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

The earliest report, completed in Prague on 12 December, did not appear until later
that month in the Berlin Musikalische Wochenblatt. It reads in part: “Eine seiner [Mozarts]
letzten Arbeiten soll eine Todtenmesse gewesen seyn, die man bei seinen Exequien aufgeführt
hat.” 114 Although the obsequies and the Requiem are noted here only as rumours, it is
noteworthy that reports of the service reached Prague only a few days after it took place. The
second report, discovered by Brauneis in 1991, comes from the Auszug aller europäischer
Zeitungen, a Viennese newspaper that appeared from 1786-98. 115 As its name implies, the
Auszug was primarily a compilation of stories from other European newspapers, so it is
possible that the Mozart story was derived from yet another printed source still unidentified.
According to the Auszug’s report of 13 December, “Den 10ten Dezember haben die braven
und erkenntlichen Direktoren des Wiedner Theaters für den großen Tonkünstler Mozart in
der Pfarre bey St. Michael feierliche Exequien halten lassen.” 116 The directors of the theatre
were Schikaneder and Joseph von Bauernfeld. Bauernfeld wrote an undated poem in
Mozart’s commonplace book, and allegedly took Constanze in after the death of her
husband. 117
The next report appeared on 16 December in Der heimliche Botschafter, one of three
contemporary examples in the curious format of the handwritten newspaper. The Botschafter,
which appeared from March 1791 to March 1794, was edited in Mozart’s time by the
journalist and scribe Karl Fritz von Rustenfeld (d. 1804) and later by one “Strachowitz.” 118 It
114 Deutsch, Dokumente, 380 (italic original).
115 Brauneis states that the copy in A-Wst, A 43634 is the only extant exemplar to transmit this issue. However,
according to Gugitz, a complete run of the newspaper (1786-98) survived in the Franzensmuseum in Brünn,
the present-day Moravské zemské muzeum in Brno; Gustav Gugitz and Anton Schlossar, eds., Johann Pezzl:
Skizze von Wien (Graz: Leykam-Verlag, 1923), 546. I have not had opportunity to confirm whether this copy is
still extant.
116 Walther Brauneis, “Unveroffentlichte Nachrichten zum Dezember 1791 aus Einer Wiener Lokalzeitung,”
Mitteilungen der Internationalen Stiftung Mozarteum 39 (1991): 166.
117 Deutsch, Dokumente, 316; MBA, vii.606-7.
118 Gustav Gugitz, “W. L. Weckhrlins Aufenthalt in Wien und die Wiener Handschriftlichen Zeitungen,”
Zeitungswissenschaft 9 (1934): 115-17.
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