Resources for J.S. Bach, Magnificat in D, BWV 243

Markus Rathey, Bach’s Major Vocal Works: Music, Drama, Liturgy (Yale, 2016): Written for a general readership, this book contains discussions of all the major vocal works. Rathey provides a movement-by-movement discussion of the Magnificat and therefore makes an excellent companion for the listener. (Amazon.com)
Daniel Melamed, Hearing Bach’s Passions, Updated edition (Oxford, 2016): While not addressing the Magnificat, this book contains some helpful information on the performing practices of Bach’s time. (Amazon.com)
Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (Norton, 2001): This is the definitive Bach biography. While it does contain some technical discussions of the music, one can easily skip over them without losing a sense of the contours of Bach’s life and career. (Amazon.com)

Glossary

basso continuo: a group of instruments that play the bass line for an ensemble, members of which may improvise parts of the chordal accompaniment. Instruments that make up the basso continuo may include the cello, string bass, bassoon, harpsichord, organ (in sacred music), and theorbo (a type of bass lute).

cadence: a point of repose in music like a comma, semicolon, or period in poetry.
common practice period: see tonal music
continuo: see basso continuo
full cadence: a cadence that creates a sense of closure.
half cadence: a cadence that provides a sense of repose but not of closure, like the end of a dependent clause when speaking or writing.
melisma: a series of notes sung to a single syllable.
ritornello: “In the late 17th and 18th centuries, the recurring tutti section of a concerto movement or an aria.”.^[1]

tonal music: The music of the “common practice period,” that is, from roughly the last half of the seventeenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth. Tonal music is characterized by strong senses of expectation and directionality that result from the harmonies from which we derive major and minor scales.

tutti: A passage in which the attention is devoted to the full orchestra. Used to distinguish from passages performed by soloists with accompaniment provided by a small subset of the ensemble.

1. Don Michael Randel, ed., The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th edn. (Cambridge: Belknap, 2003).