Haydn Seek

1770 – The Music part 4 - It's just a wedding...

Hob. #	Genre/Title	Instruments/Notes
28:4	Dramma giocoso Le pescatrici	In 3 Acts - Libretto Carlo Goldoni

 

Frontispiece from Goldoni's original libretto

You may have noticed a pattern with some of Haydn's operas in that so far they are not composed for random occasions, but rather for some sort of celebration. Some of those occasions are obvious; the opening of the opera house (Lo Speziale) or the great masquerade at Pressburg's Carnival celebration (La Cantarina). Some of them are also a bit more subtle unless you know some background of the Austro-Hungarian culture. The 1763 opera, Acide, which was composed for the marriage of Nicholas' son is one of these. As we recall, it was actually called a festa teatrale, which implies it was more than just an opera, it was of a special kind and was placed within a setting which made it larger than the sum of its parts.

The genre festa teatrale is rather sketchily defined, even by The New Grove, but the various definitions are in agreement on a few things. The lion's share of these were composed specifically for the Habsburg Court, and most of the librettos are by Metastasio, court poet. They are an abbreviated opera seria in form, all of the plots use mythological characters, and they are intended to make a point, which may be subtle to us but never was for the intended recipient! Well-intentioned rather than malicious, the message was usually a reminder of the need to be wise, self-controlled and benevolent. If the celebration was a wedding, there was the additional demonstration of the benefit of love and fidelity. If the concept of this sort of allegory eludes you, think about Dickens' A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge was being shown in his 'dreams' how to remediate his life of greed and insensitivity to others. If this had music, it would be a festa teatrale! The key point is the aspect of ritual. The ritual was a constant and based on a common understanding. There is depth of meaning to all of this which goes beyond the surface appearance of 'just an Italian opera'.

So how does Le Pescatrici stack up against this model. Opera seria? No, actually it is Haydn's first opera semiseria. It has two seria parts and five buffo parts. Libretto written for the Habsburg Court? No, it was written for Venice's Carnival season in 1752. By Metastasio? No, by Carlo Goldoni. Mythological characters? Well, no, fisher girls in Italy. It has a Prince though. Short, two acts, lovely music? Well, it's rather longish, actually, three acts. However, we finally hit a home-run with the lovely music part! So how does this make the festa teatrale list then? Well, technically it probably wouldn't be called one. But de facto it is one because of the use to which it was put and the setting in which it was given. Let's look at that aspect, then.

This was actually Haydn's first, full-length opera. It was done on a grand scale too! The Prince wasn't holding back in his effort to show off his new opera house. Haydn had seven soloists plus a chorus to work with. There are nine changes of scene, and seven separate sets which needed to be built. One of those was a beach with a ship which actually moved! In addition to the musicians in the Prince's employ, singers were imported from Eisenstadt to fill out the choruses. It should be remembered that marriages in the aristocratic classes of the Habsburg empire were almost exclusively made for political reasons. So the spectacle and pomp which surrounded them is part and parcel of that tradition. There was a non-stop carousel of amusements beginning on Sunday and lasting through Tuesday, and the opera was merely the jewel in the crown, so to speak. As an example of the sort of majesty which Nicholas could (and did) summon up as adjunct to the opera, he had the bride and groom driven to a forest clearing, and suddenly all of the neighboring peasants appeared and began singing and dancing, with great happiness appearing on their faces. Even this was a double meaning sort of event though. Since the Esterházy's recently had been rather harshly criticized by the Empress for their stern treatment of their peasants, this was probably meant to demonstrate the beneficence now being employed. Especially since it made the news release. In addition, the back wall of the theater could be made to disappear during pastoral scenes so the natural parkland view would become part of the set.

So, Countess Lamberg, the 'Dear Niece', and Count Poggi (sic – Pocci) were wed in the chapel on Sunday afternoon and the party repaired to the opera house for the first performance of Le Pescatrici. On Monday, the opera presented was a German singspiel. Then, on Tuesday, Haydn's opera was presented a second time to great acclaim. Did I mention there were 400 guests on hand for all this? Guess it slipped my mind!

