This advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung, offering a variety of music, minerals, and shells (as well as starfish and Hercules beetles), is unsigned. However, the address—the first floor of no. 654, the so-called “Eßigmacherisches Haus”— is identical to the address given by music copyist Johann Traeg in an advertisement published just a few months later in the Wiener Zeitung, on 27 Sep 1783 (Dokumente, 194), and on the same day in a slightly different form in Das Wienerblättchen (for a transcription of the latter, see the Notes below; an English translation is given in NMD, 31–32). Both of Traeg’s advertisements on 27 Sep offer Mozart’s “3 neueste Klavierkonzerte” (“3 newest keyboard concertos”), almost certainly referring to K. 413, K. 414, and K. 415. Up to now, these two advertisements have been the only ones Traeg is known to have published in 1783. It seems plausible (although it is by no means certain) that this anonymous advertisement on 26 Apr 1783 represents a third.

Apart from the ones published on 27 Sep 1783, all of Traeg’s known advertisements in these years—from his first on 10 Aug 1782 up to and including that on 21 Jun 1788—gave his current home address as his place of business: initially, from 1782 until 23 Feb 1785, “im Pilatischen Haus auf dem Peter” (the Pilati house, no. 552 on Petersplatz), and then from 30 Apr 1785 (when he announces that he will be at the new address from 10 May) until 21 Jun 1788 “auf dem hohen Markt Nr. 423” (Hoher Markt no. 423). His advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung on 16 May 1789 is the first to give the address of a music shop separate from his residence, at no. 863 in Singerstrasse (on Traeg’s business addresses, see Edge 2001, 104–6). His advertisements in Sep 1783 with the address no. 654 (and the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783, if it is also Traeg’s) seem, then, to represent an early attempt to do business from a location other than his home (see Edge 2001, 105 and note 88). Traeg had married on 17 Feb 1783, and he may have felt motivated by his new status to attempt to open a separate shop. Be that as it may, his first experiment seems not to have worked out, and the rest of his advertisements until May 1789 give his current home address as his place of business.

Although we cannot say for certain that the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 is Traeg’s, he does seem to be a likely candidate. That the advertisement also includes minerals, shells, starfish, and Hercules beetles in addition to a large assortment of music does not rule out Traeg as the advertiser. Traeg and other Viennese music dealers generally attempted to make money however they could, and were known to advertise items other than music when the opportunity presented itself. For example, in an advertisement otherwise devoted to music in the Wiener Zeitung on 21 Dec 1785, Traeg wrote:

⁣     Auch ist bey ihm [Traeg] eine schöne und grosse
Sammlung von Papillonen und seltenen Kä=
fern, nebst einem dazu gehörigen Kasten um
einen billigen Preis zu verkaufen.
[WZ, no. 102, Wed, 21 Dec 1785, 2949–50]

⁣    Also in his [Traeg’s] shop, a beautiful and large
collection of butterflies and rare beetles,
along with its accompanying case, is
for sale at a low price.

The reference to music rental in the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 suggests that this was not a “one-off” sale; music rental was more typically the province of music dealers who had established local businesses. Traeg himself had advertised music for rent for amateur concerts in his second advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung on 21 Dec 1782, and he advertised music rentals again on 25 Feb 1784. So the reference to music rentals in the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 is consistent with Traeg’s offerings at the time. The selection of music offered in the advertisement is also consistent with what we know about Traeg’s stock (see below). However, the attribution of the advertisement remains uncertain, and its anonymous publication could also be explained by a variety of other circumstances (for example, more than one seller might have been operating out of the same location, or the advertisement may have nothing at all to do with Traeg). At present, we simply do not have enough information to be sure.

In the 1780s, house no. 654 (according to the first Viennese house numbering of 1771) was on the Haarmarkt (today part of Rotenturmstrasse). The “Ganns” referred to in the advertisement was house 655, known as “die goldene Gans”, the “Golden Goose.” (The house is listed with this name in de Ponty 1779; by 1786, its status had changed: Fischer 1786 describes the house as “geweßte goldne Ganß”—“formerly the Golden Goose”—now belonging to the city.)

If the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 is indeed Traeg’s, it is possible he already had access to Mozart’s concertos K. 413, K. 414, and K. 415, and these may have been among the concertos referred to in the advertisement. Mozart had advertised manuscript copies of the three concertos by subscription on 15 Jan 1783 in the Wiener Zeitung. His copyist for that offering seems to have been Joseph Arthofer, who is not known to have worked for Traeg. (On Arthofer and the surviving manuscript copies of these concertos in his hand, see Edge 1996 and Edge 2001, chpt. 5). However, the concertos may have been in wider circulation in Vienna by Apr 1783, and Traeg could well have acquired manuscript copies of them by that point. On the other hand, Traeg’s two advertisements on 27 Sep 1783 seem to highlight those three concertos, and it may be that he had only just acquired them. Other keyboard concertos by Mozart that might have been available to Traeg and other Viennese copyists by late 1782 and the early months of 1783—and thus might have been among the offerings of the advertiser on 26 Apr 1783—include K. 175 (probably with the recently composed K. 382 as replacement finale), K. 238, K. 242, K. 246, K. 271, and K. 365.

