Mass in B flat major, B2

We only have indirect evidence concerning the previous existence of Dvořák’s Mass in B flat major. According to the composer’s classmate at the organ school Václav Urban, Dvořák possibly wrote the mass during the first year of his studies as a 16-year-old. Urban was apparently given the chance to look at the score of the first part (Kyrie) and he had remembered the first two bars, whose dissonance had surprised him at the time. When he pointed this out to Dvořák, the latter had barked at him: “You don’t understand it!” The composer’s friend Václav Juda Novotný was also reported as stating that Dvořák’s teacher at the organ school, Josef Förster, had once seen the completed score. The work is now missing.