A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Missa Brevis

MISSA BREVIS. A Mass of moderate length, intended rather for use on ordinary occasions, than on Festivals of very great solemnity.

The subjects of the Missa Brevis are almost always original; as, in the charming example, by Andrea Gabrieli, printed, on the authority of a valuable MS. copy, in the first volume of Proske's 'Musica Divina.' This rule, however, is not universal. Palestrina's Missa Brevis—a work of unapproachable beauty, and perfectly complete in all its parts, notwithstanding the comparatively short time it occupies in performance—is founded upon Canti fermi derived from the melody of 'Audi filia,' a Plain Chaunt Tractus, which has also been very finely treated, in a Mass of earlier date, by Claude Goudimel.

[ W. S. R. ]