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

Basset horns and clarinets were not yet found in Viennese church orchestras, so some special
arrangement must have been made if they did indeed form part of the ensemble on 10
December 1791. It is here that the possible role of Schikaneder and Bauernfeld should
receive more attention than it has previously received, as two of the four newspaper reports
state that the obsequies were performed under the auspices of one or both theatre directors.
According to the usual interpretation of these passages, Schikaneder and Bauernfeld paid the
funeral expenses, while the musicians of St. Michael’s gave their services gratis out of respect
for the famous composer. Yet it is difficult to see why the “brave” and “erkenntlich” directors
would be mentioned if all they had done was pay the small amount of 12 fl 9 kr. This raises
the possibility that Schikaneder and Bauernfeld were the driving force behind the service,
perhaps recruiting a few singers and instrumentalists from the Theater auf der Wieden to
augment the St. Michael’s musicians. 198 The theatre musicians had every reason to be
grateful to Mozart through the sensational success of Die Zauberflöte, an opera that does
indeed call for basset horns.
Many members of the company did indeed combine their theatrical duties with
service to sacred institutions. Felix Stadler, a contrabass player, was active at many Viennese
churches, including St. Michael’s and the Hofkapelle, and was a member of the orchestra at
the Theater auf der Wieden from at least 1796. 199 Franz Xaver Gerl (1764-1827), the first
Sarastro, was a boy chorister in Salzburg under the Mozarts, and later allegedly worked as an
198 There is of course the famous story of the deathbed rehearsal of the Requiem with Benedikt Schack taking
the soprano, Mozart the alto, Franz Hofer the tenor and Franz Xaver Gerl the bass (Deutsch, Dokumente, 460).
This story derives from an anonymous and highly unreliable obituary for Schack printed three and a half
decades after the supposed event, which cannot pass unchallenged.
199 Stadler often signed his name at the end of the manuscript from which he was playing. These signatures
appear, inter alia, in the St. Michael’s parts for Spangler’s Vesperae (A-Wstm, 231) and in Hofkapelle parts for
works by Reutter, Gassmann, Hofmann, Salieri and J. Kozeluch (A-Wn, HK 31, 313, 478, 484, and 765.)
Stadler is listed as a member of the “Orchester beim schickanederschen Theater, auf der Wieden” in Schönfeld,
Jahrbuch der Tonkunst, 96.
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