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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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Joseph Hoffmann was at the centre of Viennese musical life: as choir director at the<br />

Burgtheater, he was certainly involved in the productions of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi,<br />

and as a singer in the Hofkapelle he was connected to the institution with which the score of<br />

K. 337 originated. There is however no known documentary evidence from accounts or<br />

receipts that he worked as a copyist. Another candidate for the hand of VMC-3 who is better<br />

supported in this respect is Jakob Nurscher. As we shall see in the next chapter, Nurscher was<br />

paid as a music copyist at St. Stephen’s Cathedral from 1780 until at least the early 1790s.<br />

Although the historical music archive of the Cathedral is now mostly destroyed, a number of<br />

the manuscripts that do survive are in the hand of Viennese Mozart-Copyist 3. 229 Nurscher<br />

also worked as a cornetto player and “Musikus” at the Cathedral, but his principal duty was<br />

in the orchestra of the Burgtheater, where he played the viola. 230 He thus participated in the<br />

premieres of Figaro, the Viennese Don Giovanni, Cosi and probably Die Entführung as well.<br />

Regardless of the identity of his hand, Nurscher claims our interest as a copyist for one of the<br />

city’s largest sacred ensembles during Mozart’s time.<br />

Nurscher was born in Stollhofen, Lower Austria in about 1747, and moved to<br />

Vienna around 1759. On 25 August 1778, he married Maria Anna Adam (c. 1751-1803),<br />

daughter of the Hofmusicus Joseph Adam, at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. 231 By this stage he had<br />

already become a “Musicus bey St Stephan.” The couple had no surviving children, but after<br />

Anna’s death Nurscher married again in 1806, this time to Elisabeth Eger (c. 1773-1837). 232<br />

229 VMC-3 appears for example in works by Reutter; A-Wd 73 and 77. The latest I have seen the hand in this<br />

archive is in parts for a Te Deum by Preindl, dating from around 1800; A-Wd, 80. These parts are however<br />

marked “pro Choro St. Petri”, suggesting perhaps that they were not originally copied for the Cathedral.<br />

230 See the regular payments to Nurscher transcribed in Link, The National Court Theatre, 406ff. Around 1786,<br />

Nurscher served as Controlor for the Tonkünstlersocietat; C. F. Pohl, Denkschrift aus Anlass des Hundert-Jährigen<br />

Bestehens der Tonkünstler-Societät (Vienna: Selbstverlag des "Haydn", 1871), 100.<br />

231 Vienna, St. Stephen, Pfarrarchiv, Trauungsbuch 72, f. 321v. The location of Nurscher’s birth is given in this<br />

record, and his age is given as 30. He is said to have to have been resident in Vienna for 19 years.<br />

232 Anna’s will and Verlassenschaft are in A-Wsa, Mag. ZG Testament 667/1803 and 2-3020/1804 respectively.<br />

Elisabeth’s Verlassenschaft is in Mag. ZG 2-4077/1837.<br />

210

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