Commentary
This article describes and criticizes the difficulties that Count Kolowrat had in organizing a dilettante concert (that is, a concert in which the performers were not professional musicians) for the benefit of the poor on 30 Mar 1787, near the end of Lent. Count Philipp Franz von Kolowrat (1756–1836), the son of the Bohemian-Austrian Chancellor Count Leopold von Kolowrat (1727–1809) was an enthusiast for music and theater. Mozart himself had spent most of January and the beginning of February 1787 in Prague, but he had returned to Vienna well before this concert took place.
The unidentified Mozart piano concerto on the program was performed by Kolowrat’s cousin, the twelve-year-old Count Franz von Klebelsberg (1774–1857), who was later to co-found the Prague Conservatorium. The two “Fräulein von Pachta” may be Countess Maria von Pachta (b. 1765) and her sister Josepha (b. 1768); their uncle, Johann Joseph Philipp von Pachta (1723–1822) was the Count Pachta for whom Mozart had allegedly composed the Six German Dances K. 509 two months earlier. The sisters’ unusual concerto is Kozeluch’s Concerto in B flat for Piano Duet (Poštolka IV:8), which had just appeared in print. “Pater Kroh” remains unidentified, though there may be a relationship to Johann Kroh (d. 1785), parish priest at St. Nicholas and dean of the philosophical faculty at Charles Ferdinand University (Weiss 1906, i:85). There is a concerto for glass harmonica by Joseph Aloys Schmittbauer (1718-1809).
The Oberdeutschen Staatszeitung (1785–1799) was published in Salzburg and edited by Lorenz Hübner (1751–1807), who was well-known to Leopold Mozart (Briefe, iii:439). There are a number of other references to Wolfgang in the paper (Dokumente, 234–35; Neue Folge, 72 and 18 Jan 1787).
This item is quoted in Auszug, iii:516–17 (9 May 1787).