The music from the late Morzin period, which ranges into latest 1760, is essentially non-datable as far as month and day goes, and oftentimes even the year is an open question. Generally we know the music is from the period because of various indicators, such as the recognized handwriting of the copyist (often with corrections in Haydn’s own hand), where it was discovered, what genre it was; in short, there is a variety of internal evidence that says loudly “I’m from 1758-1760”. Unless we are not satisfied with anything other than a note on top of the page saying “di me, Giuseppe Haydn, 6 July ‘759” this situation is something we have to live with. I prefer the note, of course, but I’ll take what I can get.
Given that it is virtually impossible to properly separate the music of these two years, I will list both together and we will look at the total package. Two years isn’t too big a slot to fill, after all. Our forebears had these works spread out over ten+ years and they still weren’t close on many of them!
1759
Hoboken Type Key Instruments
1:004 Symphony D 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:010 Symphony D 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:020 Symphony C 2 Oboes, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings
1:027 Symphony G 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
2:06 Divertimento Eb 2 Violins, Viola & Baß (Op 1 #5 or Op 0)
3:06 Divertimento C 2 Violins, Viola & Baß (Op 1 #6)
5:15 Divertimento á tre D 2 Violins & Baß
5:D1 Divertimento á tre D 2 Violins & Baß
5:D3 Divertimento á tre D 2 Violins & Baß
5:F1 Divertimento á tre F 2 Violins & Baß
5:G1 Divertimento á tre G 2 Violins & Baß
5:A2 Divertimento á tre A 2 Violins & Baß
14:12 Concertino C Keyboard, 2 Violins & Baß
14:13 Divertimento G Keyboard, 2 Violins & Baß
15:40 Trio F Keyboard, Violin & Baß
15:C1 Trio C Keyboard, Violin & Baß
1760
Hoboken Type Key Instruments
1:005 Symphony A 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:011 Symphony Eb 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:017 Symphony F 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:019 Symphony D 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:025 Symphony C 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
1:032 Symphony C 2 Oboes, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings
1:107 Symphony "A" Bb 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons & Strings
2:15 Divertimento F 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons & 2 Horns
2:16 Divertimento F 2 Violins, 2 Cors Anglaise, 2 Bassoons & 2 Horns
2:21 Divertimento Eb 2 Violins, Viola & Baß & 2 Horns
2:22 Divertimento D 2 Violins, Viola & Baß & 2 Horns
2:23 Feldparthie F 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons & 2 Horns
3:07 Divertimento A 2 Violins, Viola & Baß Op 2 #1
3:08 Divertimento E 2 Violins, Viola & Baß Op 2 #2
3:10 Divertimento F 2 Violins, Viola & Baß Op 2 #4
3:12 Divertimento Bb 2 Violins, Viola & Baß Op 2 #6
5:D1 Divertimento á tre D 2 Violins & Baß
5:B1 Divertimento á tre Bb 2 Violins & Baß
5:G3 Divertimento á tre G 2 Violins & Baß
5:G4 Divertimento á tre G 2 Violins & Baß
5:C3 Divertimento á tre C 2 Violins & Baß
5:C5 Divertimento á tre C 2 Violins & Baß
14:11 Concertino C Keyboard, 2 Violins & Baß
14:C2 Divertimento C Keyboard, 2 Violins & Baß
15:01 Trio g Keyboard, Violin & Baß
15:41 Trio G Keyboard, Violin & Baß
15:f1 Trio f Keyboard, Violin & Baß
16:02 Sonata #11 Bb Keyboard
16:06 Sonata #13 G Keyboard
16:11 Sonata #05 G Keyboard
Wow, that’s a lot of music! As I mentioned earlier, and I maintain even more now, I think that these works were collected over the previous 5 or 6 years and were actually the culmination of several years of work, possibly only copied and distributed now. There is always an unknown time factor involved between composition and publication (or simply distribution in this case, since publishing didn’t occur until the mid ‘60’s, well after the works appeared).
In summary here, we are looking at;
11 symphonies
5 larger instrumental divertimentos
6 string quartets (yes, Hob 2:6 is a string quartet, one of Hoboken’s stepchildren)
12 string trios (2 sets of 6?)
4 keyboard quartets (I would be thrilled to be able to discern the concertinos from the divertimenti)
5 keyboard trios
3 solo keyboard sonatas
The music scene must have been more than a little diverting at the Morzin’s. Next time we will look at some of the specifics and pick out some favorites for an evening’s listening. Until then,
Thanks for reading!