On his own in Vienna for the first time, the twenty-five-year-old Mozart wrote to his father on 4 April 1781: ‘I can assure you that this here is a Magnificent place – and for my Métier the best place in the world.’ He had decided to stay, although the famous kick in the arse from the agent of Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg did not take place until 9 June. And while his father would never be persuaded that any city was the right city if one did not have a fixed appointment, Mozart was not naive about his prospects in Vienna. Had death not cut him off just as he was emerging from four financially difficult years, he would have been proven right. In the ten years since his arrival he had obtained the coveted court appointment, he had secured the reversion of the post of Kapellmeister at St Stephen's Cathedral, he had enjoyed notable, often lucrative, successes as a performer and as a composer, and he was patronized by the nobility. The present essay will examine these sources of employment and the extent to which Mozart was able to realize them.

The court

In 1781 the court was still the best employer in Vienna. Although Joseph II led an austere and conspicuously frugal court life, he did not dissolve the court's established musical institutions, the Hofkapelle (court chapel) and the theatre. The Hofkapelle provided music for the court's church services. In addition to the musicians, the Hofkapelle in 1781 consisted of the Hofkapellmeister Giuseppe Bonno and the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck.