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

If Plath’s dating of Fr 1790a to 1790 or 1791 is correct, then various possibilities
arise for Mozart’s intentions in composing the Kyrie. Perhaps the composer intended it for
one the celebrations surrounding the new emperor, Leopold II, or began it in connection
with his duties as adjunct Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral from May 1791. Certainly,
Fr 1790a shows the strongest adherence of all the fragments to the prevailing Viennese
ceremonial style of Reutter, Gassmann and Bonno. Particularly notable is Mozart’s use of
string figures based on sixteenth-note triplets – a distinctive feature of Viennese sacred music
that may be regarded as a variant of the infamous rauschende Violinen. Floros noted a
connection in this respect between Fr 1790a and Gassmann’s Missa in C (Kosch 3), 194 but a
closer resemblance may be found with Reutter’s Missa in D (Hofer 80), the mass from which
Mozart had already copied out the second Kyrie as K. 91. Reutter’s Credo is pervaded by a
leaping figure that Mozart handles in a similar way; see Example 3.2. Having looked through
this work and copied part of it, Mozart must have known the mass well, and his assimilation
in Fr 1790a of the stylistic norms the mass transmits is an indication of how seriously he
took the task of adapting to local conventions.
Despite the somewhat retrospective character of Fr 1790a, it is not entirely devoid of
progressive features. The fragment articulates a clear tonal scheme based on sonata principles,
with a modulatory development and a “recapitulation” at which the piece breaks off. As it
happens, this is the same structural point at which Mozart stopped work on the Kyrie in E-
flat K. 322 of about a decade earlier. In both cases Mozart may have considered that the
principal creative work was now complete and the process of guiding the piece to its
conclusion would take on a more mechanical and less interesting character. Given the extent
of Fr 1790a, its late date, and the apparent confidence with which Mozart completely
194 Constantin Floros, “Mozart und die Österreichische Überlieferung der Kirchenmusik,” in Mozart-Studien I:
Zu Mozarts Sinfonik, Opern- und Kirchenmusik (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1979), 134.
190