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

Taken as a group, the four reports are not inconsistent with one another, but as we
do not know the level of interrelationship between them, they cannot be taken as
independent witnesses. The reports of Mozart’s Requiem being performed may be genuine,
but, then as now, the association between a late requiem mass by the composer and a service
of obsequies held soon after his death may have proved irresistible, even if the writer had no
actual knowledge that such an event had occurred. This process may be seen in action as
early as 30 December 1791, when a Budapest newspaper reported on the Prague memorial
service of two weeks previously, but stated that a Requiem by Mozart was performed, not the
Rosetti Requiem as actually happened. 122
How did St. Michael’s come to be selected as the venue for this service? At Mozart’s
death, the composer lived in a street that belonged to the parish of St. Stephen’s Cathedral,
not St. Michael’s. 123 One possible reason for change of venue was the long association of St.
Michael’s with creative artists of all kinds, an association only strengthened in the eighteenth
century by the presence of the Burgtheater literally across the street. The combination of a
prestigious location and a slightly dissolute clientele was captured in a description of the
church by Joachim Perinet, who wrote in 1787:
Nächst der Kirche zu St. Stephan ist die St. Michaels des bekannten geflügelten Heiligen
besonders merkwürdig, worinn so machen die Schwungfedern, gestutzet, und wie schon
gemeldet, so viele Engelchen unter dem Schuze des Erzengels gekapert werden. Sie ist der
eigentliche Paradeplatz des Hoch=frisirten Adels und der galantesten Stutzer, die oft
stundenlange vor Kirchthüre gleich Artaria’s Karrikaturen, wie die Geier auf die Täubchen
warten, die aus dem Schoosse des Tempels eilen. Da sie die nächste Kirche am Theater ist, so
kann es niemand wunderlich vorkommen, daß in ihr die Andacht nur zur Verstellung wird, und
ihre Eingeweide meistens aus gepuzten Komödiantinnen oder andächtelnden Schauspielern
bestehen? 124
122 Deutsch, Dokumente, 379. The report is evidently confused, as it does not name the reason for the event,
merely the fact that a “lessum mortualem” by the “manibus celebris Mozart” had been performed.
123 The Kirche am Hof, where Gluck’s memorial was held in 1788, was not the parish church for that composer
either.
124 [Joachim Perinet], 30 Annehmlichkeiten in Wien ([Vienna: L. Hochenleitter], 1787), 86.
380