Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir, BWV 29, is a sacred cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig in 1731 for Ratswechsel, the annual inauguration of a new town council, and first performed it on 27 August of that year. The cantata was part of a festive service in the Nikolaikirche. The cantata text by an unknown author includes in movement 2 the beginning of Psalm 75, and as the closing chorale the fifth stanza of Johann Gramann's "Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren". Bach scored the work in eight movements for four vocal parts and a festive Baroque orchestra of three trumpets, timpani, two oboes, strings, an obbligato organ and basso continuo. The organ dominates the first movement Sinfonia which Bach derived from a Partita for violin. The full orchestra accompanies the first choral movement and plays with the voices in the closing chorale, while a sequence of three arias alternating with two recitatives is scored intimately.
The Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, is a Solemn Mass composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819 to 1823. It was first performed on 7 April 1824 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei were conducted by the composer. It is generally considered one of the composer's supreme achievements and, along with Bach's Mass in B minor, one of the most significant Mass settings of the common practice period.
SATB is an initialism that describes the scoring of compositions for choirs, and also choirs of instruments. The initials are for the voice types: S for soprano, A for alto, T for tenor and B for bass.
Mass No. 2 in G major, D 167, by Franz Schubert was composed in less than a week in early March 1815 and remains the best known of his three short settings, or missae breves, dating between his more elaborate No. 1 and No. 5. Apart from some passages for soprano, its solistic interventions are modest; Schubert, characteristically, inclines toward a devotional mood. The First Mass had been successfully performed in the composer's parish the year before.
The Missa in angustiis, commonly known as the Nelson Mass, is a Mass setting by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. It is one of the six masses written near the end of his life that are seen as a culmination of Haydn's composition of liturgical music.
The Krönungsmesse, composed in 1779, is one of the most popular of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 17 extant settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. It can be classified as either a Missa brevis or a Missa solemnis because although it includes all the sections of the Ordinary, it is relatively short.
Theresienmesse is a mass in B-flat major written by Joseph Haydn and named after Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies, empress consort of Francis II. The empress herself was the soprano soloist at private performances of both The Creation and The Seasons in May 1801 at the Viennese Court. The title does not appear on the autograph score, which is labeled simply with the Latin word "Missa".
The Missa Salisburgensis à 53 voci is perhaps the largest-scale piece of extant sacred Baroque music, an archetypal work of the Colossal Baroque that is now universally accepted to be by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber. The manuscript score of this Mass was rediscovered in the 1870s in the home of a greengrocer in Salzburg, Austria. It has been said to have narrowly escaped being used to wrap vegetables. In the late 19th century, musicologists, notably August Wilhelm Ambros and Franz Xavier Jelinek, attributed it to Orazio Benevoli, and argued that it had been performed in 1628; however in the mid-1970s, through modern methods of analyzing handwriting, watermarks, and history, Ernst Hintermaier "proved...definitely" that it was not by Benevoli. He also demonstrated that it must have been written for the 1682 commemoration of the 1100th anniversary of the Archbishopric of Salzburg. Hintermaier wrote in 2015 that the evidence rules out both Benevoli and Andreas Hofer, Biber's colleague, and concludes that "... the only possible composer of the Mass and the [companion] motet [for 54 voices, Plaudite Tympana] was Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber... both the sources and the stylistic analysis clearly point to Biber as the author of the works."
The Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo, Hob. XXII:7, Novello 8, is a mass in B-flat major by Joseph Haydn. The missa brevis was written around 1774 for the order of the Barmherzige Brüder in Eisenstadt, whose patron saint was John of God. Scored modestly for soprano, four-part mixed choir, two violins, organ and bass, it is known as the Kleine Orgelmesse due to an extended organ solo in the Benedictus movement.
The Missa solemnis, WAB 29, is a solemn mass composed by Anton Bruckner in 1854 for the installation of Friedrich Mayer as abbot of St. Florian Abbey on 14 September 1854.
The Sparrow Mass is a mass in C major K. 220/196b, Mass No. 9, Missa brevis No. 5, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1775 or 1776 in Salzburg. The mass is sometimes termed a missa brevis et solemnis, because it is short in a simple structure as a missa brevis, but festively scored like a missa solemnis with brass and timpani in addition to four soloists, strings and organ. It was possibly first performed on 7 April 1776 in a mass for Easter at the Salzburg Cathedral. The nickname is derived from violin figures in the Hosanna which resemble bird chirping.
The Mass in B minor is Johann Sebastian Bach's only setting of the complete Latin text of the Ordinarium missae. Towards the end of his life, mainly in 1748 and 1749, he finished composing new sections and compiling it into a complex, unified structure.
The Missa solemnis in C major, K. 66, is a mass composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1769. It is scored for SATB soloists and choir, violins I and II, viola, 2 oboes, 2 horns, 2 clarini, 2 trumpets and basso continuo.
Stabat Mater in F minor, D 383, is a musical setting of the Stabat Mater sequence, composed by Franz Schubert in 1816. It is scored for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, SATB choir, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 2 french horns, 3 trombones, violin I and II, viola, cello and double bass.
Mass No. 1 in F major, D 105, is a mass composed by Franz Schubert in 1814. It is scored for two soprano soloists, two tenor soloists, alto and bass soloists, SATB choir, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, violin I and II, viola, and basso continuo. It was the first of Schubert's masses to be performed, and is of the missa solemnis type.
Mass No. 4 in C major, D 452, is a mass composed by Franz Schubert in 1816. It was originally scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, SATB choir, violin I and II, and basso continuo. It is classified as a missa solemnis.
Mass No. 5 in A-flat major, D 678, is a mass composed by Franz Schubert, completed in 1822. There is no record of a performance during Schubert's lifetime. It is scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, SATB choir with divisi, violin I and II, viola, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones colla parte, timpani and basso continuo. It is classified as a missa solemnis.
Mass No. 6 in E-flat major, D 950, is a mass composed by Franz Schubert, a few months before his death. It is scored for two tenor soloists, soprano, alto and bass soloists, SATB choir with divisi, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, violin I and II, viola, cello, and double bass. It was Schubert's final setting of the order of Mass, and is classified as a missa solemnis.
Antonio Vivaldi composed three settings of the Dixit Dominus, the Latin version of Psalm 110. They include a setting in ten movements for five soloists, double choir and orchestra, RV 594, another setting in eleven movements for five voices, five-part choir and orchestra, RV 595, and a recently discovered setting in eleven movements for five soloists, choir and orchestra, RV 807, which had been attributed to Baldassare Galuppi. It is said to be one of his "most significant sacred works."
The Mass in D major, Op. 86, is a mass composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1887. It is also called Lužanská mše after the chapel in Lužany for which it was written. It was first a work for soloists, choir and organ, and expanded to an orchestra version in 1892.
