This study consists of translations, with extensive critical annotations, of the reports on musical activity in Vienna appearing in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (General Musical Times, also referred to as AmZ) from its founding in October 1798 (Vol. I) through September 1804 (Vol. VI). AmZ, issued by the Leipzig music publishers Breitkopf und Haertel, was a comprehensive musical journal, whose coverage included articles on a variety of topics, reviews of new music, biographies of prominent musicians, and reports on musical activity from the major European cities. Vienna was one of the first places to contribute regularly to the AmZ, whose readership extended across the German-speaking lands. The reporters were virtually all anonymous (enabling them to speak candidly), and they often expressed contradictory views on what they heard. But taken as a whole, their reports provide a chronicle of the city's major public musical events: primarily opera productions in the Court Theater and the suburban Theater an der Wien, but also academies by prominent artists.
This dissertation follows, chapter by chapter, AmZ's original organization by volume, running annually October through September. Since so many of the productions and personnel are unknown today, extensive explanatory notes are included to provide identification and clarify context. Researchers through the years have drawn selectively from these reviews, but out of context. This primary source study presents them as a collected unit to an English readership for the first time. The story that emerges from these first six years of Viennese reports places the foundation of the Haydn-Mozart canon as a German ideal alongside the popularity of many artists, composers, and musical works that are mostly forgotten today. And although the AmZ generally did not mention politics, these reviews from Vienna helped to form an artistic conception of German national identity.