B Minor Basics: The Resurrection of the Son of God

The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men
And be crucified and on the third day rise.
                                                                                                -- St. Luke 24:7

As the Church transitions from the forty penitential days of Lent to the Fifty Great Days of Easter, the word of the resurrection once again rings true: "Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" Perhaps in no other sacred choral work do they ring more clearly or gloriously than in the Et resurrexit ​movement of Bach's Mass in B Minor. 

​The text of a musical setting of the Mass normally consists of the ordinary of the Mass, five select portions of the Divine Service that are ordinarily sung every Sunday. These five “pillars” of the Divine Service are listed here with their unofficial Latin titles (or Greek, in the case of the Kyrie), their first phrase in The Common Service (translations of the words from the left column are in bold print), and primary Scripture references from Lutheran Service Book (LSB):

Kyrie
Gloria in Excelsis
Nicene Creed
Sanctus
Agnus Dei

Lord, have mercy upon us
Glory be to God on high
I believe in one God, etc.
Holy, holy, holy
O Christ, Thou Lamb of God

St. Mark 10:47
Luke 2:14; John 1:29
[numerous verses]
Is. 6:3; Matt. 21:9
​John 1:29

A number of features of Bach’s Mass in B Minor distinguish it from numerous other settings that came before him. Composers of the Renaissance (ca. 1400-1600) usually set the Mass text to unaccompanied or a cappella music, in 5 movements according to the ordinary of the Mass, and generally with no solos. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, however, is set apart at the outset by setting each phrase or thought of the ordinary to music, with a total of nearly two hours of music in 27 movements. Moreover, the B Minor Mass is a concerted mass, i.e., a mass for voices and instruments. This expansive and comprehensive approach allowed him to include a remarkable variety of instrumental combinations and musical forms, yet it was written with no specific performance in mind.
 
So how did the Mass in B Minor come to exist if Bach did not write it for a specific occasion? The Kyrie and Gloria, known in Lutheran circles as a Missa Brevis or Brief Mass, were presented as a gift to the Saxon Elector Friedrich August II in 1733, but there is no hard evidence that they were ever performed in Bach’s lifetime. The Sanctus was composed for Christmas Day in 1724, and was performed in Bach’s lifetime on multiple occasions. The remaining Mass movements, including the Et resurrexit, that this column will explore, were newly written or adapted from previous compositions between August 1748 and October 1749, not long before Bach’s death in 1750. Thus the Mass in B Minor evolved over a period of some 35 years, largely as “a summation and culmination on Bach’s part of the forms and expressions of his time, similar to what he accomplished in writing The Art of the Fugue—gifts for posterity” (Robert Summer, Choral Masterworks from Bach to Britten, pp. 1-2). How astonishing to think that, of the incomparable treasures in the Mass in B Minor, Bach might have heard only the Sanctus in his lifetime!
 
Listen to Et resurrexit, following the rolling score (guided by the red line), with color-coding in dark blue for thematic groupings. Pay special attention to anything that occurs in groups of 3:

And the third day He rose again
            according to the Scriptures
And ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of [God] the
            Father
and He will come again with glory
to judge both the quick and the dead,
whose kingdom will have no end.

Et resurrexit tertia die
            secundum scripturas.
Et ascendit in coelum,
            ​sedet ad dexteram
[Bach adds the word Dei] Patris
et iterum venturus est cum gloria
judicare vivos et mortuos,
Cujus regni non erit finis.

The contrast form the previous movement, which ends with the burial of Christ, is startling. In the ultimate double meaning in tempo markings, the burial music, which was performed Grave (very slow), transitions to Vivace et Allegro (lively and fast) to depict the Son of God being revivified from the depths of the grave. The key transitions abruptly to the “Trumpet Key” of D Major, which was usually associated with arrival of royalty. The full orchestral and vocal forces leap upward, in some cases several octaves from the previous movement, to preach the good news that Christ has risen indeed. Helmuth Rilling, an admired Bach conductor and scholar, offers a few insightful observations on this movement in his book, Johann Sebastian Bach’s B-Minor Mass:

1. The rising sixteenth notes in the voices might be “an image from the Easter story, in which the news of Christ’s resurrection spreads like wildfire from one person to another” (p. 79).
2. “[A]ll the instruments and vocal forces combine within a virtuosic concerto movement to depict vitally and enthusiastically the jubilation of the resurrection of Christ” (p. 78).
3. “Nowhere in the history of Mass composition is the belief in the resurrection expressed with such absolute confidence as it is here” (p. 78).

Did you notice several items in sets of 3? The meter throughout this movement is ¾. At the top of the score, there are three trumpets (Tromba), even though the typical Baroque orchestra only used two trumpets, when and if trumpets were called for. There are three 8th-note pick-ups in the first, followed quickly by 16th-note triplets in the second measure. The triplet motif permeates the entire movement, which seems to suggest the significance of Jesus’ resurrection for each subsequent stage of His exaltation: the risen Christ ascends into heaven, the risen Christ sits at God’s right hand, etc.
 
The significance of the third day theme in Christian theology cannot be overstated. In Genesis 1:9-13, the third day is the day that God created vegetation, the beginning of the ongoing cycle of death that we see every fall and the new life that we behold every spring, the season of Eastertide. In Hosea, the third day is the day that God will restore His penitent people to life and salvation through the forgiveness of sins: “After two days [the Lord] will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him” (6:2) St. Luke uses the phrase most frequently (at least six times with explicit reference to Jesus’ resurrection) among the evangelists, with language that closely parallels that of the Creed:

Passion Prediction (Luke 9:22)
And the third day rise

Resurrection Narrative (Luke 24:7)
And the third day rise

Nicene Creed
And the third day He rose

et tertia die resurgere


et die tertia resurgere


et resurrexit tertia die

​It seems quite fitting that the final use of third day language in the New Testament introduces St. Paul’s most extensive doctrine and defense of the resurrection of the body:

​For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve (I Cor. 15:3-5, ESV).

The message from Genesis to the end of days is quite clear: the third day is the day that Jesus conquered the older order of sin and death and ushered in the new creation of life, salvation, and resurrection from the dead. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11).

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!