Missa brevis


Missa brevis is Latin for "short Mass". The term usually refers to a mass composition that is short because part of the text of the Mass ordinary that is usually set to music in a full mass is left out, or because its execution time is relatively short.

Full mass with a relatively short execution time

The concise approach is found in the mostly syllabic settings of the 16th century, and in the custom of "telescoping" in 18th-century masses. After the period when all church music was performed a cappella, a short execution time usually also implied modest forces for performance, that is: apart from Masses in the "brevis et solemnis" genre.

Polyphony

For composers of the classical period such as Mozart missa brevis meant "short in duration" – as opposed to "missa longa", a term that Leopold Mozart used for his son's K. 262 – rendering the complete words of the liturgy. As the words were well known some composers had different voice parts recite simultaneously different sections of long texts. This is especially characteristic of Austrian masses in the Gloria and the Credo.
Partial settings are seen in both the Roman and Lutheran traditions, where many works consist of the Kyrie and Gloria. These masses came to be called Missae breves because they are shorter in words, the opposite being Missae totae.

Baroque period

did not have a mandated set of Mass ordinary sections to be included in a Mass composition. Thus, in addition to settings of all five sections, there are many Kurzmessen that include settings of only the Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus. From the early 17th century, many Kurzmessen consist only of Kyrie and Gloria sections, e.g. those by Bartholomäus Gesius.
In the second half of the 17th century the Kyrie–Gloria Kurzmesse was the prevalent type in Lutheranism, with composers like Sebastian Knüpfer, Christoph Bernhard, Johann Theile, Friedrich Zachow and Johann Philipp Krieger. Gottfried Vopelius included a Kyrie–Gloria Mass in Gregorian chant on pages 421 to 423 of his Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch, introducing its Gloria as "... what the old church has done furthermore in praise of the Holy Trinity".
In the first half of the 18th century Kyrie–Gloria Masses could also be seen as a Catholic/Lutheran crossover, for example for Johann Sebastian Bach: not only did he transform one of Palestrina's a cappella Missa tota's in for use in Lutheran practice, he also composed one in this format for the Catholic court in Dresden.
Some Mass settings consisting of only three or four sections of the Mass ordinary can be indicated with a specific name, rather than with the generic Missa brevis name:
Masses written for the Anglican liturgy often have no Credo and no Agnus Dei. For American denominations, the Sanctus is usually without Benedictus. The Gloria section may be moved to the end of the composition.
Some Masses in this category are rather to be seen as incomplete, while the composer didn't write all the movements that were originally planned, or while some movements went lost, but the extant part of the composition found its way to liturgical or concert practice recast as a Brevis.
Whatever the reason for omitting part of the text of the Mass ordinary from the musical setting, the umbrella term for such Masses became Missa brevis. Partial Mass settings that are not a Kyrie–Gloria Mass include:
From the late 19th century Missa brevis may refer to a Mass composition with any combination of the following characteristics: short execution time, limited forces for performance, leaving out part of the Mass ordinary and/or the composition is incomplete so that the extant complete parts are seen as a Missa brevis. A Mass being short in this sense does however not exclude that sections based on texts outside the Mass ordinary are added to the composition.

19th century

As concert performance of liturgical works outside a liturgical setting increased, for some of the composers the brevis/solemnis distinction is about the breves, which not always needed professional performers, being intended for actual liturgical use, while a Missa solemnis was rather seen as a concert piece for professional performers, that could be performed outside an actual Mass celebration, similar to how an oratorio would be staged.