The story is a straightforward opera staple, in which the heroine is actually the lost daughter of a murdered king, living in unknowing exile in order to survive attempts by the same cabal to kill her too. She has been raised as a fisher girl, and lives in a coastal village plying her trade with her good friends. A prince (Lindoro) arrives looking for her, with the intention of marrying her and thus gaining the kingdom (Benevento) to which she is the rightful heir and adding it to his (Sorrento). Eventually she is identified and they sail off into the sunset. Other than the varied contexts, the story itself is opera gold, having been retold often in different settings and with different characters. Goldoni does a splendid job of it though, and it was set often over the years. Haydn's music is wonderfully imaginative and ideal for the poetry. You can see the allegorical aspect of the story for the target audience; the wedding itself is intended to also perpetuate the lineages involved, and strengthen them. There are certainly forward looking aspects to Goldoni's style which changes the pattern of festa teatrale from a mythical land of gods and goddesses to an actual place and time on the coast of the Ionian Sea with real people, the fisher girls and their boyfriends. In addition to changing the equation of the aristocrats being deities, it also adds some verisimilitude to the story and makes it more interesting. It is still allegory, since allegory stems from actions rather than specific people or places, and thus serves the larger purpose of getting the point across. It is just more entertaining now!

It is unknown why the two performances at the wedding feast became the only ones until the late 20^th century. They were hugely successful, and Haydn was unduly proud of them. The next season in Vienna, court composer Florian Gassmann set the story again, and obviously borrowed hugely from Haydn's setting. Which is not such a bad thing. The original score and performance parts were sadly damaged in Eszterháza and a large part of the 2^nd movement was lost. The performance score which exists today is reconstructed in some parts; from contemporary music by Haydn, the original libretto, and the work of H.C. Robbins-Landon. He documents fully in Chronicle & Works Vol. II exactly what was done. Daniel Heartz, in Haydn, Mozart & The Viennese School 1740-1780 talks about the Gassmann version and how it could easily be used as patching material, since comparison of the existing parts shows that he copied Haydn in his musical structures. However, as far as I know this has never been done. It could well be interesting. The overture was also missing from the parts when they were first discovered, and the first movement of Symphony #57 was substituted. Shortly thereafter an original manuscript for the overture turned up in the US Library of Congress and it turned out to be the one movement work which Hoboken had been calling Symphony #106. The parts are now comfortably back together.

There is only one recording of this opera, possibly the reconstructed bits (they really are virtually seamless!) have scared some people off. Not that Haydn gets regularly programmed anyway, even though there are sound reasons for his operas being different from the norm, it doesn't change the fact they are unique!

So 1770 has drawn to a close. Two decades gone already and we have scarcely scratched the surface of the body of works which Haydn left behind!

Thanks for reading!

1770 – The Music part 3 - For those long evenings at home

Hob. #	Genre	Key	Opus	No.	Instruments / Notes
11:81	Trio	D	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:82	Trio	C	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:83	Trio	F	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:84	Trio	G	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:85	Trio	D	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:86	Trio	A	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:87	Trio	a	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
11:88	Trio	A	Book 4		Baryton, Viola & Cello
14:8	Divertimento á Quattro	C			Cembalo, 2 Violins, Basso
16:44	Sonata	g		L. 32	Keyboard Solo

You would think with all of the other music composed this year, and the Vienna concert, party for the Empress and marriage feast for the 'darling niece', that the pace of consumption of baryton trios would have slowed somewhat. Indeed, if you consider only a third of a volume to be a slowdown, you would be correct. While it is true that the entire 'Era of the Baryton' lasted a mere ten years, and this would be too short a period of time to be able to note any stylistic evolution, it would be incorrect to assume there was no other mark of development on display. While you have to take into account the limitations of the instrument and of the intended player, there are no concessions which need to be made for the composer! The quality of these works, despite any potential for burnout, simply increases year over year! From the counterpointed Finale to #81 to the Presto of #84, to the peculiar charm of #85, and the sad/happy a minor beauty of #87. One senses the Prince was a serious musician, despite his limitations at the craft. This is no mere hobbyist grade music. If you have still been holding back, I strongly recommend you try a disk or two. You could well discover a new take on music which you hadn't been expecting or experiencing before now.

