Missa Brevis

Missa brevis (plural: Missae breves) 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.

The concise approach is found in the mostly syllabic settings of the 16th century, and in the custom of "telescoping" (or simultaneous singing by different voices) 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.

For composers of the classical period such as Mozart missa brevis meant "short in duration" – as opposed to "missa longa" (long mass), 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 (complete Masses).

As Protestantism didn't have a determined set of Mass ordinary sections to be included in a Mass composition, as well settings of all five sections (e.g. Hieronymus Praetorius, Christoph Demantius) as Kyrie–Gloria–Sanctus settings (e.g. Stephan Otto, Andreas Hammerschmidt) exist. From the early 17th century many Kurzmessen (short masses) consisting of only Kyrie and Gloria were composed, e.g. by Bartholomäus Gesius (eight out of ten Masses included in his 1611 Missae ad imitationem cantionum Orlandi). 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.

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