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

was not the usual disposition, either at the Cathedral or St. Peter’s. Instead, performances
were based on a form of Chorton to which the organ, trombones and strings were tuned,
leaving only the flutes, oboes and sometimes bassoons at Cammerton. 150 In consequence,
Salzburg performance material typically shows the organ, trombone and string parts notated
at the pitch of the score, and the woodwinds alone transposed up a tone to accommodate for
their lower tuning. 151 This disposition may be seen in the original parts for the Dominicus
Mass in C K. 66, the only other major work that Mozart wrote for St. Peter’s. The parts,
which are partially autograph, feature oboe and flute parts written in D but all the remaining
instruments, including the organ, notated in C. 152
How is this discrepancy to be explained? With the loss of most of the parts for K.
427, we can only speculate. If St. Peter’s was indeed the venue and the surviving parts are
indicative of the performance, one must presume that some unusual performance conditions
were in place. A Salzburg performance at Cammerton might have involved the strings tuning
down from Chorton, the woodwinds playing untransposed parts, the organ and trombones
playing transposed parts as the surviving material indicates, and perhaps the horns and
trumpets playing with lower-pitched crooks. 153 Maybe the presence of the Hofkapelle had
something to do with a putative decision to perform at Cammerton, or perhaps, as Plath
suggested, Constanze or the other singers found the music too taxing at Chorton. 154
150 The Mozart family’s parts for K. 337 (D-As, Hl 9) include both transposed and untransposed bassoon parts.
151 See Arthur Mendel, “Pitch in Western Music since 1500. A Re-Examination,” Acta musicologica 50 (1978):
13-14, 79-80, Bruce Haynes, A History of Performing Pitch: The Story Of "A" (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2002), 322-23.
152 A-Ssp, Moz 80.1-2; see NMA KB I/1/1/1, 76-8.
153 Joshua Rifkin, personal communication.
154 Mendel, “Pitch in Western Music,” 34n21. Zaslaw reads Nannerl’s “die ganze hofmusik war dabeÿ” as
implying that the St. Peter’s musicians did not participate at all, leaving the entire service to the Hofkapelle;
Zaslaw, “Mozart's Salzburg Sacred Music,” 579. It is difficult however to envisage the absence of the abbey’s
own musicians on the feast of a patron saint, celebrated by the abbot.
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