Bruckner composed the Kronstorfer Messe, WAB 146, in 1843–1844, while he was a schoolteacher's assistant in Kronstorf. This Choral-Messe in D minor for mixed choir a cappella was presumably intended for the Lenten season.[1]
The work, the manuscript of which was archived in the St. Florian Monastery, was premiered by Augustinus Franz Kropfreiter on 1 December 1974 in the church of the monastery.[2] The work is put in Band XXI/41 of the Gesamtausgabe.[3]
This Missa brevis, also called Messe ohne Gloria [und Credo], exhibits relationships to Palestrina's style.[4] The mass survives only in a fragmentary state, without Credo.[5] The manuscript, with, on the front page, an autograph indication "Sine Gloria", contains two blank pages with an autograph indication that they were to contain a Credo in F major.[2][1]
Alike the contemporaneous Asperges me in F major (WAB 4), the Agnus Dei in F major contains audacious modulations.[1]
Anton Bruckner – Sämtliche Werke, Band XXI: Kleine Kirchenmusikwerke, Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag der Internationalen Bruckner-Gesellschaft, Hans Bauernfeind and Leopold Nowak (Editor), Vienna, 1984/2001