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

Cistercian, Dominican and other contemplative orders, many of whom maintained active
choral establishments, would have severely damaged the richness of musical life in the city’s
monasteries and convents. A similar fate awaited the endowed services of the various
Brüderschaften, now abandoned with the amalgamation of their parent organisations.
The extent to which clergy and parishioners outside the higher echelons of
ecclesiastical administration were aware of the developing intentions for the city cannot be
determined easily, but the radical reorganisation of parishes and service times, the removal of
decorations and the repeated suppression of “ostentatious” piety by early 1783 inevitably left
its own mark on the populace. P. Peter Unterthan, chaplain to a parish near Vienna,
preached a sermon one week after the introduction of the Gottesdienstordnung. Although the
oration includes more than a little rhetorical licence, Unterthan’s characterisation of the
public mood likely rests on a factual basis:
O wie beklemmt waret ihr, und sie heut vor acht Tagen, da die neuen von unserm theuresten
Monarchen getroffenen Anstalten in Ansehung des Gottesdienstes ihren öffentlichen Anfang
genommen haben? O welches Geschrei erschall aller Orten! welches Klagen! Nun wird der
katholische Glauben unterdrükket; nun geht die Religion zu Grunde; nun sind wir endlich gar
Lutherisch geworden: so rief der Pöbel Wiens; so heulte das andächtige Weibervolk; so ertönten
die Mauern dieser prächtigen Kaiserstadt; so schrieen – o ich erröthe, wen ich daran gedenke –
selbst einige der Priester… 79
A highly revealing report is provided by Count Garampi, the Viennese papal nuncio, who
had complained to Joseph in late 1781 about the Emperor’s religious reforms. Garampi
produced a confidential dispatch every week for the Holy See, and these writings are of
particular interest for their unique perspective on contemporary politics and public life. 80
79 Peter Unterthan, Rede am weissen Sonntage. Ueber die neuen von dem Kaiser gemachten Einrichtungen in
Ansehung des Gottesdienstes…(Vienna: Christian Friederich Wappler, 1783), 6. The name of the author may be
a pseudonym.
80 On Garampi, see Dries Vanysacker, Cardinal Giuseppe Garampi, 1725-92: an enlightened ultramontane
(Brussels: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1995); Umberto dell’Orto, La Nunziatura a Vienna di Giuseppe
Garampi, 1776-1785, Collectanea Archivi Vaticani 39 (Vatican City: Archivio Vaticano, 1995).
36