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

choir. 69 Although Pasterwitz had been writing sacred music since the 1750s, his Viennese
works are eloquent testimony to the gradual recovery of the genre after the death of Joseph
II.
Although the vast majority of sacred music heard at the court was performed by the
Hofkapelle, the singers of the Italian opera were occasionally called upon to provide religious
music as well. Zinzendorf recorded in his diary the performance of a Miserere by Sarti at
Laxenburg, the court’s summer residence, for Pentecost on 4 June 1786:
Concert spirituel. Le miserere de Sarti chanté par 4 femmes, la Storace, la Laschi, la Cavalieri, la
Molinelli et par 4 hommes, Mandini, Benucci, Mombelli, Calvesi, les choeurs avoient du
Spirituel, le reste pas. 70
Most of the singers named by Zinzendorf had sung in Figaro the previous day. On 5 June,
Joseph II himself wrote to his brother Leopold that he had ordered a performance in his
room of the “Miserere de Sarti que nous avons entendu ensemble, dans un mauvais
conservatoire a Millan.” 71 The performance was greatly to the liking of Princess Eleonore
Liechtenstein, who wrote, “Gestern hörten wir ein sehr schönes Miserere von Sarti,
ausgeführt von italienischen Sängern, acht Violinen und Blasinstrumenten. Die Musik war
schön, besonders die Chöre.” 72
Like the “French nation” mentioned above, the “Italian congregation” in Vienna
held liturgical celebrations, and these occasions gave the opera soloists many opportunities to
display their talents outside the theatre. On 6 April 1781, for example, the congregation
heard a performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in an arrangement by Friberth, with the solo
69 The dating follows Kellner, Musikgeschichte des Stiftes Kremsmünster, 510. The Hofkapelle’s parts are in A-Wn,
HK 594. On the misattribution of this work to Michael Haydn, see the concluding chapter.
70 Dorothea Link, The National Court Theatre in Mozart's Vienna: Sources and Documents, 1783-1792 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 274. The Miserere may have been the setting in F minor that survives in two sources
from the Hofkapelle: A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 15910 and HK 521.
71 A-Whh, FA Sbde 8. I am grateful to Derek Beales for providing me with a transcription of this passage.
72 Quoted in Adam Wolf, Fürstin Eleonore Liechtenstein, 1745-1812. Nach Briefen und Memoiren Ihrer Zeit
(Vienna: Gerold, 1875), 193. I am again grateful to Derek Beales for telling me of this passage.
151