I. Úvod (Bevezetés) II. Gospodi pomiluj (Kyrie) III. Slava (Gloria) IV. V%u011Bruju (Credo) V. Svet (Sanctus) VI. Agneče Bo%u017Eij (Agnus dei) VII. Allegro (orgona solo) VIII. Intrada

We know from the recollections of one of Leo Janáček’s former pupils, Josef Martinek, that in 1921, when the composer was visiting his home village of Hukvaldy in Moravia, he complained to the Olmütz Cardinal about the music he heard in his local church which he felt was very weak and anaemic. The Cardinal immediately asked Janáček to compose something worthy of the liturgy to rectify matters. Janáček had previously evinced little interest in liturgical music, other than some studies dating from the 1870s and an incomplete organ mass from 1907. In 1921 he began dealing with Slavic liturgical texts but only sat down to compose the work in August 1926. In the year of his death, he said of the work: “Ancient Slavonic Mass? You know what they wrote about me then: I was labelled a believing old man. I was very angry and I said: look here! First of all, I am not an old man, and as for being a believer – well after that, certainly not. But only if I convinced them. Then in 1926 something occurred to me. It was the atmosphere of the missionaries Cyril and Method! I wrote the mass in Luhačovice – it was a terrible time then. It rained every day and all day I sat at my desk – in three weeks I was ready. I wanted to express faith in national security, not on a religious basis but on that of strength and morality, believing as a witness of God…”