Editing Mass in B minor (section)

== Background and context ==
On 1 February 1733, [[Augustus II]] the Strong, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania and [[Elector of Saxony]], died. Five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a [[Missa, BWV 232a|Missa]], a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites. His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign [[Augustus III]], a convert to Catholicism, with the hope of obtaining the title "Electoral Saxon Court Composer". Upon its completion, Bach visited Augustus III in Dresden and presented him with a copy of the [[Mass for the Dresden court (Bach)|Kyrie–Gloria Mass BWV 232 I (early version)]], together with a petition to be given a court title, dated July 27, 1733; in the accompanying inscription on the wrapper of the Mass he complains that he had "innocently suffered one injury or another" in [[Leipzig]].<ref>An English translation of the letter is given in Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, ''The Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents'', W. W. Norton & Company, 1945, p. 128. (Also in ''The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents'' revised by Christoph Wolff, W.W. Norton & Co Inc, 1998, {{ISBN|978-0-393-04558-1}}, p. 158.)</ref> The petition did not meet with immediate success, but Bach eventually got his title: he was made court composer to Augustus III in 1736.<ref name="Rathey">[[Markus Rathey]]. 2016. ''Bach's Major Vocal Works. Music, Drama, Liturgy'', [[Yale University Press]]</ref>

In the last years of his life, Bach expanded the Missa into a complete setting of the Latin Ordinary. It is not known what prompted this creative effort. [[Wolfgang Osthoff]] and other scholars have suggested that Bach intended the completed Mass in B minor for performance at the dedication of the new [[Dresden Cathedral|Hofkirche]] in [[Dresden]], a Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which was begun in 1738 and was nearing completion by the late 1740s. However, the building was not completed until 1751 and Bach's death in July 1750 prevented his Mass from being submitted for use at the dedication. Instead, [[Johann Adolph Hasse]]'s Mass in D minor was performed, a work with many similarities to Bach's Mass (the Credo movements in both works feature chant over a walking bass line, for example).<ref>Stauffer, pp. 258–59.</ref> In 2013, Michael Maul published research suggesting the possibility that instead, Bach compiled it for performance in [[Vienna]] at St. Stephen's Cathedral (which was Roman Catholic) on St. Cecilia's Day in 1749, as a result of his association with Count [[Johann Adam von Questenberg]].<ref>Michael Maul, "'The Great Catholic Mass': Bach, Count Questenberg and the Musicalische Congregation in Vienna," In Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver and Jan Smaczny, ''Exploring Bach's B-minor Mass'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), {{ISBN|9781107007901}}</ref> Other explanations are less event-specific, involving Bach's interest in 'encyclopedic' projects (like ''[[The Art of Fugue]]'') that display a wide range of styles, and Bach's desire to preserve some of his best vocal music in a format with wider potential future use than the church cantatas they originated in (see "Movements and their sources" below).<ref name="Rathey" />