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

Two particular targets of the journals were the Cathedral’s Chur- und Chormeister, Pater
Patrizius Fast (1726-90), the highest-ranking parish priest in the city, 23 and the
Kirchenmeister Andreas Furthmoser (d. 1799), who was in charge of finances. As we have
seen in Chapter Two, Fast was a trenchant critic of Josephinian reforms and the author of an
extended defence of elaborate sacred music published in 1781. Furthmoser, who had started
professional life as the proprietor of a coffee shop, occupied the positions of äussern Rath and
captain of the city regiment in addition to his post at St. Stephen’s. 24 Kritische Bemerkungen
laid the blame for the liturgical “abuses” at the Cathedral squarely at the feet of these two
officials in a satirical article of February 1787:
Den ersten Platz behauptet der Kirchenmeister Hr. Furthmoser, welche von allen übrigen der
gestrenge Herr genannt wird. Er ist aber auch ganz allein derjenige, auf dessen Wink und Befehl
alles in dieser Kirche geschieht; und wir halten uns für verpflichtet bei dieser Gelegenheit unsern
Lesern anzuzeigen: daß P. P. P. P. P. P. Fast die von uns gerügten Unanständigkeiten und
Mißbräuche dieser Kirche – wenn er auch vielleicht gewollt hätte, nicht abstellen durfte: weil er –
wie wir in der Sakristei hörten – nichts zu schaffen hat, und nichts geschehen darf, ausser was der
gestrenger Herr befiehlt. 25
Accounts such as the above illuminate the institutional and political context in which the
Cathedral music operated. They do not, however, provide specific details about the
musicians and their repertoire, and for this information we must rely primarily on
manuscript sources. Unfortunately, much of the historical documentation for the Cathedral
has been lost or destroyed, some of it in the comparatively recent past. In early April 1945,
towards the end of World War II, looters set fire to a number of shops on Stephansplatz, and
the fire eventually spread to St. Stephen’s. The resulting conflagration caused the roof of the
23 Christine Schneider, Der Niedere Klerus im Josephinischen Wien: Zwischen Staatlicher Funktion und
Seelsorgerischer Aufgabe, vol. 33, Forschungen und Beiträge zur Wiener Stadtgeschichte (Vienna: F. Deuticke,
1999), 87, 137.
24 Furthmoser married Elisabeth Gartner on 15 October 1748. The entry in the register (St Stephan,
Trauungsbuch vol. 53, f. 124v) gives his profession as “Caffesieder.” I am grateful to Michael Lorenz for
locating this entry and providing me with a copy of it. Furthmoser’s other titles are given in a Wiener Zeitung
article of 13 September 1797 documenting his elevation to k. k. Hofrath.
25 KB, ii.162-3.
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