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

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In addition to the Gottesdienstordnung, the hymnbook, and the annual Directorium, clergy<br />

and musicians had various missals, brevaries, antiphoners and Cardinal Migazzi’s 1774<br />

Rituale Viennense at their disposal. 15 Occasionally Joseph issued additional decrees pertaining<br />

to sacred music, such as a curious order that monks should refrain from chanting too loudly<br />

in order to protect their health. 16 Such decrees were distributed to churches and regularly<br />

collected in anthologies.<br />

Any consideration of church music in Vienna during Mozart’s time must begin with<br />

a series of reports and catalogues compiled in 1783 and admirably addressed in an article by<br />

Otto Biba. 17 The production of the documents was prompted by a letter from Karl<br />

Frieberth, the regens chori at many Viennese churches, to Joseph II, written a month after the<br />

introduction of the new service order. Frieberth, writing anonymously on behalf of Vienna’s<br />

church musicians, outlined the emotional and financial distress caused by the regulations and<br />

begged Joseph to restore the former pay arrangements; see Figure 2.1. In response, the<br />

Landesregierung was ordered to investigate the truth of Frieberth’s claims and formulate a<br />

reply. On 21 June, the Landesregierung ordered that all churches in the city should provide<br />

an account of their sacred music arrangements, listing names, positions and rates of pay both<br />

before and after the introduction of the Gottesdienstordnung. The responses of the various<br />

churches are mostly extant, and they provide a fascinating glimpse into a musical world that<br />

is otherwise little-documented and still less studied. Figure 2.2 shows part of the submission<br />

by the Michaelerkirche, a page of particular interest because it lists the musicians employed<br />

for funerals and obsequies at St. Michael’s. Eight years later, it would be this ensemble that<br />

15 Rituale Viennense ad Usum Romanum Accomodatum, Authoritate et Jussu...Cardinalis...Christophori e Comitibus<br />

Migazzi... (Vienna: Ghelen, 1774).<br />

16 Albrecht Huber, Sammlung der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Landesfürstlichen Gesetze und Verordnungen in Publico-<br />

Ecclesiasticis, 5 vols. (Vienna: Trattner, 1782-88), v.34. For a contemporary satire on chant singing in Vienna,<br />

see Joseph Richter, Bildergalerie Klösterlicher Misbräuche ([Vienna]: n. p., 1784), 122-25.<br />

17 Biba1783. See, however, RGZJ, 479n34.<br />

57

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