This advertisement was published in Das Wienerblättchen on 8 Jul 1784 by Viennese music dealer and copyist Lorenz Lausch. Its content is roughly equivalent to the non-operatic works in Lausch’s longer advertisement two days later in the Wiener Zeitung (extracts in Dokumente, 201).

Both advertisements offer “6 Concerti per il Clavicembalo” by Mozart. The advertisement of 10 Jul 1784 additionally includes Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail arranged for eight-part Harmonie by Johann Nepomuk Went (Wendt), oboist in the orchestra of the Viennese court theater and member of the Harmonie band of Emperor Joseph II. The advertisement of 8 Jul 1784 does not include the arrangement of Entführung. In an advertisement published in Das Wienerblättchen three days earlier, on 5 Jul 1784, Lausch had offered most of the same opera extracts and arrangements that appear in his advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung on 10 Jul 1784, including Went’s Harmonie arrangement of Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (“Wenn zwey zanken”), but the arrangement of Mozart’s Entführung is not among them.

The misleading title of the advertisement on 8 Jul, “Arien zum Klavier,” for an advertisement that includes no arias, suggests that Lausch may have provided the same advertising copy to both Das Wienerblättchen and the Wiener Zeitung; in other words, the combined content of the two advertisements in Das Wienerblättchen—the first with opera extracts and arrangements, and the second with instrumental works—is nearly the same as the single advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung, with, however, a few minor differences, including the absence of the arrangement of Mozart’s Entführung from either advertisement in Das Wienerblättchen. It is likely, then, that Lausch’s original advertising copy was split across two issues of Das Wienerblättchen, probably because its pages were considerably smaller than those of the Wiener Zeitung and Das Wienerblättchen used larger type. The omission of Entführung may simply have been due to lack of space or oversight.

Deutsch provisionally identifies the six Mozart concertos in Lausch’s advertisement on 10 Jul 1784 as K. 413, K. 414, K. 415, K. 449, K. 450, and K. 451 (or K. 453), probably because these were Mozart’s seven most recently completed concertos. Lausch very likely had K. 413, K. 414, and K. 415 in his possession by 1784: in fact, he had advertised “die drey neuen Koncerte” by Mozart in Das Wienerblättchen on 4 Nov 1783 (NMD, 32; Neue Folge, 30–31), almost certainly those three. It is unlikely, however, that Lausch had K. 449, K. 450, K. 451, or K. 453 by 1784; in fact, few manuscript copies of those concertos circulated during Mozart’s lifetime. On the other hand, it is clear that Mozart’s concertos K. 238, K. 242, and K. 365 were available in Vienna by this time (see the discussion in Edge 2001, 676–77, of Johann Traeg’s holdings of Mozart concertos, which seem already to have included these three). Thus the six concertos offered in Lausch’s advertisements of 8 and 10 Jul 1784 were probably K. 238, K. 242, K. 365, K. 413, K. 414, and K. 415.

The other composers mentioned in the advertisement in Das Wienerblättchen on 8 Jul 1784 are:

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

Franz Anton Hoffmeister (1754–1812)

Leopold Kozeluch (1747–1818)

František Adam Míča (“Mitscha,” 1746–1811)

Paul Wranitzky (1756–1808)

Lorenz (Laurenz, Laurent) Lausch is said to have been born in Kunitz (Kunice) in Moravia in 1737 or 1738, and he died in Vienna on 23 Nov 1794 at the age of (according to his death record) 56. (On Lausch’s biography and activity as a copyist, see Edge 2001, 2075–88.) His earliest known advertisement appeared in the Wiener Zeitung on 27 Mar 1782; his earliest known advertisement including Mozart is the one published in Das Wienerblättchen on 4 Nov 1783. Although Lausch went on to advertise very frequently in Vienna in the 1780s and 1790s, and many surviving manuscript copies carry his imprint, there is no compelling evidence that he had anything directly to do with Mozart (see Edge 2001, 2075–77). Thus his copies of Mozart’s concertos were probably second hand, rather than based directly on Mozart’s autographs.

This site currently includes three other advertisements by Lausch: see our entries 30 Oct 1784, 22 Aug 1789, and 9 Oct 1790.