Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, 

miserere nobis.

Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us.

Another solo for the counter-tenor, and accompanied by oboe d’amore obbligato, and strings, is also melancholic in nature. It is the first time that Bach uses compound time in the Mass, and the work almost has the feeling of a Siciliano (a Sicilian dance with a pastoral mood). 

Quoniam tu solus sanctus,

Tu solus Dominus,

Tu solus altissimus, 

Jesu Christe,

For Thou only art holy, 

Thou only art the Lord,

Thou only art the most high, 

Jesus Christ,

The corno de caccia is used for the only time in this movement, along with two bassoons and continuo. (The corno de caccia was a circular, valveless brass instrument like a modern French horn, but much smaller, and able to speak more easily at a high pitch. It was popular in Germany during the Baroque period, and Bach uses it frequently in his cantatas. Today we are using a modern French horn.) For the first time we hear from the bass soloist in a movement in triple time. The bassoons move mostly in parallel whilst the horn has a very demanding independent melody high above them. Here Bach is literally trying to lift the text from the page and illustrate it in a vivid way – the horn representing Christ as the central figure of the Lutheran doctrine. The music flows seamlessly into the final movement of the Missa.

cum Sancto Spiritu 

in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.

with the Holy Ghost, in the glory of 

God the Father. Amen.

The Missa, as presented in Dresden in 1733, concludes with a huge movement based on fugal techniques. The technical demands which Bach places on the chorus here are huge – of operatic proportions. The phrases are unrelenting, high in pitch, energetic and challenging. The music is accompanied by full orchestra with the trumpets and timpani being restored and the sense of scale and concentrated excitement is virtually unparalleled in Bach’s output. Although written in 1733, Bach was to recycle this musical material in his Cantata 191, during Christmas of 1745, as previously mentioned. 

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