicler Christoph Ernst Sicul. According to his report, the hymn of praise to Mary (the Magnificat) was sung in German in the vesper services after the sermon "on common Sundays, but in Latin on high feasts". Bach and his contemporaries set both parts of Martin Luther's German translation ("Meine Seel erhebt den Herrn") and the original Latin text to music. The music-loving reformer translated the latter with the intention of "strengthening our faith, comforting all the lowly and terrifying all the high people on earth". In the program on 31.05.2026 in the church of St. Hedwig in Stuttgart-Möhringen, the BachConsort Leipzig and the Saxon Baroque Orchestra under the direction of former Thomaskantor Gotthold Schwarz will perform settings of the Magnificat text from three centuries: from Johannes Eccard to Heinrich Schütz, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Ludwig Krebs and Johann Christian Bach. The concert will be crowned with his father's composition: according to recent research, this was written for the vespers service on the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (July 2, 1723) - just four weeks after he took over the post of cantor at St. Thomas. The new Thomaskantor and "Director musices" immediately presented the Leipzig worshippers with one of his most virtuosic and difficult church works ever - a composition that far overshadowed everything that had gone before and with which he revealed himself not only as a traditional cantor but also as a Kapellmeister right at the beginning of his career in Leipzig. Even in his early years, Bach's motto was: "Everything must be possible"!
A. Glöckner

Copyright photo: Florian Padler