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

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parish churches did close, as we have noted, virtually all of the musicians who formerly<br />

played in them held multiple posts, allowing many to retain a reduced rather than eliminated<br />

income. All this might go some way to explaining why no further protests against the musical<br />

provisions of the Gottesdienstordnung are known after the rejection of Frieberth’s petition in<br />

January 1784. In the lively musical economy of Vienna in the 1780s, many musicians no<br />

doubt obtained work outside church environments. Some may have abandoned the<br />

profession entirely: a former Kirchen-Musikus called Georg Greiner applied in September<br />

1783 for permission to open a cheesemonger’s shop (Käßstechergewerb) on the Landstrasse. 20<br />

Perhaps the most intriguing prospect in the post-1783 environment is the possibility<br />

that the restrictions of the Gottesdienstordnung were simply ignored in practice. Evidence for<br />

this comes not only from musical sources but also from the contemporary religious literature.<br />

Joseph II’s partial relaxation of censorship laws in <strong>1781</strong> had allowed Vienna to become one<br />

of the Empire’s great publishing centres, and an enormous number of books, journals,<br />

newspapers and pamphlets on every subject appeared in the city during Mozart’s lifetime. 21<br />

Reform-minded commentators soon produced critiques of sacred music, following a well-<br />

worn path of indignation against the “theatrical” nature of the service, the disturbing noise of<br />

trumpets and drums and the tendency of congregations to become distracted by the sounds<br />

emanating from the organ gallery. The most well-known of these critiques are the<br />

anonymous pamphlet Über die Kirchenmusik in Wien, which appeared in the first half of<br />

<strong>1781</strong>, and a chapter in Joseph Richter’s Bildergalerie Katholischer Misbräuche from 1784. 22<br />

20 A-Wsa, Alte Registratur, A2/106 (13 September 1783).<br />

21 See Leslie Bodi, Tauwetter in Wien: Zur Prosa der Österreichischen Aufklärung, <strong>1781</strong>-1795 (Vienna: Böhlau,<br />

1995), 43-57.<br />

22 Anon., Ueber die Kirchenmusik in Wien (Vienna: Sebastian Hartl, <strong>1781</strong>), Joseph Richter, Bildergalerie<br />

Katholischer Misbräuche ([Vienna]: n. p., 1784), 63-70. A review of the former appeared in Die Wiener-<br />

Wochenschrift, Nr. 15 (22 June <strong>1781</strong>), and a translation is available in Jane Schatkin Hettrick, “Colorful<br />

Comments on Church Music in Vienna around 1780,” The American Organist 34 (2000): 77-81. Other<br />

contemporary accounts of Viennese sacred music include: Anon., Die Bürgersmädchen (Vienna: Kurzbeck,<br />

61

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