![]() Despite the difficulties, he managed to create a dignified ending for his “Great Catholic Mass.” Bach may have appropriated the Gratias in this way because he felt he was running out of time, or he may have been motivated by aesthetic or theological considerations. In the case of the Pacem, however, Bach decided to rework a movement from the Gloria of the Mass - the Gratias agimus tibi, itself a parody of a movement from one of his cantatas - and to rework it with hardly any changes in the music, despite the fact that he had trouble adapting it to the new text. Almost all of the other movements of the Mass were reworked versions, or “parodies,” of earlier compositions and these reworkings were the occasion for brilliant revisions and improvements, so that the new music was well adapted to the Latin text, and to the spirit of the piece. Sebastian Bach was in the last year of his life when he began writing the Dona nobis pacem, the final movement of his monumental Mass in B minor. He was weak, his eyesight was failing, and he no longer had a fluid hand. ![]()
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