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

Zeit lediger allzeit mitsammen so wohl in die hl: Messe als zum Beichten und Communiciren
gegangen – und Ich habe gefunden daß ich niemalen so kräftig gebetet, so andächtig gebeichtet
und Communicirt hätte als an ihrer Seite; – und so gieng es ihr auch; – mit einem Worte wir
sind für einander geschaffen – und gott der alles anordnet, und folglich dieses auch also gefüget
hat, wird uns nicht verlassen. 91
If Mozart’s assurances about his regular attendance at confession and communion are
accurate, and not simply an attempt to placate his father’s concern about the necessity of
religious observance, one must naturally ask where the composer and his fiancée participated
in these rites. Given Mozart’s past association with the Theatines and the two attested
examples of his attendance there in 1781-2, the St. Cajetan Chapel emerges as a likely
candidate. 92 There are other possibilities: Frau Weber’s house stood literally in the shadow of
St. Peter’s, the late Baroque church completed in the same year as the Theatines, and
Mozart’s residence on Graben was just over the road. A few minutes’ walk away was St.
Stephen’s Cathedral, with the most extensive music program of all the public churches. If,
however, the Theatines was Mozart’s regular place of worship, perhaps due to his
acquaintance with “Pater Froschauer,” the composer’s religious life was to experience an
unexpected disturbance. Four months after he and Constanze had made their confession and
received communion together at the St. Cajetan chapel, Joseph II ordered the closure of the
Theatines, as part of his rationalisation of the city’s monasteries and convents. In 1783, the
chapel was deconsecrated, and in 1784 the entire building was sold. 93
91 MBA, iii.220.
92 Unfortunately, nothing is known of the Theatines’ musical ambitions; there is no entry for them in the 1783
petition of church musicians, to be discussed in the following chapter. As of 1719, the order only
accommodated five or six laity and a maximum of ten priests; Antonio Bormastino, Historische Beschreibung von
der Kayserlichen Residentz=Stadt Wienn und Ihren Vor=Städten (Vienna: Johann Michael Christophori, 1719)
81-2. On his name-day, October 31, 1781, Mozart performed a thanksgiving (“es war aber eben mein
Nammens=tag – in der frühe verichtete ich also meine Andacht...”); MBA, iii.171. The location of Mozart’s
devotion is unknown.
93 The sale of the monastery’s effects raised 63,050 fl; see Sebastian Brunner, Mysterien der Aufklärung in
Österreich 1770-1800 (Mainz: F. Kirchheim, 1869), 371. The edifice was demolished in 1899; see Czeike,
“Theatiner-Kloster”.
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