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

possible that Mozart entertained the idea of having these works produced at the Hofkapelle.
The fragments do however embrace a variety of styles, not all of which seem amenable to the
ceremonial requirements of the court. In particular, the Kyrie in G Fr 1787a and that in D
Fr 1787e are intimate conceptions lacking the festive instrumentation of the typical Sunday
morning mass. 181 Both do however have their points of interest, Fr 1787a with its elaborate
but soon-abandoned accompanied fugue, and Fr 1787e with its Ave verum-like opening. In
his catalogue of Mozart’s vocal fragments, Stadler described Fr 1787e as “ganz im
Kirchenstyl und überaus schön,” 182 but it was Fr 1787a that he attempted to complete. To
Mozart’s 13 bars Stadler added some missing orchestration and then proceeded to compose
21 bars of his own, not without some contrapuntal infelicities, 183 before breaking off work.
In 1871, however, the Mozarteum director Otto Bach (1833-1893) produced a completion
of Stadler’s completion, so to speak, and wrote out a new score of the Kyrie with the Mozart
and Stadler contributions in black ink and his own in red. Bach completed a number of
Mozart fragments and many were published, but his completion of this Kyrie remained
unpublished and is today little known. 184
In their various forms of festal scoring, the three pieces in C major are more
characteristic of the Imperial mainstream. The Kyrie in C Fr 1787b on its unique papertype
is the shortest of the fragments, occupying a single recto. It is the most reminiscent of
Mozart’s earlier church music in its pounding bass-line and “church trio” texture without
181 Holl in the NMA (I/i/vi) speculates that Fr 1787a might be Mozart’s copy of another composer’s music,
given the unusual stylistic profile and omission of the key signature at the beginning of the manuscript. The
obvious candidate would be Reutter, but the piece has yet to be identified in Reutter’s known masses in G
major (Hofer Messen 21, 22, 37, 39, 70). The autograph correction to the violin in b. 6 seems difficult to
explain as a copying error.
182 Finscher, “Maximilian Stadler und Mozarts Nachlass,” 171.
183 See, for example, the parallel octaves between Violino II and Viola in b. 11-12 or the parallel octaves
between Viola and Continuo in b. 33.
184 Bach’s autograph is in A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 9342. A number of his copies and completions of fragments are in
Mus. Hs. 9345, including a copy of Fr 1787e that is unknown to the NMA.
187