The Vienna Tonkünstlersozietät, a pension fund for the widows and orphans of professional musicians, also requested a choral work from Mozart for its benefit concerts in March 1785. Presumably not only due to a lack of time, but also because this provided an opportunity to perform the music of the great "Mass in C minor" K. 427, which had been composed for a performance in Salzburg in 1783 and remained a torso, in Vienna, he decided to adapt it for the new purpose as the cantata "Davide penitente". Mozart added a sacred text in Italian to the Kyrie and Gloria, in the style of biblical prayers of repentance and penitence, which also suited the concert date, which fell during Lent, and composed a new tenor and soprano aria.
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