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

Such radical thoughts may have been coloured by a contemporaneous dispute over the
purchase of new eleven string instruments from the Viennese maker Mathias Thier. 68
Relations were again strained in 1787-88 when a series of budget cuts was proposed and
Hofmann raised objections to planned modifications of the Kapellhaus. 69 Furthmoser
responded that this complaint was “ganz ungegründet,” an evaluation echoed by the Council
when it noted that the problem should be easier to bear, “als er [Hofmann] bei der nun
verminderten Kirchenmusick für seine wenige Dienste ohnehin genügsame Einkünfte zu
beziehen hat.” 70
The most important source for specific information about the Cathedral’s musicians
and their finances is the St. Stephen’s account books, copies of which are held in the
Diözesanarchiv and the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv. 71 Those in the Diözesanarchiv are
more well-known, having been used in documenting the life of Franz de Paula Hofer,
Mozart’s brother-in-law, who served as a violinist at the Cathedral from 1780 until his death
in 1796. 72 The Diözesanarchiv account books, are, however, not preserved complete, and
those in the Stadt- und Landesarchiv form a useful supplement, as do a number of
inventories recording the contents of the Cathedral. Figure 4.9 shows the first page of the
choirloft inventory for the year 1788, showing that St. Stephen’s possessed, for example, five
violins together with their cases by the Viennese maker Stadlmann, and “1 unbrauchbare
fagot.”
68 A-Wsa, HR A 17/1, 22/1784 (not in Prohászka.) On Thier, see Richard Maunder, “Viennese Stringed-
Instrument Makers, 1700-1800,” Galpin Society Journal 52 (1999): 45.
69 A-Wsa, HR A 17/4, 8/1787 (not in Prohászka.)
70 A-Wsa, HR A 17/4, 5/1788; Prohászka, “Leopold Hofmann,” IV/10.
71 Those in the Stadt- und Landesarchiv for 1781 and 1792 are A-Wsa, Handschriften A 41/28-29; those in the
Diözesanarchiv from 1781-87 have no call numbers.
72 Emil Karl Blümml, “Der Violinist Franz de Paula Hofer: Freund und Schwager Mozarts,” Aus Mozarts
Freundes und Familien Kreis (Vienna: Ed. Strache, 1923), 26-35, here 27.
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