In both church and dramatic music at the opening of the century Vienna was one of the most notable centres, in touch with Germany on the one hand and with Italy on the other. Under three successive Emperors, Leopold I. (d. 1705), Joseph I. (d. 1711) and Charles VI. (d. 1740), the Imperial Chapel, with the Chapels of the two Empresses Dowager, and of the cathedral church of St. Stephen's, attracted a host of great directors, composers, players and singers. Talented Italians were naturally in constant request, but masters of other nationalities did not wholly fail of honor. In spite of the fact that in the middle of the century, under Maria Theresa, there was a decided lapse of imperial interest, this earlier time presaged in several ways the remarkable eminence of the Viennese school in the later period of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
In the Imperial Chapel itself the number of active musicians, vocalists
and instrumentalists rose to fully 100 under Joseph I. and to about 135
under Charles VI., the offices of choirmaster, assistant choirmaster, composer,
organist and chief singers commanding good salaries. The list of
choirmasters includes Antonio Pancotti (d. 1709), singer from 1665, assistant
from 1697, chief from 1700, M. A. Ziani (d. 1715), assistant from
1700, chief from 1712, Fux (d. 1741), assistant from 1713, chief from
1715, Caldara (d. 1736), assistant from 1716, L. A. Predieri (d. 1769),
assistant from 1726, chief in 1746-51, Georg Reutter, Jr. (d. 1772), assistant
from 1746, chief from 1751, F. L. Gassmann (d. 1774), chief from 1772,
and Josef Bonno (d. 1788), chief from 1774. The title of court-composer
was held by Badia in 1696-1738, by Fux from 1698, by G. B.
Bononcini in 1700-11, by Francesco Conti in 1713-32, by Giuseppe Porsile
in 1720-40, by Reutter in 1730-46, by Matteo Pallota in 1733-41 and
1749-58, by Bonno in 1739-74, by G. C. Wagenseil in 1739-77, and by
Gassmann in 1763-72. This latter office yielded no special salary after
1770, but the title continued to be conferred, as upon Gluck in 1774-87
and upon Mozart in 1787-91.
During the first forty years of the century the most influential
leader was Fux, a composer emphatically of the old Palestrina
school, more learned than original, but a theorist and
teacher of exceptional ability, as well as an organizer who knew
how to hold in some sort of harmony the diverse elements of
the large imperial musical establishment. Prominent among
his coadjutors were the Italians Caldara, F. Conti and Porsile.
Georg Reutter [Sr.] (d. 1738) served at St. Stephen's as organist from
1686, and as choirmaster from 1715, while at the court he was theorbist in
