|
Hob. # |
Genre |
Key |
Opus |
New Grove No. |
Instruments / Notes |
|
3:20 |
Quartet |
Eb |
Op 9 #2 |
14 |
2 Violins, Viola & Cello |
|
3:21 |
Quartet |
Bb |
Op 9 #5 |
15 |
2 Violins, Viola & Cello |
|
3:22 |
Quartet |
A |
Op 9 #6 |
16 |
2 Violins, Viola & Cello |
|
6:1 |
Duo |
F |
Op 76 #1 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
|
|
6:2 |
Duo |
A |
Op 76 #2 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
|
|
6:3 |
Duo |
Bb |
Op 76 #3 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
|
|
6:4 |
Duo |
D |
Op 76 #4 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
|
|
6:5 |
Duo |
Eb |
Op 76 #5 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
|
|
6:6 |
Duo |
C |
Op 76 #6 (Artaria) |
Violin & Viola |
When you read a lot of musicology books (bless your heart if you do!) you come away with a variety of ideas. Some of them even have to do with music and history, so it's all good. Well, maybe not 'all'. I've noticed a tendency among the group, not as bad now as in the past, but still, of being unable to resist making statements like 'this work doesn't live up to my concept of quality'. However you want to state it, musicology or even music history seems to want to be the arbiter of what is art, and also what is good art or bad art. Since I am one of the intended audience for this art, I take it rather personally when I am told that my 'great enjoyment in listening to this or that piece of music is sadly misplaced, because actually it sucks'. Or 'it isn't intended to be enjoyed by other than the players, certainly not by YOU'. Or 'there is no fathomable reason why this work attained the popularity it has enjoyed for the last 200 years'. I'm not necessarily naming names here because the blogger has an equally clear job, which is, in this case, to try to find information about some rather obscure historical facts and then to transmit same to interested peers. So I didn't need to have a rant-of-the-day, but I've done it anyway.
The Opus 9 quartets were completed in this year. As we saw last year, they very quickly spread far and wide, manuscripts are found all over the contiguous regions and in all sorts of venues from Schloss to monastery. In its printed form, it spread even further. Vienna wasn't in the music publishing business as early as 1770, so the handwritten copies stemmed from there, while the Parisians filled in the gap for printed editions.
One of the events of 1769 is that Haydn's friend and brilliant cellist, Joseph Weigl, left the Prince's employ and ended up in Vienna, soon becoming part of the St. Peter's Church Hofkapelle and cello playing man-about-town. While we tend to think of Eisenstadt and Vienna as two different worlds, so to speak, in reality they are separated by a mere 35 miles, and Haydn spent most winters in Vienna. In addition, there was regular postal service provided by the Prince, so if two close friends wanted to keep in touch, there was no real difficulty at all. And I say this so I can make the point that Weigl may very well be the key player in the distribution of Haydn's quartets to the world at large. The peripatetic Charles Burney, in his The Present State of Music in Germany, speaks of attending a quartet party at the home of the British Ambassador in Vienna on September 4, 1772, where:
Between the vocal parts of this delightful concert, we had some exquisite quartets by Haydn, executed to the utmost perfection: the first violin by Mr. (Joseph) Starzer, who played the Adagios with uncommon feeling and expression: the second violin by Mr. Ordonez: Count Brühl played the tenor (viola), and Mr. Weigl, an excellent performer on the violoncello, [played] the basso. All…were animated to a true pitch of enthusiasm…
Other than the Count, likely an enthusiastic amateur, the rest of these people are actually very famous on the Viennese music scene. Given the date, one expects these quartets were either Opus 9 or 17. As late as 1782, Weigl is reported (in the Pressburger Zeitung (Daily News)) playing Haydn quartets at a large salon with other famous musicians (Haydn, Tomasini and Asplmayr among them). The point of this being, Weigl was clearly not out of touch with Haydn, who was the godfather of his son, Joseph Jr. So just as Haydn probably found out from Tomasini's Paris trip that his quartets were being published wholesale in Paris, so I believe he relied on another close friend, his erstwhile cellist Weigl, to be part of the distribution pipeline that carried these works from the wilds of Nearly Hungary (can I call it that, please?) to the outside world.
With the six works now complete, we see a wide range of styles and ideas, from the 'for connoisseurs only' #5 to the relatively light and breezy #6 to the theatrical powerhouse #4. Apparently some structural things were now decided and would remain so for the rest of Haydn's career. Such was his influence in Austria, it was only the iconoclastic Beethoven who would change the number of movements from the immutable four. The first movements are where the main differences from the early quartets seem most apparent. In line with changing styles in music over the time, the rhythmic and harmonic schemes are modernized. Also, Haydn was far more adept at development of his thematic material than he had been ten years previously. His structural forms are also more apparent. Mostly, there is a greater diversity among these opening movements than we see in any of his earlier quartet works. The remaining three movements are more clearly related to the earlier forms, he hadn't got to work on those yet! The lessons learned from symphonies and baryton trios would soon come to the fore and profoundly affect quartets too. All in good time.
Our other works this year, which I have just found out are supposed to be serious, not popular, are the wonderful Duos for Violin and Viola. I wonder at the basis for these sorts of claims, but since I have already used up my rant-time, I will just move on and say if you aren't familiar with these works, you should be. They could be seriously popular, I think (no pun intended, of course!). Despite the lack of accurate dating, or even any known reason for composition, we can be fairly certain they were composed right around the same time as Opus 9 by the many similarities in the violin part. In addition, the three movement structure is virtually identical to the dozens of baryton trios being composed at the time. The double stopping in the violin and other points of modest difficulty seem to point to these having been composed for Luigi Tomasini to play, very possibly with Haydn on the viola.
In the event, they got loose in the wild and published as early as 1775, and from there they became tremendously popular, being published many times over. Thus, works of a serious nature becoming popular against all odds. Rather, if I may jump the rails of time, like Beethoven's Opus 95 f minor quartet which he was reluctant to publish because it was intended only for professionals. I don't know, of course, whether Haydn was aware of the publication, it may be even the transcriptions for other instruments passed unnoticed. I sort of have the feeling he was quietly stewing about it back at the castle, though. There is always an underlying reason for subsequent events, and the one blot on Haydn's record is his dealing with publishers down the road. The roots of that may well be pushing through the soil even now. If you don't have a nice version of these with original instruments, you won't be going far wrong to have one with cello in place of viola. I don't often say such things, but the (totally unauthorized) version with cello is very nice too!
Next time we will have a look at the baryton works along with the keyboard works for the year, and finally finish up with Haydn's first, full blown opera. Enjoy the quartets and duos,
Thanks for reading!