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

son, was a schoolmaster, sexton and member of the parish choir in Schwanenstadt. 182 The
implication seems to be that the elder Süssmayr possessed a copy of this mass or the means to
obtain it, and his son wished to procure a copy for Stoll. Given Süssmayr’s famous attempt
to imitate Mozart’s hand in the Ablieferungspartitur of the Requiem, it is something of an
irony to encounter Mozart feigning Süssmayr’s identity here, although Mozart seems to have
had no intention of imitating Süssmayr’s genuine handwriting. However interesting it is to
see Mozart adopting the persona of a figure who would later prove so important in the
history of the Requiem, the question of what precisely is transpiring here, and to what extent
Süssmayr was actually involved in the attempt to secure Haydn’s mass will likely remain a
mystery. As I have noted, Stoll received two genuine letters from Süssmayr more than a
decade later.
Mozart made one further mention of Stoll in his surviving letters. The composer
seems to have invited Stoll to one of the first performances of Die Zauberflöte, for on 8
October he wrote to Constanze in Baden:
– morgen wird Sie noch gegeben, aber Monntag wird ausgesetzt – folglich muß Siessmayer den
Stoll dienstag herein bringen, wo Sie wieder zum Erstenmale gegeben wird – ich sage zum
Erstenmale, weil Sie vermuthlich wieder etlichemal nacheinander gegeben werden wird...
At the end of the letter, Mozart added, “dem Stoll tausend Complimenten,” the final
reference to Stoll before the composer’s death two months later. 183 There is however a further
report in the Graz newspaper Der Aufmerksame from January 1856 that describes a
performance at the Stadtpfarrkirche under Mozart’s direction. Tantalising yet problematic, it
tells the familiar story of a recalcitrant soprano upstaged by a younger rival who, despite
expectations, rises to the challenge:
182 Henry H. Hausner, Franz X. Süßmayr, vol. 254-256, Österreich-Reihe (Vienna: Bergland Verlag, 1964), 8-
10, Johann Winterberger, Franz Xaver Süssmayr: Leben, Umwelt und Gestalt (Frankfurt am Main: Opus Verlag,
1999).
183 MBA, iv.159, 161.
317