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

9. Die 2 Instrument Diener haben die sammtlichen Instrumente von Lautenmacher 37 zu
übernehmen, und die Besaitung zu besorgen, selbe in gehöriger Ordnung aufzubewahren,
auch darauf zu sehen, daß im Fall ein Kirchen Dienst ausser der Hofkapelle gehalten werde,
die Instrumente in gutten Stand dahin gebracht werden.
10. Clarinetti, und Waldhorn sind in Hinkunpft bei Kirchen Diensten gänzlich wegzulassen. 38
The sole “Tromponist” was Ignaz Ulbrich, 39 but the loss of the quarterly receipts
means we are unable to determine the identity of the second trombonist. Whether Joseph
II’s ban on clarinets and horns was motivated by aesthetic or financial considerations is
unknown, but there is in any case no known evidence that those instruments featured in
Hofkapelle performances prior to this instruction. Clarinets were a true rarity in Viennese
church music of the 1780s, and the only printed reference I have found to their use implies
an extra-liturgical context. On 1 February 1784, the “French nation” celebrated the feast of
its patron, St. Francis de Sales, at St. Peter. The priest gave a fine sermon,
...aber bei weiten konnte durch das Lob des Predigers der Heilige nicht so verherrlicht werden, als
durch die solenne Musik mit Pauken und Trompeten während dem Hochamt, und das
bezaubernde Konzert, womit zwei Klarinetten die fränkische Feierlichkeit recht glorwürdig zu
machen suchten. 40
There is no indication of who played the two clarinets in the “bezaubernde Konzert,”
although one is tempted to suggest the Stadler brothers, Anton and Johann.
The loss of receipts from this time means that we know very little about how the
music copying needs of the Hofkapelle were fulfilled. As of 1775, Bonno employed Franz
Xaver Riesch (Riersch), the principal music copyist at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and accounts
from the early 1780s show payments to “Fleischmann” and “Tangel” for copying. 41 By 1792,
37 Mistranslated in Link, “Mozart’s Appointment,” 178 as “lute maker.” In this context it refers to a maker and
maintainer of string instruments.
38 A-Whh, OKäA, Akten, Karton 10, 1788/99.
39 See also Link, “Mozart's Appointment,” 169 note j.
40 WW, viii.310. For another musical service in 1784 involving the “French nation,” see ÜGR, i.336-38.
41 A-Whh, OMeA, SR 371/14. On Riesch, see the following chapter. “Fleischmann” may be identifiable with
or related to Elias Fleischmann, a “Musicus” who died in Vienna on 15 August 1782, aged 70. “Fleischman” is
evaluated as a “schlecht” violist in the 1773 evaluation of orchestral personnel at the Kärntnertortheater; MVC,
1296 and John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra : History of an Institution, 1650-1815
141