For this series of essays I have been relying on three different authors for chronological information; H.C. Robbins-Landon, A. Peter Brown and David Wyn Jones. Generally they are pretty much in agreement on things, and in case of a modest divergence I have named myself the ultimate arbiter, mainly because I control the keyboard input device! The next work which I have placed here has about the broadest range of putative dates I have yet seen. As we saw ten or so years ago, Haydn was occupied writing 'piano quartets', although he didn't know it. He wrote a series of charming divertimenti and concertini for both the Morzin family and then for the Esterházy's, mostly for harpsichord, 2 violins & basso, usually played on cello, but probably originally for violone. In 1764 he even included a pair of hardworking horns in one of them. But there were really no more composed much after the horn piece, which Hoboken of course calls #1. I think he just decided to go in descending order this time! In any case, Robbins-Landon is fuzzy about the time of the final one, leaving it at <>1765. Brown, on the other hand, has decided on the amazing date of 1787. I wish he was still alive so I could ask him about that! We'll pitch it right out just because there is no way this was written after The Seven Last Words! Which leaves Jones. He was the first one I consulted, merely because The Oxford Composer Companion for Haydn was on my desk right then. Jones says circa 1770, which I thought to be quite late until I consulted Brown! Brown's argument for an extended range on the keyboard, up to f "', led me to opt for Jones over Landon. Plus, I could see where Jones got his date by looking in The New Grove Haydn and finding that Georg Feder has written '1768-72', and realizing Jones had done exactly what I would do, take the middle road! And here we are. Of course, you are saying "Gurn, what's your point?". Well, I haven't one beyond wanting to share with you, dear reader, some of the vicissitudes of researching Haydn. Of the few composers at his level of accomplishment, I think there isn't another at his level of obscurity for some basic things, like 'when was that written?'.

There isn't as much to say about the music at hand as about its putative dating though. This is a fine little galant divertimento. The cembalo is the dominant instrument, making this strongly akin to an accompanied sonata, much like the early trios. The idea which has been put forward by Landon and others, that these were written either for family-time entertainment (having your own band is even better than a CD player!) or for teaching purposes, seems to be spot on. Certainly not concert hall material, this is non-serious chamber music as opposed to the baryton trios above. It's the sort of music we need more of, but unfortunately it was fairly ephemeral and even Haydn's ten extant (plus one fragmentary) specimens are probably only a small fraction of what he wrote. I like the well-rounded picture which they fill in of the composer of many parts.

Our final instrumental work of 1770 is the surviving keyboard sonata, Hob 16:44 in g minor. Like the Ab sonata we discussed in 1768, this is one of a group of 6 Progressive Sonatas, so-called because of their break with past practice and forward-looking harmonic scheme. Taken as a group, these six sonatas (18, 19, 20, 44, 45 & 46) share common traits in regards to their relaxed rhythmic flow, downward melodic direction and faster chord rhythm. Cumulatively they represent the most interesting group of solo sonatas before London, in my opinion. None of these six works was published until much later, Haydn was keeping them for himself to play. And when they were published, they didn't sell at all well. They are very difficult to play properly, and are really intended for Kenner, not Liebhaber. What instrument is this work properly played upon? In reviewing my own collection, I find about an equal mix of clavichord, harpsichord and fortepiano. If you have grown used to the clavichord in general, this work is especially nice sounding on one. Despite the fact it isn't really a fortepiano piece it certainly sounds more than acceptable on one, although the delicacy of the music suffers a bit. It simply isn't possible to assert primacy to any particular Klavier in 1770, my personal favorite in this piece is the harpsichord. Your taste may lean toward the Steinway, I don't know!

Our last look at 1770 will be at Haydn's second setting of a Goldoni libretto, the marriage gift to the 'Darling Niece', Le pescatrici.

Thanks for reading!

1770 – The Music part 2 – Too serious to be popular?

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!

1770 – The Music part 1 - Chamber Symphonies?

Hob	Key	NC	HRL	Name	Instruments
44	e	50	44	Mourning (Trauer)	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings
43	Eb	51	51	Mercury	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings

It is possible that some evidence for Reicha's claim for Haydn telling him about reevaluating his style and capabilities is confirmed for this time period by the symphonic legacy of 1770. True, it is just two works, but they seem to have lifted his game to a new level. The e minor in particular is one of the finest works Haydn wrote, in this period of dramatic works or, in fact, in any other period also! His masterful blending of drama and technique coupled with his method developed for extracting the most from a theme will never be bettered. And that's saying a lot!

Allegro con brio. Fast, and full of life. An interesting tempo and mood indication which Haydn chose to open a 'mourning' symphony. No one knows when this name was hung on the e minor symphony, certainly Haydn didn't do it. It's hard to imagine anyone who actually listened to it named it that either. In what has justifiably been called his very finest minor key symphony, there really isn't a lot of mourning time available.

A very nice #44

There is no letup to the tension created throughout the opening movement by the combination of the two contrasting themes that are presented at the outset. Not unusually, the horns lead the way, and Haydn never veers off the path of development of the original themes. They are so powerful, especially in combination, that other ideas need not apply. As Peter Brown¹ says;

"the compelling nature of this movement results from both its intellectual satisfaction… and the raw emotion generated by the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic activities. Haydn was never again to achieve this synthesis so fully and with such success".

