The Sinfonia da Chiesa, and Salzburg (1766–1767)

Abstract Although in modern musical life symphonies usually serve as the centre-pieces of orchestral concerts, in concerts of the second half of the eighteenth century, they most often appeared at the beginnings and ends of entertainments at the centres of which were characteristically found vocal and instrumental solos.1 They also served as overtures and entr’actes to operas, plays, oratorios, and cantatas, and, indeed, the terms ‘symphony’ and ‘overture’ were used interchangeably. Although overture (or ‘theatre’) symphonies and concert (or ‘chamber’) symphonies arc the only types dealt with in recent histories of the early symphony,2 there was also a third type: the church symphony. As early as 1713 Mattheson wrote on this subject: