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

hymnbooks prior to 1783, this directive was likely to be a mere codification of existing
practice. More noteworthy was the stipulation that churches supporting choirs could no
longer perform instrumentally-accompanied masses outside Sundays and feast days, but must
limit themselves to chant with optional organ accompaniment. 77 If Burney’s testimony
concerning the daily rendition of instrumental masses in Vienna was still accurate a decade
later, this rule represented a serious setback to the livelihoods of church musicians. With the
institution of the new Gottesdienstordnung, the number of masses per week at which
concerted music could be heard dropped from seven to one or two, depending on the
placement of feast days during the week. 78 The order for vespers was equally restrictive:
concerted settings had no place anywhere in the new regime, and organ accompaniment was
permitted only on Sundays and feast days. Instrumental vespers had been a regular feature on
Sundays and one other day of the week in many churches, and these were now abandoned.
As we have seen, musical renditions of the various litanies were removed entirely, bringing to
an end the vocal performance of a rite particularly associated with Lent.
The introduction of the Gottesdienstordnung was, of course, the most important event
for church music in the early years of Joseph’s sole reign. However, a number of the
Emperor’s edicts prior to 1783 had exerted a limited influence on the nature of musical
worship: the March 1781 ban on the importation of foreign liturgical books had the
potential to limit access to the more recent French and Roman antiphoners, although the
reasonably static nature of chant by this stage would have reduced this difficulty. The
repeated restrictions on public processions would have impacted on the livelihoods of the
musicians who participated in them, brass players in particular. The suppression of
77 Choraliter in this context implies chant and possibly congregational hymns.
78 The restrictions are evidently meant to cover both the mass proper and ordinary, so the performance of a solo
motet or offertory in the context of an otherwise choraliter service would also be disallowed.
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