In the tradition of Protestant missa brevis compositions, the music of this Mass was written in the so-called stile antico” following 16th-century models and known as Palestrina style. The surviving copy, in the Düben Collection, dates from 1675.

Buxtehude adopted the strict form of the “stile antico,” contrapuntal polyphony without instrumental accompaniment for various compositions of the same period, including Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin BuxWV 76, written on the death of his father.

The Missa brevis consists of the Kyrie and Gloria of the Ordinarium, so it is a “Lutheran Mass”; in 17th-century Protestant services these sections of the Mass were sung in Latin.