No one knows why Haydn stopped writing string quartets in 1760. Likewise, no one knows why he began writing them again in 1769. But there is no lover of music who can fail to be grateful for the sharp poke, whatever it may have been, which awoke Haydn's muse from its decade-long slumber!
To get some idea of the power which invested itself in the Prince, a tale from early in the year serves nicely. We have already met the main opera singers, and so we know not only Carl Friberth, leading man and tenor, likely the adapter of librettos for Haydn's use, and also the recently hired Maddalena Spangler, 19 year old soprano and daughter of Haydn's friends in Vienna. After their glowing success in Lo speziale, it would seem a romance sprang up between them; no surprise there, I should imagine. But here is the rub; the Prince didn't want his singers getting married, for whatever reason, and so he refused permission. Of course, in a place as centrist as Eszterházy, secrets couldn't be kept, and so their plan to get secretly married at an outlying parish church was instantly sniffed out by the adjutant, Rahier, and they were busted! His still extant note to the Prince describes their crime, and finishes up with "in the presence of Haydn, I told them to turn in their uniforms and any other Princely possessions…" and to hit the road. Now here's the twist; they didn't hit the road, they stayed on for many years longer. Landon doesn't have a documented end to this story, but my own ending ties back to a theme I have been developing of late; Haydn prevailed upon the Prince to override Rahier and keep the invaluable Friberth and also his de facto ward Ms. Spangler. I like this ending for the story because it displays not only the awesome power over lives which a Prince wielded at the time, but also how that power could be redirected by an astute minion.
The first half of the year doesn't produce a great volume of documented action, a fight with a neighbor lady over the property lines of the house in Eisenstadt, a lot of musical instrument repair (the main supplier for the wind instruments has the super name of Rockobauer!) and the inferences to be drawn from it, and generally we come away thinking it was quiet times. However, there was certainly music happening, since we have a nice crop this year, and since we don't have it to ponder any longer (all lost), we can talk a bit here about keyboard sonatas. There are seven sonatas with incipits in the Entwurf Katalog which have simply ceased to be. When we look at the beautiful A flat sonata of last year, with its forward-looking harmonies and structure, and then we look briefly ahead at one of the very next works (at least begun in 1771), the c minor sonata #19, we can only feel the loss even more. These two works were the most advanced keyboard works composed in that time frame, and no reason to believe the missing seven weren't equally brilliant. I've not seen speculation concerning the mechanism of their disappearance; they were probably not composed until after the house fire of 1768, since their location in EK indicates 1769-1770. And if they had burned up in the 1776 house fire or the 1779 opera house fire, then they would have most likely been published or at least distributed before then. So this is one of those enduring mysteries of which no solution will likely ever present itself.
In July, however, we find an event which would be so much more satisfying if the results of it were better known. Speaking of the power (and wealth) of Princes, Nicholas decided to hire a whole company of actors to perform on a regular basis, living at Eszterháza all summer. There had been a company there in 1765, but only for one season. This new company differed in an important way; they weren't Hanswurst specialists, they were serious actors who performed Shakespeare (in German, of course) and dramas by Voltaire and Molière, as well as prominent German playwrights like Schlegel and Lessing. Which is not to say there was no Hanswurstiana at all, it was just becoming less popular, as the Enlightenment was having the effect of raising the level of taste just a tiny bit, even in Austria! In any case, a part of the contract they had with the Prince was that he (i.e.- Haydn) would supply the music for the plays. As I mentioned in an earlier essay on the symphonies, many of them seem to have had their genesis in dramatic situations. Never one to throw music away, it makes perfect sense to believe he either reused and added to overtures and incidental music to make usable symphonies. He did this with opera overtures, after all, so why not drama works? It is just so much more reasonable an explanation for the dramatic content of his works around this time than the putative heartbreak or influence of literature which hadn't been written yet. God forbid we should attempt to overturn tradition though, no matter how poorly situated in time and space! At the very least, the strolling players provided entertainment, and a bit of scandal as actors are wont to do. The open secret of the leading lady's multi-year affair with Castle Inspector Kleinrath just being part of the excitement, no doubt!
At this same time, Haydn was teaching himself how to play the baryton. It is hard to say his motivation, various reasons are given, but a plausible one which he speaks of (to Dies, much later) is that he didn't know enough about the instrument, and so had to take the Prince's word for it that it could only play in a very few keys. Of course, he learned that the Prince could only play it in a very few keys, but certainly he wouldn't make any sort of move to show up the master. He did pull out his instrument one evening in the Prince's presence and toss off a few tunes. Hard to say what his expectations were for this, but what he got for it was a casual "well, of course you can play it Haydn, it's your job". So, no more Baryton playing, at least not in public.
Although Nicholas apparently didn't wish to play Baryton duets with Haydn, this year he hired a professional Barytonist, Andreas Lidl, to play along with him and perhaps teach him a bit. It is difficult to evaluate exactly what Lidl's motivation might have been for remaining for five years, since over that period of time the Prince's enthusiasm for the instrument waned, and although he apparently studied composition with Haydn, there wasn't much else for him to do, except for possibly playing cello in the band. It is interesting that Nicholas was apparently hesitant about playing duet barytons with Haydn, since he played trios with him nearly nightly, although Haydn was playing the viola then, not the 'instrument of Kings' as the baryton was called. Apparently it was fine to be outclassed on the instrument by an outlying professional, but not by your own Kapellmeister!
In a rather out of character sort of situation for any composer at the time, it seems as though Haydn composed his opera Le pescatrici, an actual dramma giocoso this time, his second with a Goldoni libretto, here in 1769. The unusual thing is it wasn't performed until September of 1770. This seems like an anomaly to me, but all of the primary sources seem quite adamant about it. So we will not be looking at this until next year, but I think it needs to be kept in mind when thinking about the work output of the year. This is a superb work, it is one of the four or five works which Haydn enumerated in his 1776 autobiographical letter which we will be looking at in its entirety soon. A portion of it was destroyed in the 1779 opera house fire, but the pieces have been reconstructed and are now in performable condition again, much to our delight.
All of which brings us (at last!) to the return of the string quartet. The dates given for the entire of Op 9 are '1769-1770', and so I have followed my usual habit of including three this year and three next year. I will also be presenting them in the order Haydn wrote them, which is not necessarily the order which various publishers, then Hoboken, enumerated them. Despite all we know about the music itself, which is considerable, we know very little about the context in which they were composed. There is no slightest indication that Nicholas cared about them one way or another, or ever had them performed for him. It may seem incredible in retrospect, but He may not have even been aware of their existence! It has always been my belief, and I will cling to it until proven wrong, that Haydn wrote these works as recreation and for him to play with his fellow musicians during their leisure time. At the very least, Opera 9 & 17, and possibly Op 20. The only reason it actually matters is because inquiring minds want to know, and in the bigger sense, performers would like to approach from a realistic viewpoint. In the context of the times, Opus 9 is a world apart from Opus 77 of 1799. The world of music, and Haydn with it, had changed immeasurably in those 30 years!
Next time we will look at the symphonies of 1769. Meanwhile,
Thanks for reading!