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

part is marked “Trani” in the Introit and “Sig re Trani” in the Dies Irae, a reference to Joseph
Trani, the Hofkapelle’s lead violinist until his retirement on the orders of Joseph II in 1788. 28
The Gassmann Requiem has frequently been cited as a stylistic influence on Mozart’s
setting. 29 Discussions of “influence” often pass over the basic question of how Mozart might
have come into contact with the proposed model – as if the mere co-existence of a composer
and a work in the same city, or even the same continent, is sufficient for a connection to be
established. 30 The only indication that Mozart maintained a particular admiration for
Gassmann comes from a late account by Rochlitz on music in Leipzig in the early months of
1818. Reporting on the performance of a mass by Gassmann at the two principal churches of
the city during Easter, Rochlitz added a footnote:
Ich erinnere mich hierbey eines Wortes Mozarts, das ich ihn bey seiner letzten Anwesenheit in
Leipzig, wenig Jahre vor seinem Tode, über G[assmann] aussprechen hörte; und führe es an, weil
man den würdigen Künstler, welchen es betrifft, ganz zu vergessen scheint. Hiller rühmte
Gassmann höchlich: der alte Doles wollte nicht recht einstimmen. Papa, sagte Mozart zu diesem;
wenn Sie nur erst alles kenneten, was wir in Wien von ihm haben! Komme ich jetzt heim, so will
ich seine Kirchenmusiken fleissig durchstudiren, und hoffe viel daraus zu lernen. 31
Mozart was in Leipzig for the second time from 8 to 17 May 1789. Although the inventory
of the composer’s estate does list an unidentified manuscript “terzetto” by Gassmann, 32 the
28 Dorothea Link, “Mozart's Appointment to the Viennese Court,” in Words About Mozart: Essays in Honour of
Stanley Sadie, ed. Dorothea Link and Judith Nagley (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2005), 175. The
presence of Trani’s name likely suggests that the parts were copied some time before their first attested use on
29 November 1788. Trani was no longer an active member of the ensemble by this date.
29 The connection was first suggested in Edward J. Dent, “The Forerunners of Mozart's Requiem,” Monthly
Musical Record 37 (1907): 124-26. See also Kosch, “Florian Leopold Gassmann”, 147-8, Richard Maunder,
Mozart's Requiem: On Preparing a New Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 74-77.
30 See especially the examples from Gossec and W. F. Bach cited in Christoph Wolff, Mozart's Requiem:
Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents, Score (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 81-2.
31 Friedrich Rochlitz, “Leipzig. Uebersicht: Neujahr bis Ostern,” Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 20 (1818):
247n. The mass was probably the Missa Solemnis in C, Kosch 4. Hiller had already performed the Kyrie and
Gloria from this work at a concert spirituel in the Thomashaus in December 1779; see Karl Peiser, Johann
Adam Hiller. Ein Beitrag zur Musikgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Hug, 1894; reprint, Leipzig:
Zentralantiquariat der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1979), 27. Rochlitz published the Agnus Dei
with an inauthentic Dona nobis in his Sammlung vorzüglicher Gesangstücke; Kosch, “Florian Leopold
Gassmann”, 42.
32 Ulrich Konrad and Martin Staehelin, Allzeit Ein Buch: die Bibliothek Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts, vol. 66,
Ausstellungskataloge der Herzog August Bibliothek (Weinheim: VCH Acta humaniora, 1991), 17, 101.
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