Pietro Torri'sMagnificat inC major, a setting of the biblicalCanticle of Mary, theMagnificat, for double choir and orchestra likely dates from the 1690s. The work is scored for twoSATB choirs, twotrumpets,bassoon,strings andbasso continuo. Its music opens with an instrumental introduction (sinfonia). Most of the composition'smovements are either choral movements, in which all singers and instruments participate, orduets for two singers and a more limited instrumental accompaniment.
The Magnificat in C major,BWV Anh. 30, isJohann Sebastian Bach's arrangement of Torri's Magnificat. In Bach's version of the work, which originated around 1742, there are an additional trumpet andtimpani. Both Torri's original and Bach's arrangement were recorded in the first decade of the 21st century. Shortly after the second of these recordings was released in 2012, it was discovered that BWV Anh. 30 was an arrangement of Torri's Magnificat. Before that, Bach's version had been attributed to various composers, includingAntonio Lotti.
Pietro Torri likely wrote his Magnificat in the 1690s, when he was in the service ofMaximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria.[3] In that period Torri followed his employer to theSpanish Netherlands (1692) and was later deputized toHanover (1696), only returning toBavaria in 1701.[4] In the early 1790s Torri wrote scenic works such asL'ambizione fulminata andGli amori di Titone e d'Aurora forMunich, andI Preggi della primavera forAnna Maria Luisa de' Medici,Electress Palatine atLeuchtenberg.[5][6][7]
S. Vinceslao,Abelle andS. Landelino areoratorios Torri likely wrote for Brussels between 1692 and 1701.[8] Secular works of this period include theTrastulli, a collection of 60 short vocal works, andBriseide, adramma per musica staged in Hanover.[6][9] In 1704 Torri was back in the Netherlands, and a few years later, still in the retinue of the Bavarian elector, in French territory.[4]
He returned to Munich in 1715, where he would remain till the end of his life, composing still over 20 new operas and other stage works, at a rate of around one every year.[4] Among his liturgical compositions of this period is aRequiem mass for the Elector, who died in 1726, after which Torri remained in the service ofCharles Albert, son and successor of Maximilian II Emanuel.[5][10][11] Torri's Magnificat disseminated via manuscript copies: one of such manuscripts, from theBokemeyer collection, is conserved in theBerlin State Library, another is in theBritish Library.[12][13]
The text of Torri's Magnificat is the Latin version of the Biblical canticle "My soul doth magnify the Lord" from thefirst chapter of the Gospel of Luke (10 verses), followed by the MinorDoxologyGloria Patri. The composition is inC major.[13]
Torri's Magnificat is setà 15 et più (for 15 voices and more):[13]
andbasso continuo (Bc;figured bass for theorgan).[13] When both bassoon and organ play, the former's voice is almost entirely identical to the bass line of the latter.[1] The 15 voices can also be defined as singers (8), trumpets (2), strings (4) and basso continuo (1), meaning that the bassoon can be seen as part of the continuo group, together with the organ.[14]
| Magnificat verses | Text | Torri's Magnificat[1][3][15] (with performance time)[16] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. | Sinfonia ([no tempo]; Vivace [et allegro]; Adagio): orchestra (tutti) | 3:49 | |||
| 1. | Magnificat anima mea Dominum. | Luke 1:46 | SI and SII (unisono), orchestra (tutti) | ||
| 2. | Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo. | Luke 1:47 | Tutti: SATBI, SATBII, orchestra | ||
| 3. | Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. | Luke 1:48 | 2.6 8 | Duet: AI, TI, Tr1, Tr2, Bc | 1:35 |
| 4. | Quia fecit mihi magna qui potens est et sanctum nomen ejus. | Luke 1:49 | 3. | Duet: SI, BI, Bc | 1:49 |
| 5. | Et misericordia ejus a progenie in progenies timentibus eum. | Luke 1:50 | 4. | SATBI, Bc | 2:45 |
| 6. | Fecit potentiam in brachio suo dispersit superbos mente cordis sui. | Luke 1:51 | 5. | Duet: AII, TII, Vl1, Vl2, Bc | 2:26 |
| 7. | Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles. | Luke 1:52 | 6. | Tutti: SATBI, SATBII, orchestra | 1:04 |
| 8. | Esurientes implevit bonis et divites dimisit inanes. | Luke 1:53 | |||
| 9. | Suscepit Israel puerum suum recordatus misericordiae suae. | Luke 1:54 | 7.6 8 | Duet: SII, BII, Bc | 1:48 |
| 10. | Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros Abraham et semini ejus in saecula. | Luke 1:55 | 8.3 2 | Tutti: SATBI, SATBII, orchestra | 0:28 |
| 11. | Gloria Patri, et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. | Doxology | 0:24 | ||
| 12. | Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. | 9. | 3:02 | ||
After an orchestral introduction, dominated by tutti chords, thesopranos of both choirs sing the first verse of thecanticle inunison, on the tune of sixthPsalm tone setting of the Magnificat, while the trumpets playconcertante, with an orchestral accompaniment. The second verse of the Magnificat follows in a monumentaltutti setting for double choir and orchestra.[1][3]
