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

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Storace, Benucci, Mandini and Kelly were already involved in rehearsals for the opera when<br />

they sang on Easter Day.<br />

Not only did the members of the company sing for the Italian congregation, but a<br />

number also showed off their compositional talents. The inventory of the congregation’s<br />

music lists two items of particular interest: “Un Mottetto...della S[ignor]a Ferraresi” and “Un<br />

Mottetto, e Duetto...di Mon[sieur] e Mad[ame] Mombelli.” 78 Adriana Ferrarese, the first<br />

Fiordiligi in Cosi and Susanna in the 1789 revival of Figaro, was in Vienna between 1788<br />

and early 17<strong>91</strong>, so this “motet” can presumably be dated to those years. Ferrarese is<br />

otherwise unattested as a composer, and her work seems not to survive. Domenico Mombelli<br />

was active in composition, but his wife, Luisa Laschi, the first Countess in Figaro and Zerlina<br />

in the Viennese Don Giovanni, was not previously known to have written music. It is unclear<br />

from this entry whether the “mottetto” was Mombelli’s and the “duetto” Laschi’s, or<br />

whether both were joint productions. The couple were married in late 1786, 79 and Mombelli<br />

married again in 17<strong>91</strong>, apparently as a widower, so the possible dates of composition are<br />

similar to those for the Ferrarese motet. The archive also contains an “offertorio” by the<br />

mysterious “M[aestr]o Cornetti,” presumably the same Cornetti who collaborated with<br />

Mozart and Salieri on the lost “italienisches Freudenlied” Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia<br />

for Nancy Storace. 80<br />

Salieri contributed two unidentified sacred arias in honour of St. Julius to the<br />

congregation in 1776, 81 and may have contributed more. The music archive of Passau<br />

78 Brauneis, “Die Italienische Congregation in Wien,” 41.<br />

79 MVC, 1746.<br />

80 Deutsch, Dokumente, 222-23. Brauneis identifies “Maestro Cornetti” as Paolo Cornetti (fl. 1638), a maestro<br />

di capella in Ferrara, but given the obscurity of his work and the eighteenth-century character of the rest of the<br />

collection, this identification is most unlikely; Brauneis, “Die Italienische Congregation in Wien,” 43. One aria<br />

by Cornetti appears in the pasticcio Il convinto di Baldassare, premiered at the Burgtheater in February 1788; a<br />

string quartet arrangement copied the same year survives in A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 12548.<br />

81 Ibid., 36.<br />

153

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