The phrase in the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 “Quintetten und Quartetten aus wälschen, französisch und deutschen Operetten” (“quintets and quartets from Italian, French, and German operettas”) probably refers to arrangements of operatic numbers for instrumental quartet and quintet, not to vocal ensembles. Given what we know of Traeg’s offerings and those of other Viennese music copyists in the 1780s, it should not be assumed that the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 refers only to arrangements for string quartet and quintet; the offerings may well have included quartets and quintets with a variety of other instrumentations (flute and strings, for example).

Most of the other composers named in the advertisement can be identified with reasonable certainty. However, the identity of “L. P. C. B. Richter,” listed among the composers of keyboard concertos, is uncertain: no composer named “Richter” is known with those initials. It may be that the initials stand for a title rather than a given name. Of the Richters who are known to have composed keyboard concertos during this period, Franz Xaver Richter (1709–1789) is probably the most prominent. Other possibilities include Johann Christoph Richter (1700–1785), Carl Gottlieb Richter (1728–1809), and Georg Friedrich Richter (1749–after 1792; see Steblin 2009).

The other composers mentioned in the advertisement are:

Violin concertos:

Nicola (Niccolò) Mestrino (1748–1789)
“Todor,” probably Josephus Andreas Fodor (1751–1828)
Ernst Johann Christian Schick (1753–1815)
Johann Anton Hutti (1751/52–1785)
Peter Winter (1754–1825)

Keyboard concertos:

Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735–1792)
Joseph Schuster (1748–1812)
Georg Benda (1722–1795)

Flute concertos:

Friedrich Hartmann Graf (1727–1795)
Carl Stamitz (1745–1801) or Anton Stamitz (1750–1796)
William Reinards?

Viola concertos:

Carl Stamitz (1745–1801)
Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739–1813)

Arias:

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787)
Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783)
Venanzio Rauzzini (1746–1810) or perhaps Matteo Rauzzini (1754–1791)
Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802)
“Baroni” probably Antonio Boroni (1738–1792)
Ferdinando Bertoni (1725–1813)

All but one of these composers are represented in Traeg’s catalog of 1799 by at least one work in the specified genre (Traeg’s catalog is published in facsimile in Weinmann 1973). The only exception is Reinards, whose name does not occur in the catalog (the catalog does, however, list flute concertos by Reymann and Rhein). The wide variety of composers represented in the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783 is consistent with what we know of Traeg’s offerings. Traeg offered manuscript copies of musical works by an exceptionally wide variety of composers, including “foreign” ones (that is, composers not active in Vienna or its cultural orbit), and composers (like Hasse or Gluck) who were no longer of the current generation; he is the only commercial music copyist active in Vienna at this time who is known to have offered this breadth and variety of music. Two of the variant spellings in the advertisement of 26 Apr 1783, “Maestrino” and “Baroni,” also appear in Traeg’s catalog.

Minerals:

silver “aus den Fürstenbergischen, und dem Harze”

The phrase “aus den Fürstenbergischen” probably refers to the mining town of Fürstenberg in Saxony. Harz is an upland region straddling the borders of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.

iron from Framont

On iron mining in Framont, see this.

“Violetschörl” = violet tourmaline from Dauphiné

“totes Bley aus Syberien” = plumbum mortuum = antimony.  

On the wide variety of names for antimony in alchemy and medicine, see this; see also this image of stibnite (the most common mineral containing antimony) from central Siberia.

“onixartige Kalzedon” = onyx (which is a form of the more general category chalcedony)

“kristallisirte Sandsteine” = crystallized sandstone

On crystallized sandstone, see here.

“Avantoriussteine” = aventurine

A form of quartz (often green, but also other colors).

Shells, etc.:

“Conchilien”

The advertiser is using “Conchilien” to refer generically to “shells” (Muscheln in modern German); the term is used with this meaning in Martini et al., Neues systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet (1769–1788, 1829).

All specific common shell names in the list below are found in the comprehensive index volume (1788) to the original ten volumes of the Neues systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet. The references to Martini below are the primary textual references for each common name; note, however, that in most cases the index also includes several subsidiary references and should be consulted directly for more detailed information. References below give the volume number and page number for the primary textual entry on the shell, which in turn includes references to the relevant illustrations at the ends of the respective volumes.

“Weberspulen” (Martini I, 299)

Literally a “bobbin” or “spool,” but here a kind of shell. See also Grimm, which defines “Weberspule” in this meaning as: “meerschnecke (vgl. weberschiffchen), ovula volva.” This may be equivalent to modern Volva volva, also known in English as the Shuttle Volva or Shuttlecock.

“Admirals” (Martini X, 50)

The Admiral Cone shell (Conus ammiralis).

“Winkelhacken” (Martini VII, 257)

Literally a composing stick. According to Grimm (sense 6), the mollusk ostrea isognomon; thus a member of the family Isognomonidae (now Pteriidae), the so-called “feather oysters,” which include the genus Isognomon.

“Lazarusklappen” (as “Die gezackte Klapmuschel” in Martini VII, 68f)

A spondylus.

“Pharao Schnecken” (as “Camisolkopf” or “Pharaoturban” in Martini V, 109–10)

The Clanculus pharaonius, the Strawberry Topshell, a sea snail, called Trochus pharaonius in Linnaeus 1758.

“Otahaitische Schnecken”

“otahaitisch” is an older form of the German adjective for “Tahitian,” thus “Tahitian snails,” a nonspecific term that does not occur in the index to Martini. See Polynesian land snails.

“Seesterne”

Starfish

“Herkules Käfer”

Hercules beetle