We dive deeper into the foreboding of the Christmas mystery. The famous composers have composed music to the Credo in their masses. I remember my being deeply touched when I realized that Bach, who was not a Catholic, had written music for the credo ‘Et credo (in) unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam’. There the true religious, non-confessional faith with the help of art goes beyond all dogmas… In the Credo we also find the sentence referring to Christmas: ‘Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est’.
Listening to the different compositions, it becomes clear how an incarnation gives a kind of sadness that the active heavens, the doing, are left to be immersed in passivity on earth, which is suffering… For me, this is most evident in Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. Of course there are many opera-like versions, but from time to time a tenor sings quite purely this ‘ Et incarnates est’…
Music by Mieke Mosmuller
