J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

85-89, 156-63; compare the first part of Ex.4.15 below; Mozart further distinguishes
this texture by giving it a piano dynamic indication each time it occurs). After b.106
there is a series of (stretto) entries accompanied by dizzying quaver counterpoint in
one voice at a time; first tenor, then alto, soprano, and bass. This takes us to b.138,
where the subject is inverted (again in two-part stretto) and the quaver counterpoint is
left to the orchestra. Hitherto Mozart’s tonal range and harmonic language have been
well within Baroque norms (if his dependence upon the dominant seventh is a little
more thorough-going than would be perfectly orthodox). The A flat in b.155 suggests
that this is about to change, and indeed the passage that follows is one of extraordinary
harmonic imagination (Ex.4.15). It leads us to the one definitively Classical
articulated cadence in the whole piece, which is immediately followed by a close
stretto that appears (on paper) to be of almost Palestrinian purity. Looks can deceive,
however, and the unprepared sevenths and ninths, not to mention the chromaticism of
bb.171-174, give the passage an unmistakeably Viennese accent. A little further
development leads to the final entry—with the choir in octaves, this time—and the
conclusion of the Gloria. As a specimen of fugal writing it is in most respects wholly
unlike that of J. S .Bach. But it is not impossible to see it as a highly successful
attempt by Mozart to create a movement of similar contrapuntal integrity and motivic
density—and musical excitement—within the terms of his own south German fugal
tradition.
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