Steps to Parnassus

In this final chapter, the progression from servitude to autonomy in the European musical imagination is traced through the agency of Fux’s Mass settings for the imperial court to the singular achievement of Bach’s Mass in B Minor (BWV 232). Between these extremes lie the Mass settings of Fux’s deputy, Antonio Caldara, three of which establish a mid-way point between Fux’s dutiful (and unsatisfactory) adherence to the dynastic style (an adherence nevertheless redeemed by the composure and thematic integrity of his far fewer stile antico settings) and the exceptional autonomy of BWV 232, in which the emancipation of the musical subject is fully realized. Two of the Caldara settings, the Missa Sanctorum Cosmae et Damiani and the Missa Matris Dolorosae, moreover, share compelling structural and expressive affinities with BWV 232 which (for the first time) contextualize the autonomy of Bach’s setting. The “either/or” understanding of compositional servitude in relation to imaginative autonomy is thus moderated in favor of both concepts. Likewise the relations between the authority concept and the work-concept in Fux and Bach are fortified.