The second movement, setting the third verse of the Magnificat, is a duet for thealto andtenor of the first choir, accompanied by both trumpets and thecontinuo.[1][3]
The third movement, setting the next verse of the Magnificat, is another duet: soprano andbass of the first choir sing, accompanied by the continuo.[1][3]
The fourth movement, taking a central place in the composition, is astile antico setting of the fifth verse of the canticle, for all four voices of the first choir, and continuo.[1][3]
The fifth movement, setting the next verse of the Magnificat, is a duet for the alto and tenor of the second choir, accompanied by two violin voices, and continuo.[1][3]
The "Deposuit potentes" movement is atutti setting of two verses of the Magnificat.[1]
The seventh movement, setting the ninth verse of the Magnificat, is the last duet, for soprano and bass of the second choir, and continuo.[1][3]
The eighth movement is again for all forces (tutti), setting the next verse of the Magnificat, and the first half of theDoxology.[1]
The final movement, also fortutti, is a broad fugue with three musical subjects, respectively introduced on the words:[1][3]
In the course of the movement the musical texture grows ever more closer-knit.[1][3]
Torri was, in the retinue of his employer Max Emanuel, in Brussels andMons from 1704 to 1715.Ernest Augustus, Prince of Saxe-Weimar visited the Netherlands in 1707, where he may have met the Bavarian Elector and the composer.Peter Wollny thinks it likely that it was there that the Prince obtained a copy of Torri's Magnificat, which he brought back to Germany. That a copy of the work circulated in Thuringia before Torri's return to Munich is attested by an inventory written inRudolstadt in 1714. Johann Sebastian Bach, who was employed by Ernest Augustus, then Duke of Saxe-Weimar, from 1708, thus likely knew Torri's Magnificat from his time in Weimar, and may have taken performance parts of the work with him when he left that city in 1717.[17]
Bach copied Torri's Magnificat, likely from performance parts, around 1742 in Leipzig, where he was employed since 1723, likely in view of a performance of the work.[15][17][18][19] Having copied the work without much modification apart from merging the parts for bassoon and organ in a single continuo part for unspecified instruments, he added a third trumpet (which he indicated as "Principale" in his manuscript) andtimpani to the composition.[14][20][21] Another minor adjustment is that Bach applies a caesura in the music between the end of the Gospel text and the start of the doxology, so that the composition has ten movements ("Gloria Patri" becoming the ninth, and the fugal "Sicut erat" as the tenth and last movement).[15][19] Whether by omission or because he didn't know, Bach did not mention the composer of the original on his copy.[22]Antonio Caldara'sMagnificat in C major [scores], which Bach copied and arranged around the same time (BNB I/C/1 andBWV 1082), carries the name of the original composer in the header of Bach's manuscript.[22][23]
By 1841 Bach's manuscript was owned by theRoyal Library at Berlin (later converted to the Berlin State Library), where it was classified as Mus.ms. Bach P 195;[19] before that it was owned by, among others,Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel, Bach's studentJohann Christian Kittel, and, from 1809,Georg Poelchau [de], a collector of music by Bach and other Baroque composers.[15][18] Kittel and Poelchau both thought that the Magnificat for eight voices and orchestra was composed by Bach.[18][24] Kittel had a copy made of Bach's manuscript,[18][25] and Poelchau added a flyleaf to it, on which he indicated Bach as its composer.[19][21] In 1732, some two decades after he had published Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243.1),[26] however, Poelchau had doubts about Bach's authorship of the Magnificat for double choir and orchestra, writing that it was likely composed by Caldara orLotti.[22]
TheBach Gesellschaft did not include the Magnificat for eight voices and orchestra in the collected edition it published of Bach's works in the second half of the 19th century.[27] In theBach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV) it was listed among Bach's doubtful works (Anh. II), asBWV Anh. 30.[28] In 1968,Christoph Wolff mentioned Antonio Lotti as its possible composer.[29] Before the end of the 20th century also the editors of theNew Bach Edition had decided not to include the work in their complete edition of Bach's work.[30] Only in 2012 was it discovered that, apart from Bach's modifications,BWV Anh. 30 was identical to Torri's Magnificatà 15 et più.[31]
In the 21st century Torri's Magnificat was recorded, and its score published.[32][33]
In 2013Carus-Verlag published Arne Thielemann's edition of Bach's version of Torri's Magnificat.[33] The next year a facsimile of a manuscript copy of Torri's Magnificat became available on-line at the website of theBerlin State Library,[37] in 2016 followed by a facsimile of Bach's manuscript of the BWV Anh. 30 version.[19]
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