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

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

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suggestion in the literature: a Viennese origin is now considered “obvious,” 203 and carries the<br />

imprimatur of the NMA in its edition of the Kyrie. The explanation may lie in the entirely<br />

justified reputation of Tyson’s work, and a hope that forensic analysis of the kind Tyson<br />

pioneered may provide answers to problems of Mozart research even in the absence of the<br />

autographs and contemporary copies on which such analyses rely.<br />

In 1995 Daniel Heartz mounted a spirited defence of the traditional dating, pointing<br />

out similarities of motivic handling and rhythmic profile in the Kyrie and Idomeneo. 204 The<br />

extent to which Mozart’s usage of such elements is shared among closely contemporary<br />

works or circumscribed by chronological period is a complex question, made more difficult<br />

in the case of sacred music due to its naturally retrospective stylistic profile. At present it is<br />

probably too much to say that stylistic resemblances between Idomeneo and K. 341<br />

neccessarily make the earlier date for the Kyrie more likely, but research on the contemporary<br />

sacred music of Holzbauer, Richter, Vogler and their contemporaries might establish a<br />

context for K. 341 in Munich. 205 The real objection to a later dating for the Kyrie is its<br />

scoring, which is entirely uncharacteristic of sacred music in Vienna during Mozart’s time.<br />

Neither the Hofkapelle nor the ensemble at St. Stephen’s featured clarinetists, flautists or<br />

horn players, and all three instruments are almost entirely unknown in Viennese sacred<br />

music before the later 1790s. As we have seen, Joseph II banned clarinets and horns from the<br />

203 Wolff, Mozart's Requiem, 36n96.<br />

204 Heartz, Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School, 670-74. One element of Heartz’s argument is significantly<br />

weaker than the rest: his decision to “call on the testimony of an author whose knowledge of Mozart’s sacred<br />

music was second to none.” This author is Karl Gustav Fellerer, from whom Heartz quotes a descriptive passage<br />

about K. 341 that mounts no particular argument in favour of the Munich dating and was certainly written<br />

before Tyson’s suggestions appeared. Despite this, Heartz believes that “this expert’s confidence in the<br />

traditional assignment of the Kyrie in d to Munich in <strong>1781</strong> deserves consideration.” (673) Fellerer expresses no<br />

such confidence, and Heartz’s attempt to strengthen the case for a Munich date based on “expertise” rather<br />

than the substance of his own argument is unconvincing.<br />

205 On the reception of Mozart’s sacred music in Munich, see Robert Münster, “Mozarts Kirchenmusik in<br />

München im 18. und Beginnenden 19. Jahrhundert,” in Festschrift Erich Valentin zum 70. Geburtstag, ed.<br />

Günther Weiss (Regensburg: G. Bosse, 1976), 143-53.<br />

196

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