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

services involving the court are documented in the Zeremonialprotokolle, 14 and make clear
that the usual observance of Sundays and feast days continued throughout the 1780s. Joseph,
despite his dislike of ceremony, was present on a regular basis for Sunday services, and thus
frequently heard the kind of church music he sought to restrict elsewhere. 15 The Berlinische
Nachrichten reported from Vienna in October 1782:
In der Kayserl. Kapelle ist die zeitherige Kirchenmusik schon abgeschaft worden; die übrigen
Kirchen werden nun wohl nachfolgen, alles freut sich jezt auf die kraftvolle Choralmusik, wo
jeder mit singen kann, und die auch am meisten ans Herz geht. 16
This notice may have been inspired by Joseph’s attempts to close the Hofkapelle, but there is
no evidence that the “zeitherige Kirchenmusik” disappeared, or that the Emperor introduced
congregational Choralmusik at Imperial services. The continuing viability of the Hofkapelle is
reflected in the major renovations to the Augustinerkirche, which had become a parish church
in 1783 but retained its status as Hofkirche. In 1784, a new musicians’ gallery was built, and
the organ of the Schwarzspanierkirche was transferred to a new home in the loft of the
Hofkirche. 17 No doubt these facilities were used at the largest celebration held in the church
during Mozart’s time: the “effective” triple wedding on 19 September 1790 of Leopold II’s
sons Franz and Ferdinand to their double first cousins Maria Theresa and Louisa, daughters
of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, together with the “representative” wedding of Leopold’s
thirteen-year-old daughter Maria Clementina to Ferdinand’s son Francis. For this event, the
walls were hung with gold-threaded tapestries and the interior lit with 1156 candles. 18
14 A-Whh, Zeremonialakten, Prot. 36-38.
15 A typical Sunday entry in the Zeremonialprotokoll records that Joseph “wohnte...gewöhnlichermassen dem
Gottesdienste in der Hofkapelle beÿ.”
16 Quoted in Carl Maria Brand, Die Messen von Joseph Haydn, vol. 2, Musik und Geistesgeschichte (Würzburg: K.
Triltsch, 1941), 193.
17 Zölestin Wolfsgruber, Die Hofkirche zu S. Augustin in Wien (Augsburg: M. Huttler, 1888), 25, Günter Lade,
Orgeln in Wien (Vienna: G. Lade, 1990), 86-91. The case of the organ is still extant.
18 Wolfsgruber, Die Hofkirche zu S. Augustin, 71.
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