"At Eventide,
cool Hour of Rest," are the principal numbers that occur as we approach
the last sad but beautiful double chorus of the Apostles, "Around Thy
Tomb here sit we weeping,"--a close as peaceful as the setting of the
sun; for the tomb is but the couch on which Jesus is reposing, and the
music dies away in a slumber-song of most exalted beauty. This brief
sketch could not better close than with the beautiful description which
Mr. Dwight gives of this scene in the notes which he prepared when the
work was performed at the Triennial Festival of the Handel and Haydn
Society of Boston:--

"How full of grief, of tender, spiritual love, of faith and peace, of
the heart's heaven smiling through tears, is this tone-elegy! So should
the passion-music close, and not with fugue of praise and triumph like
an oratorio. How sweetly, evenly, the harmony flows on,--a broad, rich,
deep, pellucid river, swollen as by countless rills from all the
loving, bleeding, and believing hearts in a redeemed humanity! How full
of a sweet, secret comfort, even triumph, is this heavenly farewell: It
is 'the peace which passeth understanding.' 'Rest Thee softly' is the
burden of the song. One chorus sings it, and the other echoes 'Softly
rest;' then both together swell the strain. Many times as this recurs,
not only in the voices, but in the introduction and frequent interludes
of the exceedingly full orchestra, which sounds as human as if it too
had breath and conscious feeling, you still crave more of it; for it is
as if your soul were bathed in new life inexhaustible. No chorus ever
sung is surer to enlist the singers' hearts."

The Magnificat in D.

The Magnificat in D--known as the "Great Magnificat," to distinguish it
from the smaller--is considered one of the grandest illustrations of
Bach's genius. It was composed for Christmas Day, 1723. Spitta says:--

"The performance of the cantata 'Christen, aetzet diesen Tag,' with its
attendant 'Sanctus,' took place during the morning service, and was
sung by the first choir in the Nikolaikirche. In the evening the
cantata was repeated by the same choir in the Thomaskirche; and after
the sermon the Hymn of the Virgin was sung, set in its Latin form, and
in an elaborate style. For this purpose Bach wrote his great
'Magnificat.'"

For the occasion of this festival he expanded the Biblical text into four
vocal number