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

Cathedral to cave in, destroying much of the interior, including the choir loft and the
building’s two organs. 26 The restoration project, completed in the 1950s, did not attempt to
rebuild the choir loft and its organ, and the main organ above the west door was constructed
to an entirely new design. To gain an appreciation of the Cathedral’s eighteenth-century
appearance, one must rely on pre-1945 photographs showing the original layout of the
building. Figure 4.2 shows the case of the main organ, an instrument completed by the
Viennese maker Ferdinand Josef Römer in 1720, while Figure 4.3 shows the case of the choir
organ, an earlier work of Römer’s from 1701. 27 It was principally in this choirloft that the
Kapelle performed its duties, conducted by the Kapellmeister. In 1791-93, Mozart and
Albrechtsberger may have directed the ensemble from here.
While the destruction of the organs and choirloft may be a matter of regret, far more
serious from a documentary standpoint was the near-total loss in 1945 of the Cathedral’s
music archive. Not only is this loss a serious hindrance for the reconstruction of the
collection as it existed in the 1780s, but a number of unique items known to have been part
of the archive have now disappeared. As I have noted in Chapter Two, Joseph Drechsler’s
completion of Mozart’s C minor Mass once formed part of the collection, and a number of
unica copies of works by Reutter and Albrechtsberger were also lost. 28 Fortunately, a copy of
26 See Der Dom zu St. Stephan: Chronologie einer Zerstörung (Vienna: Dom-Verlag, 2000), 30ff.
27 Günter Lade, Orgeln in Wien (Vienna: Privatdruck, 1990), 213-15. The instruments themselves were rebuilt
and eventually replaced entirely in 1886, but the original cases were retained. See also Hans Haselböck, “Sechs
Jahrhunderte Orgelbau im Wiener Stephansdom,” Singende Kirche 7, no. 3 (1960): 90-94.
28 For Albrechtsberger, see Schröder C.II.16, D.I.9, D.I.15, D.I.21, D.I.24, E.II.10, G.II.13, J.14.
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