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

late date and general unreliability of Rochlitz’s anecdotes – not to mention the implausibility
of Mozart addressing a colleague as “Papa” – call the veracity of this report into serious
question. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that Mozart encountered Gassmann’s Requiem
through its numerous performances by the Hofkapelle in the last years of the composer’s life.
It is also possible that Mozart encountered the work at St. Stephen’s: the Cathedral did
possess a set of parts for Gassmann’s Requiem, but unfortunately they were among those sold
as wastepaper in 1889. 33
For the first anniversary of Joseph II’s death on 20 February 1791, Salieri selected
another Viennese Requiem: a setting in C minor by Leopold Hofmann. 34 In contrast to the
settings by Reutter and Gassmann, the Hofmann Requiem appears to have been newly
prepared for this performance by Viennese Mozart-Copyist 3 and four other copyists. That
the Hofkapelle would acquire Hofmann’s Requiem at this late stage of the composer’s career
is an interesting confirmation of the Domkapellmeister’s continuing prominence in Viennese
church music. There seems no way of determining when Hofmann wrote the work, but St.
Stephen’s did possess two copies of it, and is possible that Salieri acquired the piece directly
from the composer. 35
33 “Musikalien-Katalog” (A-Wda, s.s.), 109; Kosch, “Florian Leopold Gassmann”, 46. As is well known, the
Gassmann Requiem is incomplete, lacking all sections from the Offertorium onwards. It is unclear how the
Hofkapelle coped with this situation in the eighteenth century. At Stift Kremsmünster, Maximilian Stadler
wrote concluding sections for the work in 1790 while he was Kommendatarabt of the monastery. These survive
in the hand of Bonifaz Schweigert, the monastery’s regens chori (A-KR, D 40/3a-c). See Karl Pfannhauser, “Auf
den Spuren der Mozart-Überlieferung in Oberösterreich,” in Zu Mozarts 200. Geburtstag. Festschrift des Linzer
Landestheaters (Linz: Verlag des Landestheaters Linz, 1956), 24-5. In the first half of the ninteenth century, the
Hofkapelle supplemented Gassmann’s setting with portions of works by Reutter (HK 793), Krottendorfer (HK
1208), Michael Haydn (HK 2054, HK 2209) and Kaintz (HK 1244); Karl Pfannhauser, “Epilegomena
Mozartiana,” in Mozart-Jahrbuch 1971/72 (Salzburg: 1973), 292, Richard Steurer, Das Repertoire der Wiener
Hofmusikkapelle im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. 22, Publikationen des Instituts für Österreichische
Musikdokumentation (Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1998), 93-4.
34 A-Wn, HK 478. The principal watermark in the parts is Tyson 96; others include Duda GF-3 and Duda
A/GF/C-2.
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