A chromatic descending bass line. Repeated heavy, plodding steps. Continuous sighs as if carrying the cross or carrying the weight of death. The word Crucifixus repeated 12 times by individual voices. Each entrance dissonant, anguished, deliberate, reluctant, reverential. Three repeated notes, then a few notes descending towards earth. A few rising triads of extraordinary pain. In Grunewald’s painting, Christ’s distorted fingers bend upwards like leafless tree limbs in winter. His body stretched and strained. His skin marked by wounds, cuts. sores. All Renaissance ideals of beauty shattered. Three piercing nails above all. Two soft flutes sound two forlorn notes on the second and third beats. A half-rocking, half-swooning, gesture of little comfort and much despair. A pale-as-death virgin Mary falls backwards into the arms of John. Mary Magdelene half-kneels, half-collapses. Hands clasped in prayer, her elongated fingers reach upwards, an echo of Christ’s fingers on the cross. The orchestra stops playing in the final five bars. Only the choir is left. Their voices turn lower and softer, lower and softer, until Christ is laid in the tomb. Their final barely audible chord resolves on a major third. A slight ray of hope, then silence.
Note: Bach’s “Crucifixus” is a single movement from his B Minor Mass.
Click here for performance of Bach’s “Crucifixus.”
Image of Grunewald’s Crucifxion taken from Wikimedia Commons.
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