The minuet and the slow movement have swapped places this time, maybe not for the usual reason of not contrasting the first movement suitably, but seemingly more because the slow movement contrasts so wonderfully with the finale. But the minuet is a gem on its own, not least because it marks the final time Haydn would write a minuet in canone diapason (that is, the upper and lower strings follow each other in octaves, with the lower strings trailing the upper strings by one measure) in a symphony. And an ear-catcher it is, too! It is in e minor still, and he uses rotating groups of upper and lower strings and winds to fuel the canon. When we arrive at the trio, we move to E major, and the horns, playing in the high clarino register actually doubles the first violin right up to the top note in its tessitura, e``! When we return to the minuet da capo, we finish off the minuet in the minor. You could dance to it. I do, sometimes. In effect, it is a perfect match for the opening movement, allowing for a great release from the tension generated there, but still providing a highly interesting contrast. As I quoted from Brown, above; intellectual satisfaction.

The Adagio is the movement which Haydn is said to have wanted played at his funeral. In the event, it wasn't, although it was played at the funeral of Princess Grace (Kelly) of Monaco by her request, according to Calvin Stapert². And no wonder, it is a beauty of a movement, no doubt this was where the 'mourning' moniker came from, although if that be the case I suppose we could call every slow movement by the name, especially the Grave's! If you have inferred by now that I don't care for nicknames on music, well, you may be right. In any case, this Adagio is typical of the time in that it uses muted violins and not much wind support for them. It is typically Haydnish for him to have used the E major key in the previous Trio, since he returns to it for this Adagio. He also takes the earlier idea of the horn reaching to e'', which really stands out in this context. Even though slow movements, Adagios in particular, are among Haydn's strongest suit, he is hard pressed to surpass this one elsewhere for sheer melodic grace and beauty.

Which is a good thing, since the Finale: Presto is a wholly different thing! Like the opening movement, the first few notes prove to be essential for the entire work, and the rhythmic tension and harmonic game-playing exceed even that fine example! It is difficult to argue against the assertion that this symphony is Haydn's greatest achievement in symphonic writing to date, and it maximizes what he was trying to accomplish with his minor key works. It is possibly matched by the f# minor symphony, maybe it is a question of personal taste, but it isn't surpassed by much, either by Haydn or by anyone else, if I might say so.

Which leaves big shoes to fill for our next symphony, #43 in Eb. It must be just an old piece of junk! But no, somehow it is another masterpiece. Despite the silly name which has no basis in any sort of reality, what we have here is a perfect example of an 18th century Austrian chamber symphony. It is clear in retrospect, and probably it was also so in real time,

I like this #43

there are two major categories of symphonies in the latter part of the century. The first is the Grand Symphony, an example of which we listened to just last year, #48. For Haydn, they were nearly always in C major, used high (alto) horns, trumpets and timpani when available, and made a wondrous noise by any standard! The second genre is the Chamber Symphony, which is a vehicle for showing the full range of the possibilities of the orchestra, to paraphrase an encyclopedist of the day. According to Johann Georg Sulzer's General Theory of Fine Arts (1771-74),

"It should contain grand ideas expressed in a full-toned, brilliant and fiery manner. The best of them contain bold ideas, free handling of compositional techniques, apparent irregularity in the melody and harmony, strongly marked rhythms of various sorts…"

He must have been listening to Haydn while he wrote that! What Haydn was doing circa 1770-72 was effectively combining the two forms. This is why works like #44, certainly a chamber symphony by definition, is bursting the boundaries of that form (the typical boundaries of the time, that is), and is actually the genesis of an entirely new form which would carry the symphony forward to the 19^th century.

The first movement begins with one of the most intensely lyrical themes Haydn ever wrote. Landon calls it an embarrassment of riches, and this not far from right! One of the beauties is that despite the richness of the orchestration, the orchestra is always highly transparent since the parts are shared and passed around so in the end, it actually does sound like the modern idea of a chamber symphony. The slow movement, the only movement in any Haydn symphony in the key of Ab major, is nearly all strings, and muted at that. Haydn has a little germ of a theme of five notes, and virtually the entire development of the movement is a working out of the possibilities this presents. They are surprisingly manifold! We hear an occasional long pedal note from the horns and a reply from the oboes, but otherwise it is a long slow drift downstream. Where we come to an Austrian Minuet taking place. It is not one of Haydn's faster minuets from later times, but a full, rich danceable minuet. The trio begins in minor, then moves to major, juxtaposing the oboes at their nasally best with the violins, and ending with a repetition of the minuet, ending satisfactorily on the home tonic. The finale opens like the first movement with a long, legato melodic line balanced by the full orchestra running off at the gallop in tutti. This is broken off with a masterfully placed full-stop, and then back to the melodic line again. One last tutti resolves to the tonic and we are home, a most satisfactory ending to a super little symphony.

