Composer
27 March 1702, Jettingen, Bavaria - 19 June 1762, Salzburg
The man who ran Salzburg’s music before the Mozarts arrived. Johann Ernst Eberlin was Court Kapellmeister from 1749 until his death in 1762, making him Leopold Mozart’s direct superior and one of the most prolific sacred composers of the 18th century. Almost entirely forgotten today, he was nonetheless the figure who set the musical foundations the Mozarts inherited.
Johann Ernst Eberlin came to Salzburg from Bavaria in 1727 and spent the rest of his life building the city’s musical infrastructure. He took the court organist post under Archbishop Franz Anton Graf von Harrach, climbed steadily through the hierarchy, and in 1749 became Court Kapellmeister for both court and cathedral, the most senior musical appointment in the Prince-Archbishop’s service. For the last 13 years of his life he was the dominant musical authority in Salzburg.
Leopold Mozart served under him for all of those years. Eberlin was Leopold’s direct professional superior, the man whose approval mattered, whose example shaped what Salzburg’s music was expected to be. The two collaborated on a 12-piece carillon series for the Hohensalzburg Fortress organ, a small but tangible record of their working relationship. Leopold also copied Eberlin’s works for his son Wolfgang to study. This was standard pedagogical practice: you learned by copying, and what Wolfgang copied was Eberlin.
Eberlin’s catalogue is extraordinary in its scale: over 6,000 works across Masses, motets, oratorios, school dramas, and instrumental pieces. He was also a teacher. Anton Cajetan Adlgasser, who would serve as cathedral organist until his death in 1777, trained under Eberlin at the court music school. Adlgasser later married Eberlin’s daughter. The musical lineage ran directly: Eberlin trained Adlgasser, and the institutional framework Eberlin built was the framework Leopold and Wolfgang worked within.
Eberlin died in Salzburg in June 1762, when Wolfgang was six. His death cleared the top of Salzburg’s musical hierarchy and contributed to the sequence of events that eventually drove Wolfgang to seek his future elsewhere. The Mozarts inherited his infrastructure. Without Eberlin, the Salzburg musical world the Mozarts inhabited would have been shaped differently.
On the map
The 2 places on this page, where they actually stand.
Locations
Baroque
The official palace and seat of power of the Prince-Archbishops for over 200 years. Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau rebuilt it in grand baroque style. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed for the Archbishop in these very rooms. Troger's frescoes look down from the state rooms. Today the Prunkraume and Residenzgalerie are open to visitors. Directly on Residenzplatz.
Consecrated 1628
The first baroque cathedral built in the German-speaking world, and the dominant church at the heart of Salzburg's Altstadt. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised here on 28 January 1756. The site has held a cathedral since 774, when Saint Virgil of Salzburg consecrated the first one.
