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

Krönungsfeyer S r . M. / Franz. I . / zum Kaiser von Oesterreich.” With the dissolution of the
Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor Franz II became Franz I, Emperor of Austria in 1806.
The difficulty here is that Franz never had a “re-coronation”, but merely changed his
title. One could imagine, however, that K. 317 was used in a commemorative capacity at the
church where these parts were once located. 286 Another copy of the Krönungsmesse, dated
1855, is held today in Brno. 287 I have not seen this score, but according to the catalogue, the
title reads: “Krönungs-Messe in C. zur Krönungsfeyer Seinen Majestät Leopold II. zum
Könige von Böhmen, Prag am 10.Septber 1790 [sic] von W.A.Mozart.” Something is clearly
amiss here: Leopold’s Bohemian coronation took place in 1791, not 1790, and neither the
coronation service proper nor any of the associated services took place on 10 September.
Assuming the transcription is accurate, further research is required into the origin of the
score and the possibility that it might be based on more “authentic” sources.
In sum, there is little evidence to suggest that any Mozart mass formed part of the
coronation celebrations at Prague in 1791. K. 337, the first Mozart mass to be acquired by
the Hofkapelle could conceivably have been heard alongside the motet Misericordias domini at
the 1792 coronation of Franz II in Frankfurt, but there is nothing directly connecting the
mass to this service. Although several Mozart masses were available from Johann Traeg at this
time, the Hofkapelle seems not to have acquired them all at once but instead over several
years, and Traeg is only one of a number of possibilities for their acquisition. K. 317, what
we now know as the Krönungsmesse, did not enter the repertoire of the Hofkapelle until later
or “Aloys Soldat”. Mus. Hs. 37353 is marked “Pfarre St. Andrä, Graz” and “Johann Fügerö, Regenschori.” The
parts for K. 317 bear performance dates from 1832 to 1841, some with the comment “sehr gut gemacht.”
286 Michael Jahn states without evidence that K. 317 “wurde am Jahrestag der Krönung Franz II. zum
römischen Kaiser, später zur Erinnerung an seinen Amtsantritt als erster österreichischer Kaiser aufgeführt“;
Brosche, ed., Musica Imperialis: 500 Jahre Hofmusikkapelle in Wien, 327.
287 CZ-Bu, Mus 2-579.916. See Jaromíra Trojanová, Soupis Hudebních Rukopisů Z Fondů Státní Vědecké
Knihovny V Brně ([Brno]: Státní vědecká knihovna v Brně, 1990), 106.
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