Bach's attitude toward the musical mass, especially as shown in that in B minor (1733-8), was extremely original. Traditionally, the form had been so closely identified with the actual Catholic liturgy that its treatment had been either fully subordinated to its ritual surroundings, or, if elaborate, developed along conventional lines of method and sentiment. Bach, a Protestant and apparently not writing for ritual use in a Catholic service, followed neither of these types, though influenced somewhat by the second. In the text of the mass (all of which was in some use in Lutheran services) he saw possibilities of gigantic artistic expression. The result is a monumental sublimation of ritual music, treated not as an accessory of a church service, but as an end in itself. Hence his masses, especially the great one, belong properly to the church oratorio class, with the Passions, etc., but have a range of abstract topic and idea not often reached by the historical oratorio.
It has been supposed that Bach's attention to the mass was partly in
connection with his official relations to the Catholic court of Dresden, but
it is not clear that any of his works of this class were actually used as
wholes in Catholic services. Parts of them were used at Leipsic, however.
With the B minor Mass is to be classed the great Magnificat in D (1723?), since it, too, is a setting of a Catholic ritual text.
120. Other German Church Music.—The general interest among German Protestants in music for the organ and the choir in the later 17th century continued into the 18th, but artistically it was confused by the rapid advance of the opera on the one hand and of diverting chamber music on the other. While Bach, by virtue of his mastery of technique, his profundity of thought, and his independence of mere popularity, pushed on to achievements of enduring value, his contemporaries generally sought to gratify the taste of the time, sometimes with inventive ability, sometimes in slavish complaisance. The revolt from the older severity became steadily stronger, though for a long period without leading to the invention of new styles of positive importance. In vocal music the prevalent forms were of the cantata or Passion class, usually treated after the sentimental fashion of the opera. Organ music persisted longer along the serious paths of the fugue and the chorale-elaboration, but with constantly diminishing vigor. With but few exceptions, the drift of the period was against church music in its purity.
