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

yet the Pope was unable to extract any promises from the Emperor beyond an undertaking to
respect Catholic dogma and preserve the dignity of the Holy See. 58 Joseph was later to pay an
equally inconclusive visit to Rome himself, but the true nature of his religious convictions
was already revealed in a letter written to Pius in August 1782:
...senza andare e cercare i testi tanto della Sacra Scrittura, che dei Santi Padri...tengo una voce in
me, che mi dice quello, che come legislatore et protettore della religione mi conviene di fare o di
tralasciare; e questa voce, coll’ajuto della grazia divina e col carattere onesto ed equo, che mi
sento, non può mai indurre in errore. 59
This sense of supreme confidence in the rightness of his actions, bolstered by a genuine belief
that he was performing divinely sanctioned work proved characteristic of Joseph as he
contemplated one of his most ambitious religious reforms of all: the imposition of a
centralised and highly specific order of services for the city of Vienna, complete with major
reorganisation of parish boundaries. In musical terms, the production of a new
Gottesdienstordung in April 1783 has become virtually synonymous with Joseph’s reforms as a
whole, since the document contains by far the most frequent references to musical
performance of any Imperial decree, and its effects on that discipline were profound and
wide-ranging.
A year into his office, Joseph seems to have determined that fundamental changes
were necessary in the observance of church services, both in their quality and quantity. In
order to prepare for the reforms, the Episcopal consistory of Vienna commissioned a survey
in February 1782 from the churches of the city, requiring them to state the number, type
and duration of services held each day, in addition to the number and origin of the
58 See Elisabeth Kovacs, Der Pabst in Teutschland: die Reise Pius VI. im Jahre 1782 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg,
1983) and Hans Schlitter, Die Reise des Papstes Pius VI. nach Wien und sein Aufenthalt daselbst: ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte der Beziehungen Josefs II. zur römischen Kurie (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1892).
59 Letter of 15 August 1782, quoted in Ferdinand Maass (ed.), Der Josephinismus: Quellen Zu Seiner Geschichte
in Österreich 1760-1850. Amtliche Dokumente Aus Dem Wiener Haus-, Hof- Und Staatsarchiv, 5 vols., vol. 71-
75, Fontes Rerum Austriacarum (Wien: Verlag Herold, 1951), ii.391.
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