Hofmann, Leopold (1738-1793)

A near contemporary and rival of Haydn, Leopold Hofmann (1738-1793) was the leading church musician in Vienna for much of his life. He served as Kapellmeister at St Stephens Cathedral from 1772, a position to which Mozart might have succeeded had he lived. Hofmanns large corpus of church music includes around 50 masses as well as many smaller works. Hofmanns motets and offertories, of which there are around 40, encompass a wide range of styles. Some are one-movement works for chorus and orchestra typically scored for SATB, 2 clarini, timpani, strings and organ but a good number also employ a vocal soloist and include recitative sections and one or more arias as is the case with Atra nocte incubante. Written for boy soprano, the work calls for considerable agility in the fast sections of the work and an expressive cantilena in the slow aria. Allan Badley