Umlauf, Ignaz (b. Vienna, 1746; d. Meidling, near Vienna, 8 June 1796). A composer and conductor active in Vienna, Umlauf held positions as Kapellmeister of the German opera (1778–83) and deputy conductor of the Italian opera (from 1783). Several of his singspiels were staged during his tenure as Kapellmeister, most notably Die schöne Schusterin, oder Die pücefarbenen Schuhe (1779), setting a libretto by Johann Gottlieb Stephanie. On 6 March 1789 Umlauf directed the singers in a performance (under Mozart's general direction) of Mozart's reorchestrated version of Handel's Messiah, K572. Professional interaction, however, did not equate with professional respect, for Mozart was disparaging about Umlauf's compositional abilities. Reporting to Leopold Mozart that Umlauf had taken a year to write one opera, Mozart explained (6 Oct. 1781): ‘you must not believe that the opera is any good, just because it took him a whole year. I should have thought . . . that it was the work of fourteen or fifteen days.’ He goes further still in his condemnation of Umlauf's Welches ist die beste Nation? as an ‘execrable opera’ (5 Feb. 1783): ‘the music is so bad that I do not know whether the poet or the composer will carry off the prize for inanity’ (21 Dec. 1782).

simon p. keefe