![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/BWV_232_Et_incarnatus.jpg/640px-BWV_232_Et_incarnatus.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Mass in B minor
Mass composed by J S Bach in 1749 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Mass in B minor (German: h-Moll-Messe), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctus Bach had composed in 1724. Sections that were specifically composed to complete the Mass in the late 1740s include the "Et incarnatus est" part of the Credo.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/BWV_232_Et_incarnatus.jpg/640px-BWV_232_Et_incarnatus.jpg)
As usual for its time, the composition is formatted as a Neapolitan mass, consisting of a succession of choral movements with a broad orchestral accompaniment, and sections in which a more limited group of instrumentalists accompanies one or more vocal soloists. Among the more unusual characteristics of the composition is its scale: a total performance time of around two hours,[2] and a scoring consisting of two groups of SATB singers and an orchestra featuring an extended winds section, strings and continuo. Its key, B minor, is rather exceptional for a composition featuring natural trumpets in D, although far more of the work is in this key than B minor.[3]
Even more exceptional, for a Lutheran composer such as Bach, is that the composition is a Missa tota. In Bach's day, Masses composed for Lutheran services usually consisted only of a Kyrie and Gloria. Bach had composed five such Kyrie–Gloria Masses before he completed his Mass in B minor: the Kyrie–Gloria Masses, BWV 233–236, in the late 1730s, and the Mass for the Dresden court, which would become Part I of his only Missa tota, in 1733. The Mass was likely never performed in its entirety during Bach's lifetime. Its earliest documented complete performance took place in 1859.[4][5][6][7] With many dozens of recordings, it is among Bach's most popular vocal works.[2]
In 2015, Bach's personal handwritten manuscript of the mass held by the Berlin State Library was included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register,[8] a project to protect and preserve culturally significant documents and manuscripts.