Seeking the Virga Jesse movement of the Bach Magnificat
  • Patricia Cecilia
    Posts: 400
    I cannot find my Barenreiter score of the Bach Magnificat, and downloaded the only free score I could find of the Virga Jesse, but it is full of errors in the continuo part (the bass line is wrong, the chords in the realization are strange, and there is no figured bass from which to start afresh). Does anyone have a score (any publisher) of the Magnificat with the four extra movements, and could scan and send me the Virga Jesse? I have this on the Christmas Eve plan for my soprano and bass soloists (those parts are correct in the free score). Thank you for any help you can give!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    Out of curiousity, where is the free score from? Virga Jesse survives as a fragment, so it might be just as well to find that Bärenreiter, the only edition I know of with an editorial completion! But you could try your own hand if you'd rather: The BGA is here at IMSLP. A quick search at Bach-cantatas.com informs one that the duet is parodied from BWV 110 where it appears as the 5th mvt "Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe, a major third higher as a duet for soprano & tenor.
  • Patricia Cecilia
    Posts: 400
    Richard, the free score is the one listed on cpdl by James R. Jennings. I don't know why I didn't scroll down the page at cpdl and see the IMSLP reference; thank you! I looked at the BWV 110--how fascinating to see how Bach worked out the same general material in two different ways; such genius, and both ways are lovely.

    I have a former schola member looking up the score at UNC-Chapel Hill tonight, where they have both the full Barenreiter score with the four interpolated movements and the separate publication of just the Virga Jesse. OCLC supposedly had a copy at NCSU, but when I drove into town it wasn't the complete score. (Although there was a copy of Charles Winfred Douglas' The Canticles at Evensong, so I scanned that onto my flash drive, too.) So if either score is at CH, D. will copy it, hand it over to my son at school tomorrow (he's my son's algebra II teacher, as it happens) and then son will bring it home. Then I won't have to reinvent the wheel! The cellist figured out right away that her part wasn't correct and starting fixing it up. She had never heard of the piece before and so I sent her a link to the YouTube video with Deborah York as the soprano, and she loved it.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    Patricia, I've found my copy of the Bärenreiter and will e-mail you a link where you can pick up the file.
  • Patricia Cecilia
    Posts: 400
    Richard, thank you for the link. It turned out to be the best way to get the correct score into everyone's hands. And I now have both the Magnificat in D and the Magnificat in Eb scores in my hands as well, so I can sit at the piano over the next week and enjoy myself playing some of it as well as listening to various recordings on/after Gaudete.

    My own personal Advent/Christmas music discipline is that I only play Advent chant and chant-based motets starting on I Advent--lots of Creator/Conditor alme, Rorate caeli, Tota pulchra, O virgo pulcherrima and so on; then on Gaudete I allow my self to add Magnificats (with the Bach being my all-time favorite--it was a repertoire piece at Duquesne when I was an undergrad and master's student and I'm a utility spinto/mezzo/whatever, so I've sung all the women's parts and solos, conducted rehearsals, and even subbed at the drop of a hat for a flutist who left her part in her room) and that old Boston Camerata recording "A Renaissance Christmas" (which was really better in the old cassette version than the new CD version). Then on 24 December (day) we allow ourselves to break out our favorite carol recordings (King's College, Westminster et al) and instrumentals (celtic harp versions in particular) and we play those well through Epiphany :-) And of course there is all the grand and glorious live music on Christmas Eve and Day!

    Sorry to go off on a tangent--Gratias ago tibi!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    Patricia (& others):

    CPDL has a template that can be added to the Edition notes with this code: {{ScoreError|(optional description of the errors)}}. Potential users will appreciate the heads up!
  • Patricia Cecilia
    Posts: 400
    I've never tried posting works or anything else at CPDL--I guess it's time to learn how!

    I read through (after a perhaps 20-year stint of not looking at the editorial notes at the beginning of the score) Durr's description of how he finished the Virga Jesse based on the BWV 110 duet and it still makes me marvel at Bach's genius and at Durr's such lived-in-until-it's-deep-in-the-soul knowledge of Bach that produced a completion that seems totally seamless.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,798
    I almost forgot www.bach-digital.de.
Add a Comment