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Anton Herzog

teacher, organist, composer, choir director (1771-1850)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ4775800 ↗
Source-derived summary

Anton Herzog was a school teacher in Wiener Neustadt and noted for his account of the commissioning of the Requiem from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Count Franz von Walsegg. The document was censored in Vienna in February 1839; the back of the booklet was marked "Not allowed Imperial and Royal Office Censor. Vienna, 8 Feb. 1839. Freyberger mpria." An edited version finally appeared in a Vienna newspaper in 1925.

Herzog is also noted for his historical accounts of the Walsegg family. This included his works on the death of Walsegg's wife in February 1791. This incident is said to have caused the controversy about Mozart's Requiem after the count allegedly commissioned Mozart to compose a requiem to commemorate the anniversary of her death.

Requiem controversy

Herzog offered a first-person account recognized as crucial in the preservation of the history of Mozart's Requiem. He stated that he had personal involvement with Walsegg, including two performances of the work, which the count directed in December 1793 and February 1794.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Anton Herzog” is teacher, organist, composer, choir director (1771-1850). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Anton, Herzog and teacher, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1839, 1925, 1791, 1793—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1771-01-07. For this dossier, Anton, Herzog and teacher is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “teacher, organist, composer, choir director (1771-1850)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4775800. VIAF identifies the subject as 305347868. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1839, 1925, 1791 and 1793.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Anton Herzog”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Anton Herzog primary sources, Anton Herzog archive and Anton research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Anton Herzog”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Anton Herzog” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.