Bach's Hohe Messe

Johann Sebastian Bach's universally acclaimed Mass in b minor (Hohe Messe) is still surrounded by riddles. Bach himself probably never heard the work in its entirety. He sent the Kyrie and Gloria with a petition to the Saxon Elector in Dresden. It earned him the title of 'royal Saxon and Polish court composer'. Why, at the end of his life, he expanded the two parts into a complete mass has not yet been clarified. It is simply too long for a Catholic worship service. Perhaps parts of it were played during solemn feast days in Leipzig? Was Bach thinking of performing it in the new Catholic court church in Dresden? Or, as recently suggested, a performance during the Caecilia festival in Vienna in 1750?









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