The musicians of the Salzburg Court
Knowing the musicians who gradually came later into the scene in the various roles at their service to the Salzburg Court may help us understand who the Mozart family was dealing with and possibly better comprehend why Leopold, after various initial career advancements, held his position definitively in the role of Vice-Kapellmeister. The names of these musicians can also be occasionally found in the Mozartian epistolary which is why there could be useful information about them in order to better understand situations and relations that influenced the Mozart's life. When Leopold Mozart was hired in 1743 as a violinist in the orchestra of the Prince's Archbishop of Salzburg, at the musical apex of the city sat Johann Ernst Eberlin with already 17 years of service as the Court's organist and then promoted to Kapellmeister in 1750 and Anton Cajetan Adlgasser, initially hired as a chorister, who was then was replaced by Eberlin in the role of Court organist. These two musicians, both originally from Bavaria were, therefore, directly superior and most certainly to him, besides aspiring to the post that they held being of higher importance and pay than his, lead to some profit in the connections of their compositions toward his advancement as a composer.
Johann Ernst Eberlin (Jettingen 1702 -- Salzburg 1762)
Eberlin's musical education was quite similar to that of Leopold Mozart, of which he was also friend, teacher and probably mentor in the musical Court. In fact, like Leopold, he also studied at the Lyceum of the Jesuits of Augsburg where he received his musical education, and later transferred to Salzburg to study law at the Benedictine University, and like Leopold, abandoned his studies after two years. Hired in 1727 as an organist (during the epoch of the Archbishop Firmian who governed nearly 20,000 inhabitants of the region of which practicing Protestants were forced to emigrate), in 1749, he obtained simultaneously the positions of Court Kapellmeister and Cathedral Kapellmeister, namely Chorus Conductor and was responsible for the musical development for all of the ceremonies at the Salzburg Cathedral. Eberlin was an esteemed composer, and even Leopold Mozart had a high opinion of his music which, though, given their outdated style in comparison to the musical evolution of that epoch, were soon forgotten. His keyboard musical pieces, 9 toccatas and fugues for the organ, were requested by Wolfgang in 1782, while he was residing in Vienna, discovering the fugues of Bach thanks to the evenings spent at the Baron van Swieten home. Wolfgang's intention was probably to use them to deepen his study of the fugue, or possibly as had already happened in the past, to claim them as his own (secretly requesting to have his father copy them in Salzburg) obtaining the goodwill of van Swieten who was a great appraiser of Bach's polyphonic music. In a letter to his sister Nannerl, dated 20 April, he writes: "If our father has not yet had the operas of Eberlin copied, I would be happy, as I have already secretly received them and unfortunately, have ascertained (...) that they are too ordinary to deserve a position among Haendel and Bach".
Anton Cajetan Adlgasser (Inzell 1729 -- Salzburg 1777)
After moving from his birthplace in Bavaria to Salzburg, Adlgasser became Eberlin's pupil (later marrying his daughter) and was the organist of the Cathedral until his death (Wolfgang Mozart followed him as organist). He married three times in his lifetime. His last wife was the singer Maria Anna Fesemayer of which both Mozart father and son were witnesses at their wedding given their friendship and their collaboration in the creation of the oratory Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots (The Duty of the First Commandment). The composition, in three parts, beholds a ten-year-old Wolfgang Mozart compose the first, Michael Haydn the second and Adlgasser the third. He died astonishingly of a heart attack while performing the aspiration of his life, during his performance at the organ in Salzburg's Cathedral.
Giuseppe Francesco Lolli (Bologna 1701 -- Salzburg 1778)
Hired in 1722 as a tenor in the Orchestra of the Salzburg Court, Lolli became Vice-Kapellmeister in 1743 and then Kapellmeister in 1762. Leopold Mozart, who aspired to that very position, was embittered by the preference conceded to Lolli, so much so, that he writes of his rival's compositions: "He has never written more that a few chamber oratorios and religious music". In 1772, due to old age, he was substituted as Kapellmeister by Domenico Fischietti.
Johann Michael Haydn (1736 -- 1806)
Younger brother (in age as well as musically) of the great Franz Joseph, followed his elder brother's footsteps becoming at the age of eight years old a choirboy in the chorus at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. He later studied violin, organ and composition. As soon as he finished his studies, he was appointed Kapellmeister in Oradea, a Romanian city located in the north-west where he was to gain experience. Five years later, in 1762, he relocated to Salzburg to substitute Leopold Mozart (who was no longer available for the position due to the first promotional journey to Vienna of his child prodigy), and then finally as Kapellmeister and Concert Conductor (initial annual pay was 300 florins), a position that he held for forty-three years, including the honor of free meals in the official dining hall; Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart never had such a privilege, and were only allowed to eat at the table in the kitchen with the servants. Father and son obviously had frequent interactions with Michael Haydn, who represented a model for some of the compositions of Wolfgang's youth, since as a composer, he had a considerably vast production in all types of music utilized in that epoch (symphonies, concerts, serenades, trios, quartets, sonatas, sacred and profane vocal music). Some of Michael Haydn's works were cited in the Mozartian epistolary as transcribed (however, not always authorized) and were utilized for educational purposes as well as something to display to his two children. Even though they worked together on an almost daily basis, Leopold Mozart held a grudge against Michael Haydn which we see in letters to Wolfgang, denigrating his higher-ranking superior with accusations of him being lazy (which was later retracted by his immense catalogue of compositions) and a drunkard. Similar opinions were surely expressed as gossip among the circle of friends of the family and was quite likely that these rumors reached the ears of the Archbishop, which certainly did not serve to favor his opinion of the envious Leopold.
Domenico Fischietti (Naples 1725 -- Salzburg 1810)
Son of Kapellmeister and composer Giovanni Fischietti, after his musical studies in Naples under the tutelage of his father and then Francesco Durante (just to name a few), he made his debut in the same city with his first opera "Armindo" in 1742. In 1755, he moved to Venice where the first thing he did was stage the opere buffe on the texts of Carlo Goldoni with enormous success. After experience in Prague as the impresario of the theatrical Bustelli Company in 1764, he was appointed Kapellmeister in Dresden in 1766 after Johann Adolf Hasse, with an annual salary of 600 florins. Having lost his position at Dresden, he went to Vienna in 1772 where he met the Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg who, appreciating his musical talents, engaged him as composer for the cathedral choir and assistant to the Kapellmeister Lolli and to vice Leopold Mozart. From 1776 to 1783 he was Kapellmeister to the Salzburg Court and cathedral with an annual salary of 800 florins. Luigi Maria Baldassarre Gatti succeeded him as Kapellmeister.