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

From 21 to 23 November 1791, all the churches in the city held a series of festive
masses for the safe delivery of a child to Maria Theresia, wife of Archduke (later Emperor)
Franz. 136 The child, Maria Ludovica, eventually born on 12 December 1791, later became
the wife of Napoleon. According to subsequent reports, the “gesammte Musick Personale” of
St. Stephen’s submitted a request to the Council, asking to be paid for these extra services
and claiming that it was usual for them to receive such remuneration. Unfortunately, the
musicians’ petition itself appears to be lost, and the earliest reference we have to the dispute
is a report by Furthmoser to the Council dated 2 December. Furthmoser rejected the claim
that it was usual for the musicians to be paid for these services, saying that he could find no
evidence for such payments in the Cathedral’s accounts. The Council referred the matter to
the Buchhalterei, who agreed with Furthmoser, and pointed out in a report of 14 December
that the musicians had already received an additional 24 ducats for their services at Joseph
II’s exequies the previous year. 137 Mozart was a member of the “gesammte Musick Personale”
at St. Stephen’s, but given the course of his illness in the last week of 1791 and the fact that
his position was unpaid, it is unlikely that his signature appeared on the now-lost petition.
Furthmoser was to meet an unfortunate end in 1799, when he committed suicide by
shooting himself in the Vienna woods, for reasons unknown. 138
Two references in the Novello diaries may refer to Mozart’s activities at St. Stephen’s.
As Constanze recalled:
136 “Montags, Dienstags und heute Vormittags wurden in allen Pfarren in und vor der Stadt feyerliche
Hochämter abgesungen, um von Gott eine glückliche Entbindung der Erzherzoginn Maria Theresia K. H. zu
erflehen.” WZ, 23 November 1791, 2993.
137 A-Wsa, HR A 17/4, 3/1791 (not in Prohaszka.)
138 The only surviving documentary evidence for this event is an index entry in St Pölten, NÖLA, HS Nö. Reg.
20/20 Lit. F, f. 14: “Fortmoser Andrä habe sich zu Maria Brunn erschossen”; numerous references in
nineteenth-century sources fail to add any further information. I am grateful to Michael Lorenz and to
Waltraud Winkelbauer of the NÖ Landesarchiv for locating and transcribing this entry.
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