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

Question. Whether he occasionally attended to play the organ, or accompany any of his own
Masses, and if so, at what churches?
V.N. Widow told me that Mozart’s favourite instrument was the Organ – upon which she said he
played with the most incomparable skill.
M.N. He played upon several of the organs both at Salzburg and Vienna, the Cathedrals of both
– the organ was his favourite instrument. 139
Whether or not Constanze’s reference to Mozart playing the organ at St. Stephen’s relates to
the composer’s duties as adjunct Kapellmeister, the general point that Mozart played the
organ in Vienna receives support from a note the Novellos made when they visited
Maximilian Stadler:
Mozart used most frequently to play on the organ in the Jesuits’ Church in Vienna. He did not
much like the organs at Vienna, but esteemed those at Salzburg, especially those round the
central Columns of the Cathedral. 140
The regens chori at the Jesuitenkirche during Mozart’s time was Karl Friberth, and the
organist, as of 1783, was Aloys Novotni. 141 Why Mozart particularly favoured this church,
and what Stadler’s statement implies about the relationship between Mozart, Friberth and
Novotni remains unknown, but isolated references such as these point to an facet of Mozart’s
performing career in Vienna that may have been more important than the available evidence
suggests. Until recently it was even thought that Mozart possessed a house organ, until it was
shown that the advertisement for its sale likely originated with his neighbour Joseph Schödel,
a church musician. 142
139 Novello, A Mozart Pilgrimage, 95.
140 Ibid., 164. Volkmar Braunbehrens reads more into Stadler’s statement than is warranted when he makes the
unsupported claim that in 1791, Mozart “began to play frequently on the organ of the former Jesuit church at
court.” Braunbehrens, Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791, 364. The “church at court” is an error by the translator,
and the assignment of these events to 1791 is Braunbehrens’ own invention.
141 Biba1783, 41; Theophil Antonicek, “Musik an Der Universitätskirche in Wien Zwischen 1750 Und 1850,”
in Studien zur Musikwissenschaft. Festschrift Leopold Kantner (Tutzing: Schneider, 2002), 24-8.
142 Walther Brauneis, “Mozarts Hausorgel: Eine Mystifikation,” Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung
Mozarteum 41, no. 1-2 (1993): 59-63. On organ practice at this time, see Otto Biba, “Altösterreichische
Orgelpraxis zur Zeit der Wiener Klassik,” in De Arte Organistica. Festschrift Hans Haselböck zum 70. Geburtstag,
ed. Hemma Kronsteiner (Vienna: Doblinger, 1998), 7-16.
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