Still lots of music this year, one wonders where he found time to get it all on paper! Next time we will see the end of Opus 9 string quartets, and a wonderful set of sonatas, not for keyboard!

Thanks for reading!

1 - The Symphonic Repertoire Vol 2 by A. Peter Brown

2 - Playing Before the Lord - the Life and Work of Joseph Haydn - Calvin Stapert

1770 – The Year the Empress came to visit (the first time)

[Wiener Diarium, Saturday, March 24, 1770]

…. As an especially pleasant piece of news, which we did not wish to overlook, we would report that last Wednesday, the 21^st inst., in the quarters of Herr Baron von Sumerau near Maria Hilf, an opera entitled 'The Apothecary' by the Princely Esterházi [sic] Kapellmeister, Herr Joseph Hayden [sic] was performed by the assembled Chamber Virtuosi of Prince Esterházi on that day, and upon the request of High Personages it was repeated to quite exceptional applause upon the following Thursday in the form of a musical academy in the presence of many high persons; a fact that reflects exceptional honor on the aforesaid Herr Kapellmeister Hayden, whose great talents are sufficiently known to all lovers of music, and no less upon the aforesaid virtuosi.

So began 1770. Apparently the humble abode of Prince Nicholas in Vienna was insufficient for the event, which clearly was intended to show off his singers, the band and its leader. Other than knowing that Haydn wrote a second version of Grilletta's lovely aria, Caro Volpino amabile for the occasion, we are limited to the newspaper. On the one hand Nicholas was clearly wanting to bask in the reflected glory, but it was a feather in the cap for all of the players, and particularly Haydn. Hopefully next time the newspaper will spell his name correctly. Well, probably they won't.

As far as big events go, 1770 was a banner year, and Haydn and the band played a large part in it. Documentation from the Esterházy Archives shows little of interest, with the exception of the engagement of a new and different theatrical troupe for the year, with the lovely and apparently playful Frau Rössl still in the forefront of an even dozen of actors. An ominous sign for the entertainers in general; the contract for the strolling players now extended from May 1 to October 15. The season in Eszterháza is apparently going to get longer. On the positive side, since the troupe also performed operettas, clearly they could sing, and that was a new source of singers for the various choruses in the operas.

Schloss Esterházy in Kittsee

Another major event occurred in July. Once again it wasn't at Eszterháza; no matter, the Prince had palaces everywhere, like this one in Kittsee. This is a small city, just across the Danube from Pressburg. The palace had been built by the first Prince Paul Esterházy, Nicholas' grandfather. As we saw earlier, Pressburg (Bratislava) was a sort of regional governmental seat where the Esterházy's were also pretty well set up! In July a large celebration was set up to honor Nicholas' sister-in-law. Oddly, who she was and why she was being honored are not considered to be germane to the history handed down, so I can't fill you in. Nonetheless, it must have been something big, because the co-rulers, Maria Theresia and her son, Joseph II, were out in the country for the party along with two of the Archdukes (Ferdinand and Maximilian), Prince Charles and Princess Charlotte of Lorraine. Quite the train of Royals! Robbins-Landon includes a long description of the affair, taken from the diary of one of the attendees. Thus we discover little luxuries like the paved and lit road which extended all the way from the Danube to the palace (extraordinary in that time), the accompaniment of the Princely Grenadiers the entire way, the lineup of all of the house officers including the band in new uniforms, and the great feasts with music and more music. We also learn about the presence of trumpeters and drummers, to justify our earlier surmise that the occasion would demand parts be added to the symphonies which could use them, like 38, 41 & 48. In all there were thirty-six musicians for the occasion, with supplementals having been hired by the Prince. Nicholas even had all of the indigenous peasants dress in their finery and come in one evening after an outdoor banquet for 700 guests, and sing and dance to accompaniment of their own musicians. The band played for the dances in the ballroom, and presumably they also played Tafelmusik, while the grenadiers had their own military band music, some of which was also by Haydn. It must have been a hell of a party!

