On 6 Jan 1788 Archduke Francis married Elisabeth of Württemberg at the Imperial Court Chapel in the Hofburg. The wedding was an occasion for celebration throughout Vienna; the principal musical event was the premiere of Salieri’s Axur, re d'Ormus on 8 Jan. Mozart is not mentioned by name in this report of a Masonic musical academy on 12 Jan 1788, but given his association with the craft and prominence as a “Virtuoso” it is likely that he took part. The venue for the academy is not given but it was presumably the lodge Zur gekrönten Hoffnung, located in the house Zum silbernen Hut on Bauernmarkt.

The source of this item, the Auszug aus aller europäischen Zeitungen was, as it name suggests, a journal digest of European newspapers published in Vienna from 1786–1798. The reports are organised by country, with news about the "kaiserliche königliche Staaten" always appearing first, and occasionally featuring original items about Vienna. As a footnote to each item, the Auszug helpfully gives the source newspaper and issue number, which has allowed us to track down the original article in a number of cases. The founder and first editor, Karl Franz Guolfinger Ritter von Steinsberg (c. 1757–1806) seems to have taken a particular interest in music, and the Auszug is a valuable source for quotations from otherwise lost newspapers. It is itself very rare, and the only complete copy survives today in the Moravian National Library in Brno (pace Brauneis 1991, 165, which describes the Wienbibliothek’s incomplete holdings of the Auszug as unica). The existence of the Brno exemplar was first noted in Gugitz and Schlossar (1923, 546).

This item is also quoted in Das Wienerblättchen, 30 Jan 1788, 384–85. It was first noted independently if rather idiosyncratically in Autexier (1984, 17, in French translation with no source given) and then Autexier ([2014], 218).