Commentary
This is a slightly different version of a known report in Cramer’s Magazin der Musik regarding Mozart’s academy in the Burgtheater in Vienna on 23 Mar 1783 (Dokumente, 190–91). However, the report in the Münchner Zeitung on 14 Apr 1783 precedes the one in Magazin der Musik, which is printed under the date 9 May 1783.
The report in Magazin der Musik seems to imply that Mozart’s concert took place on 2 Mar 1783 (see the Notes below), but we know from Mozart’s letters to his father that it actually took place on Sun, 23 Mar. The report in the Münchner Zeitung, on the other hand, does not give a specific date for the concert, saying only that it was “recent.”
It is possible that the report in Magazin der Musik is based on the one in the Münchner Zeitung; the minor differences in spelling and syntax are consistent with the sorts of revisions that Cramer might have made, and the erroneous date might have arisen if Cramer yoked together two reports from different sources: a brief report from another source on the violinist Thomas Woborzil dated 22 Mar (a passage omitted from Dokumente; see the Notes below), and the Munich paper’s undated report on Mozart’s concert.
There is, however, one substantive difference between the Munich report and Cramer’s that may speak against this hypothesis: Magazin der Musik includes an additional clause describing the public’s reaction to Mozart's performance:
Unser Monarch, der die ganze Academie, gegen seine Gewohnheit, mit seiner Ge=
genwart beehrte, und das ganze Publicum ertheilten denselben [Mozart] so einstimmig Beyfall, daß man hier kein Beyspiel davon weiß.
Our monarch, who contrary to his custom honored the entire academy with his presence, and the entire public gave him [Mozart] unanimous applause, the like of which has not been seen here previously.
This difference between the reports in the Münchner Zeitung and Magazin der Musik could be taken to suggest they derive from a common (but currently unknown) source. (For the complete text of Cramer’s report, correcting an accidental omission in the transcription in Dokumente, see the Notes below.)
Mozart refers to this concert in a letter to Leopold on 12 Mar 1783. In the course of describing his participation in a concert given by his sister-in-law Aloysia Lange the previous day, he writes:
Gestern hat meine schwägerin Lange ihre academie im theater gehalten, worinn ich auch ein Concert gespielt habe. — das theater war sehr voll; und ich wurde auf eine so schöne art von dem hiesigen Publicum wieder empfangen, daß ich ein wahres vergnügen darüber haben muß. — ich war schon weg. — man hörte aber nicht auf zu klatschen — und ich musste das Rondeau repetiren; — es war ein ordentlicher Plazregen. — das ist eine gute ankündigung für meine academie welche ich sonntags den 23:t März geben werde. [Briefe, iii:259]
Yesterday my sister-in-law Lange gave her academy in the theater, at which I also performed a concerto. The theater was very full, and I was again received by the public here in such a lovely manner that it could only give me real pleasure. I had already exited, but the applause didn’t stop, and I had to repeat the rondo. It was a regular downpour. This is a good advertisement for my academy, which I’m giving on Sunday, 23 March.
Mozart writes more on his concert in a letter to Leopold dated 29 Mar 1783 (Briefe, iii:261–62). That letter includes a detailed list of the program, and Mozart mentions that the emperor sent him 25 ducats. (Assuming that the emperor sent imperial [kaiserliche] ducats, this would have amounted to 106 fl 40 kr at the time; on the conversion rate, see Edge 1991, 218.) The two concertos mentioned in the Münchner Zeitung and Magazin der Musik were, according to Mozart’s own description, K. 415 (“das 3:te von meinen Souscriptions=Concerten”; “the 3rd of my subscription concertos”) and K. 175, with K. 382 as the final movement (“das hier beliebte Concert ex D. wozu ich das variazion Rondeau geschickt habe”; “the Concerto in D to which I added the rondeau-variations, which is beloved here”).