Bach wrote some 200 church cantatas which have come down to us; most of these were composed in Leipzig where Bach was required to produce one per week. Bach did in fact write a number of important cantatas himself from start to finish. But in many other cases he would write a grand opening chorus reflecting the gospel of the day, a key aria, and perhaps harmonize the final chorale. For the rest, many of the arias and recitatives would be done by his students under Bach's strict guidance. The result was that Bach was spared much of the routine work, and at the same time his students were given useful, practical exercises - which they would hear in performance.

Would it not be interesting if Bach himself could make a selection from his favorite movements and assemble them into one or several composite works? In fact he has done just that.

Count Anton von Sporck was a nobleman with estates in nearby Bohemia. A great music-lover and intellectual, the Count was a frequent visitor to Leipzig. Unfortunately his life in Bohemia was overshadowed by a strict religious censorship, which may explain why Bach presented (disguised?) his selected cantata movements in the form of Catholic Masses.
Read the full, dramatic story: Count von Sporck and Bach's Four Shorter Masses

For the Four Shorter Masses, or Missae Breves, Bach drew on some of the finest movements in his cantata writing. These are splendid and powerful works in their own right, though they are little-known and not much recorded.

The Chorale formed an integral part of the Lutheran Service, and Bach would often harmonize traditional chorales in different ways, as Buxtehude had done before him. We have used the few remaining minutes on both our discs to give you some of these very beautiful, very simple chorale melodies, including three Christmas Verses which formed a part of the first, 1723 version of the Magnificat, BWV 243.