It was matched in pomp, though, if not in attendance, by the fête thrown in September for the marriage of Nicolas' 'dear niece', Countess Lamberg to Count Pocci. No travel involved this time. The three-day affair hosted 400 guests, and Haydn's new Goldoni dramma giocoso, Le pescatrici (The fisherwomen) was given twice, first on Saturday after the ceremony, then again on Monday after the big banquet. In what must be the first 'press release' I have heard of, the Vienna and Pressburg papers reported identically that the opera was a huge success and Haydn received well-earned congratulations from all the attendees. The band also played while the big fireworks show was being held, in a scene adumbrating a 4^th of July celebration in America today.

Haydn by Guttenbrunn ca. 1770

1770 also saw the arrival in Eszterháza of painter Ludwig Guttenbrunn. He, the painter of my favorite Haydn portrait, shown here. This was his first encounter with Haydn, there was another in London twenty-two years later. According to Griesinger, Haydn told him it was Frau Haydn's favorite portrait also, and she carried it with her wherever she was living at the time, even to the spa in Baden! This was not, however, from veneration of her husband, but, rather, because she and Guttenbrunn were lovers! A point I would like to make here, outside of chronology for a moment, is this; it was well-known in later times that Haydn had certain and probable mistresses. He explained it away as having more or less fallen out of love with his wife when it became apparent she couldn't bear children. The earliest possible suspicion I have seen leveled against Haydn for this sort of behavior was in 1767, when he tarried in Pressburg for an extra three days because of 'bad weather'. He had a friend there, Catherine Csech, who was remembered very generously years later in his will. So I suppose the fabric of the marriage was already eroded, just in time for a 'seven-year-itch'!

1770 was also the year of one of Haydn's rare, documented illnesses. Some music resulted from it, more's the pity that half of it is now lost. Griesinger tells us that Haydn 'succumbed to a fever', and his doctor ordered him to bed with no contact with music for a while. While his wife was at mass, he got up and completed an idea which had occurred to him for a keyboard sonata. He told Griesinger all he could remember was it had five sharps, and indeed, the incipit for a lost sonata in B major resides in the proper place in the Entwurf Katalog. Since this is right in the period of his most intense and dramatic sonatas, this likely represents a great loss. However, after his recovery, and in fulfillment of a promise made if he did recover, he composed the Salve Regina in g minor, Hob. 23b:2. Apparently this illness was serious enough that brother Michael sought (and was granted) a leave of absence from his job in Salzburg to be at his brother's side, which in the event he didn't take, probably having been notified of Joseph's recovery. All this must certainly have occurred at the end of the year, since the Salve Regina is securely dated to early 1771. So we round the year out now with a mention of a phenomenon which lasted over a period of a few years, it was certainly going on in 1770, although probably not reaching a climax until 1772. Mark Evans Bond, in his essay published in Haydn Studies (II, as I call it in my Building a Library essay), tells us of a statement by Haydn to the composer Antonin Reicha in or around 1805, where he mentions that around his fortieth birthday (1772) he concluded a "Complete Course in Composition", during which he had totally restudied and reevaluated everything he did as a composer. Bond (and I, I must confess) believes this complete reevaluation to be the source of the so-called Sturm und Drang style, the genesis of the Opus 20 quartets and the great symphonies of the time. I bring this up here and now because chronology is difficult to maintain sometimes, and though this might more properly be introduced in 1772, it was ongoing now with visible results. Due to Reicha's notes being unpublished for 200 years, this is a very little known phenomenon, and yet one which explains so much about Haydn the man and the artist. Never satisfied, always learning and improving; genius is nothing on its own, it needs care and feeding. Haydn was not too proud to do that!

Next time, some music.

Thanks for reading!

1769 – The Music part 3 – Some for Haydn, then some for the Prince

Hob. #	Genre	Key	Instruments / Notes
11:73	Trio	G	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:74	Trio	D	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:75	Trio	A	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:76	Trio	C	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:77	Trio	G	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:78	Trio	D	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:79	Trio	D	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
11:80	Trio	G	Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 4
17a:1	Sonata	F	Keyboard - 4 Hands – Il Maestro e lo scolare
17a:2	Sonata	F	Keyboard - 4 Hands
18:4	Concerto	G	Solo keyboard - 2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings

