CJ Replay: Bach’s Lutheran Masses

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article, “J.S. Bach’s “Lutheran” Masses: Aspects of Chronology and Structure“, by Chester L. Alwes)

Bach’s “Lutheran Masses” are comprised of only the Kyrie and Gloria texts of the Mass, an occurrence so consistent throughout Protestant Germany that the majority of Masses composed there during the Baroque era were of this type and were commonly referred to as “Missa brevis.”  The remaining Latin Mass texts were frequently set as single pieces for special occasions as, for example, the five Sancti – BWV 237-241 – attributed (probably falsely) to J. S. Bach; 2 more frequently, when Latin music was required (whether motets or settings of liturgical texts) Bach and his contemporaries relied on anthologies, or copies of Catholic composers’ works (in Bach’s case, he copied Latin works by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Caldara, Lotti, and others) to fill this need. The scarcity of Latin Mass music by German composers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was further caused by the increasing emphasis within Protestantism on the Gospel in both sermons and concerted musical settings.

Given this general background information and the absence of documentary evidence about the origin of Bach’s Masses, it seems likely that these pieces were never intended for Leipzig. Sputa contends that, on the basis of style of composition, these Masses were intended for the Catholic court at Dresden, Geiringer, Blume, Steinitz, and Rifkin all agree that the masses were the result of a commission tendered by a Bohemian nobleman, Count Franz Anton von Sporck.