Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir, BWV Anh. 167

The Mass played an important role in Bach reception of the early 19th century; at the time it was published and performed as one of the composer's significant works.

The work was recorded in the 21st century, and, in scholarship, Christoph Bernhard, Johann Philipp Krieger or David Pohle were mentioned as its possible composer.

[4] The oldest extant source of its music is a manuscript score dating from the 1730s, which was partially written by Johann Sebastian Bach.

[1][5] Peter Wollny assumes that a copy of the work may have been brought back from the Spanish Netherlands by Ernest Augustus of Saxe-Weimar in 1707.

The Mass may have been performed under Bach's direction at the inauguration of Weimar's St Jacob's Church [de] on 6 November 1713.

When Bach left the duchy of Saxe-Weimar in 1717, he may have taken performance parts of the Mass with him, leaving the score from which he had derived these in Weimar.

[9][22] The music of the Gloria section has these subdivisions:[23] Several copies of the Kyrie–Gloria Mass for double choir were manufactured in the second half of the 18th century.

Bach für zwey Chöre componirte Meße ... ist ein vollkommenes Muster sich danach in dieser Gattung zu belehren.

[33][34] The next month, Johann Friedrich Rochlitz described his impressions of the work performed at the concert in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: ... wie ein aus den Ruinen der grauen Vorzeit herausgegrabener Obelisk ... erfüllte das Gemüth mit einem Schauer der Ehrfurcht gegen die Kraft und Gewalt der Vorfahren, u. gegen das Grosse und Heilige ihrer Kunst ... nicht etwa, wie Viele befürchten möchten, finster, überkünstlich, nur gelehrt, sondern, bey aller Tiefe und allem Reichthum, äusserst einfach, klar und so gearbeitet sind, dass man ihnen, bey Empfänglichkeit und Aufmerksamkeit, überall sehr gut folgen kann.

[14][35] ... as an obelisk, unearthed from the ruins of a grey prehistory ... filled the mind with a shudder of respect for the force and power of the ancestors, and for what is great and sacred in their art ... not something, as many might fear, dark, artificial, only learned, but, with all its depth and richness, extremely uncomplicated, clear, and executed thus that someone who is susceptible and attentive can follow it very well everywhere.

Later that same year the Mass was published by Breitkopf & Härtel as Messa a 8 voci reali e 4 ripiene coll'accompagnamento di due Orchestre, composta da Giov.

[2][13][15][34] Although the title suggests that Johann Gottfried Schicht, the editor of this publication,[10] closely followed the P 659 manuscript,[20] he amended it in several ways, including:[17] In 1812, Danish composer Peter Grønland produced performance material for the Mass, apparently based on the 1805 print.

[36][37] Around 1821–30, Carl Friedrich Zelter produced a copy, with his own modifications, of the Mass: this score, once in the archive of the Berliner Singakademie, went missing in the Second World War.

Dagegen findet sich selbst in seinen kleinsten und schwächsten Werken kein Satz, wie z. B.

das Allegro des ersten Kyrie, welches, volkommen homophon, 40 Takte lang bei einem ebenso oft wiederkehrenden monotonen Rhythmus beharrt.

By contrast, even in his most insignificant and weakest works, there is no movement as, for instance, the Allegro of the first Kyrie, which soldiers on, completely homophonic, in a monotonous rhythm, 40 measures long.

[10][11] In 1894 Alfred Dörffel returned to the issue in a BGA preface, suggesting Johann Ludwig Bach as possible composer of the work.

[33] Wolfgang Schmieder followed Dörffel's and Kretzschmar's judgements about the inauthenticity of the work in his 1950 first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV), where it is classified as No.

[18] Like its predecessor, the BGA, also the New Bach Edition (NBE) decided, in the second half of the 20th century, not to include BWV Anh.