B Minor Basics: Lamb of God + Grant Us Peace

​Mozart shows us the kind of music we might hope to hear in heaven.
But it is Bach, making music in the Castle of Heaven, who gives us the voice of God—in human form.

— John Eliot Gardiner
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 In the final movements of The Mass in B-Minor by J. S. Bach (1685-1750), the composer intentionally contrasts large choruses with more intimate arias, with a miniature chiasm around the Benedictus:
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Sanctus – six-part chorus with full orchestra
            Hosanna – double chorus with full orchestra
                        Benedictus – tenor aria with chamber orchestra
            Hosanna – double chorus with full orchestra
Agnus Dei – alto aria with limited orchestra
Dona Nobis Pacem – four-part chorus with orchestra
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​Only the last two movements remain to be considered in this, our final installment of “B Minor Basics”: the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) aria and the Dona Nobis Pacem (Grant Us Peace) chorus.

The text of the Agnus Dei is drawn from St. John 1:29 and 1:36. When John the Baptist was baptizing in Bethany, beyond the Jordan, he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The next day, after bearing witness that this Jesus is the Son of God, John again said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” Since the Lamb of God is no longer present in the Jordan, but rather abiding among us in the Blessed Sacrament, the church has sung the Agnus Dei as part of the Communion liturgy since the early days of the Medieval era. The theology of the Agnus Dei is summarized in the Agnus Dei hymn of Nicolaus Decius (c. 1485—after 1546), which was well known in Bach’s day:
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Lamb of God, pure and holy, Who on the cross didst suffer,
Ever patient and lowly, Thyself to scorn didst offer.
All sins Thou borest for us, Else had despair reigned o’er us:
Have mercy on us, O Jesus! O Jesus! (Lutheran Service Book 434.1)
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Bach sets the Agnus Dei to a tender and intimate aria for alto (or countertenor, as in the following performance from BBC Proms) that is tranquil and profoundly expressive. In the following performance, listen for the imitation between the soloist and the strings:

Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.
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Lamb of God,
who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
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Did you notice the use of the fermata and the brief silence at 3:33? This is the only time in the entire Mass that a fermata occurs in the middle of a movement, rather than at the end of a movement. Helmuth Rilling describes the theological significance of the pause:

If one brings to mind the similar fermatas in the arias of the St. John and St. Matthew Passions, it will be found that the meaning of the fermatas is the same despite the diversity of the movements: when contemplating the suffering, crucifixion, and death of Jesus, the music pauses to permit time for humble reflection upon the meaning of this suffering (Bach’s Mass In B Minor, p. 147).
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​Our journey through the B Minor now arrives at the final movement, Dona Nobis Pacem, which is probably the best known and most frequently performed section of the Mass. To be sure, the petition for peace must not be confused with the modern aspirations for world peace. Indeed, the modern desire for worldly peace is nothing more than a theology of self-glory, with no connection whatsoever to the text of the Mass! Rather, the prayer for peace is eucharistic. God alone grants the peace of sins forgiven and life restored through His Son’s true Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper. This is why the Communion liturgy is permeated by prayers for peace, from the sharing of the peace after the Words of Institution to the admonition to “depart in peace” after the reception of the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps it is no surprise that Bach’s linear arrangement of the text reads as follows:
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Dona nobis pacem, pacem dona nobis.

The flexible word order of Latin allows for either word order, but the order chosen by Bach seems to place special emphasis on peace: “Grant to us peace, peace grant to us!”

For the music of the Dona Nobis Pacem, Bach followed his established pattern of contrasting smaller arias with larger choruses. The full orchestra now enters, doubling the parts of the four-part chorus. In the following video, listen for the initial entry in the lower voices, followed by a gradual ascension to the heights of heaven. As you listen to the following performance by the Bach Collegium Japan, ask yourself if you recognize the music from an earlier movement of the B Minor:
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Dona nobis pacem.
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Grant us peace.
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Did you recognize the music from an earlier portion of the Mass? This is the same music as the Gratias Agimus Tibi from the Gloria:
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Gratias agimus tibi
propter magnam gloriam tuam.
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We thank You
for Your great glory.
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As with every incoporation of pre-existent music, whether from earlier material in the Mass or from pre-existent cantatas, there is a profound connection between the first use of the music and subsequent adaptation to a different text. God’s greatest glory is to dwell with us and give us His true and lasting peace in Christ, for which we give thanks! Perhaps conductor John Eliot Gardiner says it best: “[A]s you approach the final straight of this great adventure and the trumpets soar one last time to announce the homecoming, you [realize] that Bach’s final prayer for peace, Dona nobis pacem, is both an invocation and a resounding confirmation of its immanence” (BACH: Music in the Castle of Heaven, p. 524).

We have now reached the end of our survey of the entire B Minor Mass, and yet our journey has only begun. Once more from John Eliot Gardiner: “We are [Bach’s] successors and the beneficiaries of his vision. Every time we perform it marks just the latest point in the work’s continuing and continuous unfolding” (BACH, p. 522). One of my favorite episodes in this continual unfolding of the legacy of the B Minor comes from the work of the late choral conductor, Robert Shaw (1916-1999). In 1962, Mr. Shaw took his famous Robert Shaw Chorale behind the Iron Curtain for a tour of Russia. The Chorale visited 11 cities and gave 30 concerts over a period of six weeks, all done at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis and tensions between the U. S. and the Soviet Union. Mr. Shaw prepared three programs for this tour. But big “hit” was the B Minor Mass. Audiences would remain in the halls after the concerts, often for up to an hour, and often on their feet. Soviet Radio broadcast one concert in its entirety, including 10 minutes of applause at the end of the concert. In Leningrad, several hundred people stood in line all night to get coupons from a government bureau that would entitle them to stand in line again the following day to get actual tickets. In the city of Lvov, a riot broke out when several hundred people, unable to get tickets, knocked down the door and pushed their way in to an already full concert hall to hear the B Minor.

What could possibly explain this reaction of the Soviet people to a performance of Western music by an American choir and orchestra? Mr. Shaw liked to tell the story of the group’s tour guide, an old man named Petrov. In his last conversation with Petrov on the way to the Moscow airport, Mr. Shaw asked Petrov why the Russian response to the B Minor was so tumultuous. Petrov’s reply (pardon the mistranslation of the Kyrie in this quote) summarizes the legacy of the B Minor that has led the present writer on a decades-long journey to fathom the continuous unfolding of its depth—and I am just getting started!
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I was with you in every audience, you know. And it never failed; within three minutes after you had begun to sing, people forgot that you were Americans or performers, and that they were in a concert hall. They were simply hearing, Kyrie eleison, “Lord our God have mercy,” or Dona nobis pacem, “Give us peace.” It was like one heart talking to another heart—or more like Bach’s heart talking to all of us (Keith Burris, Deep River: The Life and Music of Robert Shaw, pp. 122-123).
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Grant this, Lord, unto us all!
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+ Glory to God Alone +