Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's 9-movement Magnificat from 1749, his first major vocal work in Berlin, is one of the most sonorous and, in the vocal solo parts, admittedly also one of the most demanding settings of the "Canticle of Mary" from Luke 1. The work fulfills all the criteria that the aesthetics of the time demanded of a large-scale sacred composition: grandeur, dignity, polyphonic and concertante choral movements, sensitive and pathetic arias, a large concluding double fugue. The richly scored Magnificat (with 3 trumpets and timpani ad lib.), which lasts just under an hour, is suitable as the main music for any (pre-)Christmas concert program.
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