The Vienna Boys' Choir 2

Empress Maria Theresia had other thoughts about music: nice if you could have it, but it should not cost much. She felt that there were more important things in life.

So she privatised her Hofmusikkapelle : she gave court organist Georg Reutter the elder a lump sum of money to pay for the music.

Reutter made his son (who was at the same time director of music at St. Stephen’s cathedral) court Kapellmeister. The yonger Reutter found it difficult to pay for the musicians (in particular the castrati who had to be imported from Italy at great cost). He economised by not replacing retired musicians,and the number of musicians dwindled from 130 to 20. At the end of Reutter’s time, there was not even an organist for the chapel.

There was no money to pay for boys to sing, or to pay for their education. Reutter had the obvious solution: he “lent” the boys of St. Stephen’s to the court. This was possible, since he was director of music there, and also in charge of admissions and recruitment. The most famous choristers at St. Stephen's were without doubt cheeky Joseph Haydn and his brother Michael.

During the Wiener Klassik, the Austrian court employed celebrities like Christoph Willibald Gluck (father of opera as we know it) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as composers. The Hofmusikkapelle played less at secular occasions, and more in sacred contexts. By the nineteenth century they hardly played outside the church.

Antonio Salieri was the last Italian to serve as court Kapellmeister (1788 - 1824).

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