MOZART AND THE PRACTICE OF SACRED MUSIC, 1781-91 a ...

instructors to the choir. 113 The policy was short-lived: petitions were sent asking for
instrumental music to be re-introduced, and there were reports of people crossing into
Bavaria in order to hear polyphony. In January 1788, Colloredo partly relented and allowed
the use of instruments again on certain feast-days. 114 Since St. Peter’s Abbey maintained a
choral foundation, it remained unaffected by the order in any case.
The Hirtenbrief was widely distributed throughout Europe. In Vienna, it was
reprinted in 1782 with a glowing preface by none other than Franz Anton Gilowsky
(b. 1756), cousin of Mozart’s doctor and best man Franz Xaver Wenzel Gilowsky (1757-
1824); see Figure 2.7. Franz Anton was in no doubt about the worth of the document:
Ich erhalte hier vielleicht den ersten Abdruck dieses edlen Geschenks meines Landesfürstens.
Warmes inniges Theilnehmen an der mit selben in meinem Vaterland eintretenden glücklichen
Epoche bemächtigt sich in eben dem Augenblick meines Herzens, als in selbem der Wunsch rege
wird; diesen des Deutschlands ersten Erzbischofes so ganz würdigen Hirtenbrief in jedermanns
Hånden zu sehen, oder selben doch wenigst durch gegenwärtige, auf das eilfertigst besorgte
Auflage, in den k. k. Erblanden zu verbreiten, und gemmeinnützlich zu machen. 115
In 1783-84, Franz Anton ran an unsuccessful private postal service in Vienna that sent him
bankrupt. 116 In August 1786, Mozart lent 300fl to a “Franz Gilowsky” who was probably
Franz Anton, but Gilowsky had apparently disappeared by the following year and the debt is
listed as unrecoverable in the composer’s estate inventory. 117 Given the shared Salzburg
heritage and Mozart’s friendship with Franz Xaver Wenzel, it is possible that the composer
113 Ibid., 64-5. On the effects of the reforms at Stift Nonnberg, see Theodor Aigner, “Der Letzte Geistliche
Landesfürst Salzburgs, Hieronymus Graf von Colloredo, und das Stift Nonnberg,” in Mozart-Jahrbuch 1980/83
(Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984), 280.
114 Reinhard G. Pauly, “Michael Haydn's Latin Proprium Missae Compositions” (PhD diss., Yale University,
1956), 116-17.
115 Gilowsky, ed., Hirtenbrief, i.
116 Gugitz, “Auszüge,” s.v. “Gilowsky, Anton v.”
117 See Deutsch, Dokumente, 257, 494, Franz Martin, Hundert Salzburger Familien (Salzburg: Verlag der
Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde, 1946), 190-92, Heinz Schuler, Mozarts Salzburger Freunde und
Bekannte, ed. Richard Schaal, vol. 119, Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft (Wilhelmshaven: Florian Noetzel,
1996), 107-15.
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