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

Salieri...geflochten hatte, öffnet ihm Raum, ihre Laune zu benützen und dabei auch sein
Talent zu äußern.” 62 It may have been this friendship that led Pasterwitz in about 1790 to
begin a series of sacred works that were soon adopted by the Hofkapelle (see Table 2.1 in the
previous chapter). According to the anonymous Ueber den Stand der Musik in Wien of 1794,
“Ietzt werden in der Hofkirche mehrere Hochämter von einem Benedictinerpriester,
Pasterwitz, gegeben, welche von Kennern sehr gelobt werden.” 63
The works of Pasterwitz are among the more interesting products of Leopold II’s
more relaxed attitude to sacred music. Many autographs survive, and the composer
sometimes, but not always dated them. 64 Pasterwitz’s music often contains imaginative
touches: a Mass in C (Kaas Messen 4), written in 1791 or earlier 65 and performed by the
Hofkapelle on 8 April 1792 66 opens with the tenor and bass in unison while the violins
supply the harmony high above; see Figure 3.4. 67 An offertory dated 1791, Super flumina
babylonis (Kaas Messeinlagen 75), has a nearly continuous violin “undulation” no doubt
representative of the waters; see Figure 3.5. 68 A Requiem in C minor (Kaas Messen 11),
written sometime between 1788 and 1793 and performed by the Hofkapelle on 18 and 20
December 1793 concludes unusually with an entirely unaccompanied statement by the
62 Ibid., 494.
63 Anon., “Ueber den Stand der Musik in Wien,” in Wiener Theater Almanach für das Jahr 1794 (Vienna:
Kurzbeck, 1794), 179.
64 I am grateful to Pater Alfons Mandorfer of Stift Kremsmünster for permitting me access to a large number of
Pasterwitz’s autographs.
65 The earliest dated source of the mass is a score dated 1791 in the hand of Johann Baptist Kucharz, organist at
Kloster Strahov in Prague; CZ-Pnm, XLVI B 362. This may have been the Pasterwitz mass performed at
Strahov in memory of Leopold II on 14 July 1793; see Jiří Berkovec, Musicalia V Pražském Periodickém Tisku
18. Století: Výběr Aktuálních Zpráv O Hudbě, vol. 6, Varia De Musica (Prague: Státní knihovna ČSR, 1989), 86.
Kucharz, who was acquainted with Mozart, made a score copy of the Krönungsmesse K. 317, CZ-Pnm, XLVI C
149, that is probably quite early.
66 Walter Kaas, “Georg von Pasterwiz als Kirchenkomponist” (PhD diss., Universität Wien, 1925), 18ff,
Kellner, Musikgeschichte des Stiftes Kremsmünster, 510. The Hofkapelle’s parts are in A-Wn, HK 592.
67 The autograph has unfortunately been defaced by a later hand that has supplied an alternative opening.
68 The Hofkapelle’s parts for this work are among those transferred in 2000, and are now in A-Wn, HK 2347.
148