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

folk-like simplicity” 188 of Fr 1787c and its stylistic companions Fr 1787a and Fr 1787e
strikes a new note in Mozart’s sacred oeuvre, and provides evidence that the “transparent yet
compact style of four-part writing” 189 in Ave verum was already present in Mozart’s creative
conception at the outset of his renewed engagement with church music.
The Kyrie in C Fr 1790a is the most extensive of the fragments, and the only one for
which a credible completion can be attempted. Stadler, who commented that it was “Schade,
daß es [Fr 1790a] unvollendet blieb!”, 190 eventually provided such a completion some time in
the early nineteenth century, noting that it cost him much effort to finish “ein solches
Meisterstück”. 191 Constanze showed the completed fragment and its companion K. 322 to
the Novellos in 1829, and planned for the two Kyries to be published and performed at a
benefit concert for herself in London under the auspices of Johann Andreas Stumpff. By this
time, Stadler had apparently made a contrafactum of the completed Fr 1790a as a Regina
coeli, which was published by Diabelli in score and parts. 192 Constanze later turned to
Breitkopf & Härtel in 1833 for advice on disposing of the manuscripts, but they advised her
that the pieces were too small and that the public were “nicht mehr so enthusiastisch für
Mozarts Werke” due to changing taste. 193
188 H. C. Robbins Landon, "Sacred Vocal Works: Oratorios and Latin Church Music," in The Mozart Essays
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1995), 184.
189 Christoph Wolff, Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1994), 33.
190 Finscher, "Maximilian Stadler und Mozarts Nachlass," 171.
191 For those sections where Mozart’s orchestration was incomplete, Stadler wrote directly on the autograph,
but from the point where Mozart’s score breaks off Stadler added a page of his own, now separated from the
main body of the score (H-Bn, Ms. Mus. 2996). This page is non-Italian paper with a distinct blue-greenish
tinge, certainly post-dating 1800. Some elements of Stadler’s completion, including the static viola part in b. 6
and the heavy-handed trumpet and timpani parts in b. 50-53 are not beyond criticism.
192 The autograph of Stadler’s contrafactum is in A-Sm, Rara 323/1. A set of manuscript parts for the Regina
coeli of undetermined relationship to the print is in A-Wn, Mus. Hs. 5060; these are in the hand of Stadler and
may be Diabelli’s Stichvorlage, even though the cover bears the annotation “Wien, bei Tobias Haslinger”,
referring to Diabelli’s rival publisher. See also MBA, iv.506.
193 MBA, vii.628.
189