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

most renowned of the composer’s small-scale sacred works. Together with two highly
informative letters that Mozart wrote to the regens chori in Baden, these letters are among
the most important pieces of evidence we have for Mozart’s interest in church music during
the last years of his life.
Baden possessed several churches, but the only one to maintain a substantial music
program was the Stadtpfarrkirche, dedicated to St. Stephen. 152 Presided over from 1783 to
1799 by the Stadtpfarrer Dominik Scheibs von Gaubikolheim, 153 the fifteenth-century
Gothic church was not entirely free of controversy regarding its liturgical observance. In
1784, a correspondent to Über Gottesdienst und Religionsordnung complained of the
“Unordnung” he encountered at St. Stephen’s, while the following year a review of a sermon
given by Scheibs was generally complimentary but still included the following:
Es thut uns leid, daß wir mit dem Vortrage des Hrn. Pfarrers nicht so ganz wie mit der Predigt
selbst zufrieden sein können. Wir wünschten, daß er eine mehr regelmässige Aussprache sich
angewöhnte, und daß er der Natur getreuer bliebe, und bei manchen Stellen, wo es die Sache
nicht erheischt, sich nicht so sehr beeiferte... 154
On 2 February 1770, Anton Joseph Stoll applied successfully for the position of
schoolmaster and regens chori at St. Stephen’s, succeeding Johann Matthias Wraveci. 155
Stoll, born on 16 April 1747, 156 had already been working as a preceptor and tenor at St.
Stephen’s, and his new position provided the necessary financial security for him to marry
his predecessor’s daughter, Carolina Wraveci. Carolina, ten years Stoll’s senior, gave birth to
152 Others included St. Helena, the “old” and “new” Frauenkirchen, and chapels dedicated to St. Anna and St.
Antonius. See , accessed 24 June 2006.
153 Franz Loidl, Kleriker-Liste der Stadtpfarre St. Stephan, Baden, vol. 174, Wiener Katholische Akademie.
Miscellanea, Neue Reihe (Vienna: 1983).
154 ÜGR, ii.61-69; iv.219.
155 The following summary of Stoll’s life and the musical resources at St. Stephen’s is based on Rudolf Maurer,
Anton Stoll: Der Badener Schulmeister und Sein Freund Mozart, Katalogblatt Nr. 57 (Baden: Rollettmuseum,
2006). Jakob Wraveci was a bass singer in the Hofkapelle at this time; I have been unable to determine if the
two were related.
156 Stoll’s date of birth was given in his application to become a member of the Tonkünstlersocietät, known only
in summary (see following note). This information is not included in Maurer, Anton Stoll.
304