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

conditions of employment differed significantly during the 1780s. Secondly, the claim that
Mozart did not engage in sacred music between the C minor Mass and Ave verum is factually
incorrect, as we shall see in the following chapters. Finally, this kind of post hoc reasoning is
dangerous as long as other potential explanations for the alleged compositional silence are
ignored. Daniel Heartz writes that it “may have been mainly a coincidence that Haydn and
Mozart wrote no concerted church music from 1783 to the end of the decade.” 28 Perhaps the
most significant impact of the Gottesdienstordnung was not the imposition of any practical
barrier to the performance of new sacred music, but rather the creation of an official climate
of disapproval. In this context, the response of composers was to vary as Joseph’s popularity
and influence declined and new employment opportunities became available. 29
Table 2.1 is an attempt to list all sacred works encountered during research for this
dissertation that appear to have been written in Vienna during the decade 1781 to 1791. 30
The task of compiling such a list is hindered by the large-scale loss of autographs and the
widely scattered nature of the sources, and it is certain that the table documents only a
portion of the sacred music written in that decade. The table will however go some way
towards revising the common opinion that “hardly any church music was written in
Vienna.” The decade from 1781 to 1791 is marked at one extreme by Joseph II’s accession
to sole rule and at the other by the first attempts of Leopold II to lessen the strictures of the
Gottesdienstordnung. The decade also coincides, of course, with Mozart’s residence in the
city, and the table provides a much-needed context for the major sacred works of the
28 Heartz, Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School, 21.
29 For a reevaluation of Mozart’s place in the Viennese church music scene, see Otto Biba, “Mozarts Wiener
Kirchenmusikkompositionen,” in Internationaler Musikwissenschaftlicher Kongress zum Mozartjahr 1991, ed.
Ingrid Fuchs (Tutzing: Schneider, 1993), 43-55.
30 For the purposes of this dissertation the list is limited to liturgical sacred music, omitting works that were
clearly intended for concert use such as Mozart’s Davide penitente. Joseph Haydn is included on account of the
wide dissemination of his music in Vienna and his role in the traditional if debatable concept of a “Viennese
Classical style.”
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