Mass in B minor, BWV 232: Kyrie

The Kyrie of the B minor Mass opens with a fugue of enormous weight and complexity — a five-voice construction in which the choir enters one section at a time, building from a single line to a dense, interwoven texture of extraordinary power. The basses establish the subject, low and deliberate; the tenors follow; altos and sopranos add their voices; and gradually the full chorus is singing, the counterpoint so densely packed it seems almost impossible that any individual voice can be tracked through the mass of sound. And yet Bach's control is absolute — every voice has purpose and direction, nothing is ornamental. The word "Kyrie" — Lord, have mercy — is repeated throughout, and there is in the music both the petitionary quality of a request and the assurance of something larger than the request, as if the act of asking contains within it the confidence of being heard. The accompaniment of strings and woodwinds adds texture and harmonic color without obscuring the choral lines. Bach assembled this mass late in his life, combining newly composed movements with works he had written decades earlier, and the result is a compendium of his entire art: fugue, chorale, aria, chorus. This opening Kyrie is among the most architecturally and emotionally overwhelming pieces he produced. It demands full attention and rewards it with something that feels, genuinely, like the sublime.