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

y the composer before March 1791 (see below). K. 626 may be the first Requiem written in
Vienna for a number of years, as I have been unable to identify any other setting dating from
1781-91. 40 A number of requiem settings did however appear soon after: a setting in C
minor by Krottendorfer dated 1793, a D minor setting by Albrechtsberger (Schröder A.I.15),
also from 1793, and a setting by Pasterwitz (Kaas Messen 11) from the early 1790s. 41
It is conceivable that Mozart envisaged eventual performances of the Requiem at St.
Stephen’s or the Hofkapelle, as both institutions had constant need of missae pro defunctis.
With the scoring of the work for basset horns, however, Mozart set an obstacle in the way of
anyone wishing to perform the Requiem in Vienna – let alone Wiener Neustadt. Basset
horns were practically unknown in Viennese church music, and even clarinets were rare until
the later 1790s. As we have seen, Joseph II explicitly banned clarinets from the Hofkapelle in
1788. 42 Perhaps Leopold could have been more amenable, but there is no clear sign that
clarinets were used in the Hofkapelle until the time of Haydn’s late masses. Church orchestras
in other parts of the empire were more progressive: Druschetsky’s gradual In coeli favore,
dated 24 August 1791, includes an elaborate solo for clarinet. 43 According to RISM, a set of
parts in Budapest for Spangler’s Requiem includes a basset horn part, perhaps as a
40 Pasterwitz did however write a set of Vesperae pro defunctis (Kaas Vespern 12) in 1791. For an overview of
Viennese Requiem settings, see Christian Wurzwallner, “Requiem-Vertonungen in Wien Zwischen 1750 und
1820” (Diplomarbeit, Universität Wien, 1990).
41 The autograph of Krottendorfer’s Requiem, deriving from the collection of Archduke Rudolph, is in A-
Wgm, I 11573/A 446a. The autograph of Albrechtsberger’s setting is in H-Bn, Ms. Mus. 2599. The earliest
source for the Pasterwitz Requiem is a set of parts in A-Wn, HK 594, which bears several performance dates
beginning with 18 December 1793. A partially autograph score and parts of later provenance is in A-KR, Part.
Schr. and A-KR, D 45/40. An incomplete copy of the Pasterwitz Requiem was made by Michael Haydn (H-
Bn, Ms. Mus. II. 3). Unfortunately, the editors of the Michael Haydn catalogue did not recognise the origin of
this score and attributed the work to Haydn himself; see Petrus Eder, “Johann Michael Haydns Angebliches
Mittleres Requiem MH 559,” Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 83 (1999): 91-9. The misattribution was
compounded by a German music journalist, Olaf Krone, who announced to the world his “discovery” of this
“unknown” Haydn Requiem and had Pasterwitz’s Requiem recorded under Haydn’s name (Capriccio 71084,
2006).
42 “Clarinetti...sind in Hinkunpft bei Kirchen Diensten gänzlich wegzulassen.” Quoted in Link, “Mozart's
Appointment,” 177.
43 H-Bn, Ms. Mus. 1590.
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