---

In earlier essays, and not much earlier at that, I commented on the volume of baryton trios which poured out of Haydn's pen from late 1765 to mid-1768. Seventy-two trios in a bare three years! Now, just a year beyond then, we see a 'mere' eight for the year! Well, to be fair, there is no telling exactly how many, really, although some actually are dated. And those dated 1769 fall in this range. This is another of those cases where precision is lacking. Book III was presented to the Prince in July, 1768, and Book IV was a (probable) Name Day gift in December, 1771. So I've resorted to my old formula of doing the math and spreading out twenty-four trios as eight over each of three years. Still, there are plenty of little nuggets here for you baryton fanatics. The little Presto finale of #75 or in #80, the inside Allegro con spirito, and a host of other small beauties will please the attentive listener. In order to enjoy any of these particular works though, you will need to have the Complete Baryton Trios box, since in my entire collection not a single one of these appears elsewhere. One of the thoughts I had while checking this is it would be nice if musicians or producers would check on little facts such as this when planning a new recording. I wonder, really, how many more versions I need of the seven movement Hob. 11:97, the Birthday Trio, which seems to appear on nearly every disk! Not that there is anything wrong with it, of course, but aside from having an abundance of movements it doesn't differ significantly from any of the little gems which are so often ignored, even the fugue is not unique, although the tiny Polonaise might be. No matter, it's the principle. I have seven versions of it now, so I can play the entire using one movement from each of them! That's not right. There, my little rant for the day, and over so soon.

Keyboard four-hands is an interesting genre, gaining popularity steadily from its putative beginnings in May, 1765 when Mozart, in London on the Grand Tour, composed a little sonata in C (K 19d) to play in a performance with his sister, Nannerl. Whether Leopold's contention, that this was the first work composed for 2 players on one clavier, is true or not, the beginnings of the genre still date from around this time. In addition to being a fine teaching tool, the social aspects are what put it over the top in a Vienna which for the next 100 years or more would be obsessed with the piano, both at public performance and especially in the home. The intimacy of making music together not only made romantic opportunities available, but also sealed friendships among people of similar artistic and social tastes.

If you have Tom Beghin's box set on Naxos, then you have the DVD he includes in it, with a young lady playing with him for the 4-hand sonata, Il Maestro e lo scolare. His commentary as they move along is quite interesting, since his belief is this is another of Haydn's displays of wit, namely; the student part in here is actually more difficult than the master's part, and Haydn is poking fun at the genre of masters, much as he did in his little opera La Cantarina. It is difficult to not agree with him as they play through and demonstrate various aspects. The work itself has always been very popular, and since it is Haydn's only certain essay in the genre, it is well worth a listen. It is not an extraordinarily catchy tune or harmonic adventure, since it actually was usable as a teaching aid, it only has the added bit of Haydnish humor which does nothing to detract from its utility.

Another work which is attributed to Haydn is nearly in this same genre, and may very well be by him, is the sonata in F for 2 Keyboards, Hob 17a:2. Sonatas for two keyboards never quite achieved the popularity of 4-hands works, possibly because in the home, having two keyboards was a more difficult task, and the driving force for composers was generally publishers desires, and those were based on sales etc. etc.. So, we have another lone specimen, and we aren't even sure Haydn wrote this one! That said, it is an enjoyable work of about 10 minutes length in the lone recording I have, by Christine Schornsheim and Andreas Staier playing harpsichords. Schornsheim's liner notes don't talk about this work at all, and neither does Georg Feder in New Grove Haydn. He mentions it, but nothing else, not even a speculation as to its authenticity! You won't see that very often! But did I give up? No, I went the whole way. A. Peter Brown, in his book Joseph Haydn's Keyboard Music – Sources and Style actually gives a brief discussion of it, its history to some extent and the general statement; it is historically attributed to Haydn, it sounds like an authentic Haydn work, and unless something turns up in the future attributing it to someone else, it should be considered genuine. So, even though Schornsheim declined to defend its inclusion in her box set, it seems like a good choice. An interesting anomaly occurs here too. Brown calls this a work for four-hands, while Schornsheim lists it as a work for two keyboards. Since the only instrument which is described for that particular disk is a two manual harpsichord, I would speculate it is being played four hands anyway. No matter the mystery, I am glad she did include it. If you are lucky enough to have this box, check it out; the last work on Disk 3.

Our last work of the year is no mystery though, it is one of the most popular early works, likely due to our continuing devotion to the piano concerto. Ahem, the harpsichord concerto, I meant to say. This work was composed quite shortly after Hob 18:3, and the two of them plus Hob 11 of 1779 form the only three keyboard concertos known to have been specifically composed, not for organ, but for harpsichord or fortepiano. Like some of Haydn's other concertos, this one is believed to have been composed for a certain person, in this case the blind pianist Maria Theresia Paradis, the same lady for whom Mozart composed his concerto in Bb, K 454. Paradis is said to have played it in Paris as late as 1784, by which time it probably sounded a bit dated, since it was no longer dernier cri. It is, nevertheless, an excellent representation of pre-Mozart Viennese keyboard concerto, and has held its popularity since it was put back into the repertoire in the late 1950's. It must have been fairly trendy in its time, however, since Paradis kept it close to home; very few contemporary copies exist. I find this to be an interesting commonality of many of Haydn's concertos of the 1760's; even though they are considered by many modern musicologists to be less than cool, their original owners treasured them to the point they nearly were lost forever due to so few of them being copied. Of course, the first cello concerto and the horn concerto from that period are considered exceptional by any standards, and they only survived because by sheer chance a single copy of each did so. The same can be said of the later trumpet concerto. Good fortune was on our side those times!

