Dack (2009) suggests that Haydn originally composed the work when he was still a teenaged chorister at St. Stephen's Cathedral, singing under the direction of Georg Reutter. In its original form, the mass was scored for fairly rudimentary forces: two violin parts, continuo, a four-part chorus, and solo parts for two trebles. When the young Haydn, newly unemployed after being dismissed from the choir at St. Stephen's, made a pilgrimage to Mariazell, the Missa brevis was one of the works he showed the music director there.

Date of composition 1750
Type Mass
Tonality F Major
Catalogue Hob. XXII:1
Instruments Chorus/Choir
Continuo
2x Violin
Autotranslations beta Joseph Haydn: Mass n°2 en fa majeur, Hob. XXII:1 "Missa brevis"
Franz Joseph Haydn: Mass n. 2 in fa maggiore, Hob. XXII:1 "Missa brevis"
Joseph Haydn: Mass Nr. 2 F-dur, Hob. XXII:1 "Missa brevis"