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

Mozart’s only authentic mass in B-flat major is K. 275, probably written around 1777, so
this must be the “Messe...ex B” referred to here. 177 In 1791, 12 July was a Tuesday, so the
mass was heard in the Stadtpfarrkiche on 10 July. Mozart’s elaborate apology to Stoll for
requesting the parts may be humorously overwrought, or perhaps alludes to some previous
exchange between them of which we have no knowledge. The score to which Mozart refers
may well be the autograph score, although the ultimate fate of this now-lost manuscript is
unknown. It seems from this letter that Mozart took part in the performance himself,
although in what capacity it is impossible to know – director, organist, string player or even
singer.
The “Graduale ex B…Pax vobis” is Michael Haydn’s gradual Alleluia: In die
resurrectionis meae MH 362, completed on 8 April 1784. 178 The gradual is proper to “white
Sunday,” the first Sunday after Easter, which in 1791 fell on 1 May. 179 Despite the lack of
liturgical appropriateness, it seems likely from Mozart’s reference to the gradual that it was
performed in Baden on the same Sunday as the Mass K. 275, although the possibility cannot
be entirely excluded that Mozart’s “so wir auch gemacht haben” refers to the “correct”
Sunday. The fact that Mozart requested a copy of the gradual for performance in Vienna
shows that he too was envisaging a performance outside the expectations of the liturgy.
177 David Schildkret has attempted to show that K. 275 actually dates from 1772, on the basis of similarities the
mass allegedly possesses with Mozart’s other missa brevis settings of the early 1770s; see David Schildkret, “Ave
or Vale to Colloredo? The Date of Mozart's Mass in B-Flat Major, K. 275,” Newsletter of the Mozart Society of
America 6, no. 2 (2002): 10-11. A full critique of the article is beyond the scope of this dissertation, but the use
of unsupported assertions (“it would be unusual for the same work to be played twice in the same year”), the
dismissal of the Mozart family’s original parts on the pretext that they date “from different periods in the late
eighteenth century,” and the lack of consideration given to the considerable stylistic divergences between K.
275 and Mozart’s earlier masses all undermine Schildkret’s argument.
178 Ed. Alfons Striz (Münster: Gregorius-Musikverlag, 1982). This edition is unknown to the Sherman/Thomas
catalogue.
179 The text reads: ‘Alleluia. In die resurrectionis meae, dixit Dominus praecedam vos in Galileam. Alleluia. Post
dies octo januis clausis stetit Jesus in medio discipulorum suorum, et dixit: Pax vobis. Alleluia.’
315