Quia respexit (Magnificat)

Bach wrote the first version of his Magnificat for Christmas 1723, in E flat major and with four seasonal interpolations woven between the Latin verses. Around 1733 he removed those insertions, transposed the work to D major and altered the scoring, and it is this second version, BWV 243, that is normally performed. It is short — twelve movements over roughly half an hour — and unusually concentrated, each verse of the canticle given its own form and its own forces. Quia respexit sets a single soprano against an oboe d'amore until the chorus breaks in on the word omnes.