Mass in B flat major, B2

We only have indirect evidence concerning the previous existence of Dvorak’s Mass in B flat major. According to the composer’s classmate at the organ school Vaclav Urban, Dvorak 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 Dvorak, the latter had barked at him; “You don’t understand it!” The composer’s friend Vaclav Juda Novotny was also reported as stating that Dvorak’s teacher at the organ school, Josef Foerster, had once seen the completed score. The work is now missing.