My post in the week of Mothering Sunday takes as a starting point the mother of Christ: it is a work for organ, but closely associated with the Magnificat, the song of Mary. Bach’s BWV 733 is sometimes called a chorale prelude and sometimes a fugue on the Magnificat. The German text, Meine Seele erhebt den Herren, is taken to be Luther’s translation of the canticle, and it is often sung to a version of the plainchant tonus peregrinus, which Bach takes as the theme.

I say Bach – it probably was but there are those who suggest it may have been a student of his – and I say he takes the tonus as his theme: for most of the fugue only the first half of the first line is heard, and the completion of that first line alone appears only at the climax. What is more, I say fugue; although fugal is an adequate adjective here, it does not really fulfil the formal definition of fugue – and nobody doubts that Bach was master of that form.

Nevertheless, a reflective but joyful meditation on a simple melody which is associated with the important song of praise that Mary (according to Luke) sang at the visitation. Given certain protestant attitudes towards veneration of Mary – as other Saints – it is worth noting that the feast of the visitation was certainly celebrated and well-loved in Lutheran churches, and that the use of tonus peregrinus, recognisable as plainchant suggests even possibly something of a nostalgic or conservative attitude associated with the canticle.

The music, whether we call it a fugue or not, encompasses several clever manipulations of short motifs, of countermelody as often as main theme, and keeps musical interest in a reflective way. What of theology? We can associate it through the text to BVM, of course, and to the miracle of the incarnation. Perhaps it is through the incarnation that the more profound connection might be made: God binds Godself to humanity in a way which might be illustrated by any intertwining of musical lines, but I encourage you to spend a little time with this piece and see what you hear…