1769 – The Music part 1 – Some symphonies (and almost symphonies)

Hob	Key	NC	HRL	Name	Instruments
65	A	48	57		2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
48	C	49	48	Maria Theresia	2 Oboes, 2 Horns (in C alto & F) & Strings, 2 Trumpets & Timpani
106	D			Le pescatrici (overture)	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings

You can always tell when a work (by any composer) has been 'dated' by evaluation of style rather than by actual physical evidence. Our first work of 1769, Hob 65, is one of those. It is stylistically pretty far from that great red herring, Sturm und Drang, since it opens like an Italian overture and closes like a hunt symphony, and in between it is purely entertaining! Therefore, it must be post-S & D, maybe early-mid-1770's, yes? Which would be why Hoboken called it 65, and Landon went with 57. But current thinking, based on Gerlach's more technical examination, places it firmly in 1769, and so this is where we will begin the year.

The symphony opens with a staple of the Italian overture, three hammerstrokes designed to get the attention of the audience. Where Haydn departs from tradition is in the continued use of the hammerstroke rising note, half-step descent motive throughout the movement, thus making it part of the theme rather than just an opening. He also maintains a fairly steady dynamic level throughout, much more like an overture than like a Mannheim symphony, which also uses the three hammerstrokes idea but with plenty of dynamics. When you listen to the strings when the horns are silent, the entire effect is totally Italy. Of course, the horns aren't always silent, they play a nice countermelody and provide long pedal notes for the strings to wind their tune around.

The second movement is an Andante which has apparently been a source of frustration for musicologists for a long time. I love that. It sounds like a minuet at the first (and in many places throughout) but it can't be one because dances require steady and regular motion, and this is anything but, stopping at odd places and with little rhythmic displacements here and there. It is, in fact, rather unpredictable. One of the things I love about Haydn; even 250 years later he can still puzzle the experts!

The minuet is another excursion into jagged rhythm territory. I should think this isn't a 'dance minuet', rather it is a theatrical representation of one. The lower strings (2^nd violins? Violas?) produce a dissonant drone against the melody of the 1^st violins, sounding like a hint of rusticity in the courtly dance. The finale continues rustic, starting right out with a hunt call from the first horn, answered by another from the second horn. Clearly a classic hunt movement so popular in the 18^th century. Overall, a great entertainment, not much heard about, but it should be. Anything which baffles the experts (Brown, Sisman, Landon etc.) to this degree has got to be worth a listen! And if you feel this is nothing more than incidental music for a play, then at least you are on the side of the experts. I so rarely am.

Our other symphony for the year is the much praised (and rightly so) Hob 48 in C major. Despite its deceptive name (added in the 19^th century, of course), it was not composed for Maria Theresia's State visit to Eszterháza. There again, we have one of those space/time conundrums. Her visit to Eszterháza took place in 1773, not 1769. Clearly the culprit we are looking for in 1773 will be Hob 50, in itself no slouch for grandeur. If this work was actually played for the Empress, it was far more likely to have been at her visit to the Esterházy residence in Kittsee (birthplace of Joseph Joachim, for you Brahms fans) in July of 1770. This is another of those works which has a cloudy history insofar as the trumpet and timpani parts go. Here again, there is no way the Prince would have had this work performed for the Empress without bringing in T & T for the occasion. Yet the parts are not to be found, at least proper parts by Haydn except for those which date later than the original symphony parts. If you wish to hear it played without T & T, the Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood do so. Horns in C alto are brilliant in their sound, and those in this recording are no exception. But if you were to listen to two recordings in succession, one with the trumpets doubling the horns and the other without, minus the festive thumping of the timpani, I can only say you will miss them. The propriety of these instruments in this sort of work is simply beyond question.

In any case, there is no mistaking the opening of the first movement for anything but a grand, festive work. Fanfares and flourishes abound, and the quasi Presto maintains throughout, even though there are chiaroscuro elements of dark, which are maintained by the strings, with the horns returning and announcing the 'bright' sections. The movement provides some good exercise for the horns too, even to having pedal notes in the treble! The Adagio second movement is almost the exact opposite in the effect it makes. The dynamics are very soft, the violins play either muted or con sordino (with the wood of the bow instead of the hair), and the horns switch to the key of F in a lower range. It is an almost somber affair, completely understated. Which, of course, sets the stage for the minuet yet to come. Suddenly we are back in the Imperial ballroom! Our horns, back in C alto, open up the dance, and for once, it actually is a real minuet! In the minuet proper, the horns carry the bulk of the work with the oboes faithfully jogging alongside. The trio, primarily in the lower strings, harks back to the Adagio in sentiment and overall tenor. Which of course works yet a second time to make the minuet, which returns in the horns, standout from the quiet background. The whole closes quietly in the strings alone. The finale is every bit as frenetic as the opening movement, but less magisterial and more Haydnish, resembling the typical finales of the period. Plenty more hard work for the horns, a real crowd pleaser at my house! This is a work that fully deserves the attention it has gotten over the years. Whether you prefer the T & T version or the sans trompettes one, you will be in for a solid half hour of entertainment.

One of my favorite aspects of natural horns is you can scarcely tell you are listening to the same instrument when you go from a work using C alto, to one in low D. And so it is when we now move on to the Overture in D to 'Le pescatrici', which was composed in this year, despite the opera itself not being performed until next year. Haydn (like Mozart and many others) frequently used his opera overtures as standalone concert pieces, to the point where, as in this case, they were actually mistaken for just that. Note the Hob. 1 number. Overtures released this way belong in Hob. 1a, but it wasn't until the early 1980's that enough pieces of manuscript from the opera were discovered to enable identification of the little Symphony #106 as the overture to The Fisher Women. At only three and a half minutes long, it is a short work, opening with a nice little fanfare in the horns to wake up the crowd, and then serving as a preparation for the opening number of the opera. If Brown's suggestion that there was originally a slow movement between the opening Allegro and the first aria is correct, and I believe it is, then the bridge it made would fit very nicely when you listen to the entire opera. But for a standalone work, this simple movement will have to suffice. It is, after all, a heck of a lot more music than one expects of pre-Mozart overtures!

So, there is our orchestral music for the year. Despite the apparent shortfall, these serve the purpose of being great entertainment, and also showing how Haydn was keeping the doors open in more than one direction in terms of his musical future.

Thanks for reading!