This work has mainly spread its popularity due to recordings, of which there are dozens. It seems to be de rigeur for any recording which includes the forthcoming Hob. 18:11 to also include 3 & 4… they're a set, apparently. And a set which is worthwhile shopping around for. As you all know, I am not a recommender of recordings; there are too many tastes to satisfy, my own included. But for those committed to performance by modern piano and orchestra, the recording by Leif Ove Andsnes is a peach. If you are, like me, a fan of period instruments, then you still have choices to make. It is difficult to state with any certainty that this is either a harpsichord or fortepiano work. One can't generalize by saying Haydn didn't have a fortepiano in Eisenstadt or in Eszterháza, since that still leaves the possibility of it having been written in Vienna during winter break, where there were plenty of fortepianos available by 1769. Especially since his dedicatee was a professional keyboardist who was probably well advanced in fortepianistry. So the two versions pictured below represent my choices on each of those instruments. If you don't have this work, you really should check it out. If you want to puzzle on something, try to figure out how Haydn came to be composing a work for an outsider when he was under contract with the Prince. Landon totally skirts the issue (Chronicle & Works Vol 2 pg. 344) and so do all the other authors I have consulted. Surely it occurred to them that this was an odd situation, but apparently since no one seems to know the answer, the question can't be raised. I am delighted for some input if you have any.

Despite being at least begun in 1769, I am leaving the opera Le pescatrici for next year when it was completed and performed. So this wraps up 1769, next we will look at the context of 1770 and some of the excellent music which came from it.

Thanks for reading!

	If you like your 1760's works on the (likely) more authentic harpsichord, Koopman is one of several nice choices, teamed up with plenty of other good, hard to find, Haydn works.
	If you prefer the fortepiano, there are also, now, several choices, and Staier with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra is one of the nicer ones.

1769 – The music part 2 – A wide-open field for supposition!

Hob. #	New Grove #	Genre	Key	Opus	Instruments / Notes
3:22	11	Quartet	d	9 #4	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
3:19	12	Quartet	C	9 #1	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
3:21	13	Quartet	G	9 #3	2 Violins, Viola & Cello

As I mentioned earlier, no one knows why Haydn stopped writing quartets in 1760, nor why he recommenced the practice circa 1769. I'm sure if you think about it, you can come up with reasons which are perfectly plausible, one or two of them may even be correct. It is a fair thing to say at the outset of your list of ideas; the Prince almost certainly wasn't involved in the concept in any way. There is absolutely no record of 'quartet' or 'quaddro' or 'divertimentos a quattro' ever having escaped the Princely lips. There was no commission (there couldn't be, by contract), no known outside request; in short, it seems like a bolt from the blue. Maybe he wasn't busy enough… OK, not likely.

I have my own thoughts on the matter of course. As we saw recently, through Tomasini's trip to Paris with the Prince, Haydn gained some glimmer of the depth of his popularity and also (circumstantially) made some contact with Parisian publishers, who were already in love with their latest 'cash cow'. His Opus 1 quartets had been published in Paris in 1764, with Opus 2 following quickly along in 1766. Tomasini would have seen them both prominently displayed in shop windows, and certainly have borne the news home to his good friend. Despite his contractual obligation to the Prince, simply for the sake of having them get it right, Haydn could have been in contact with a representative, probably in Vienna. Which is not to say he outright wrote these to sell to publishers, I highly doubt it. But if one wanted a reason why he composed music which was clearly not for the Prince, what better place to start? Opus 9 was in fact published by Hummel in 1771, only a year after composition was completed! And Opus 17 in 1772, again only one year after completion. Hmmm….

Another thought I have on this same topic; in addition to possibly composing for sale, I find it very difficult to shake off the conviction that he composed these works to play himself, with his companions in the band. There is no reason at all not to believe his early quartet playing ten - twelve years earlier hadn't irretrievably hooked him on the practice. He played works with the Prince regularly which were easy as could be for a player of his caliber. Why would he not want music to play on his 'busman's holiday' with the likes of Tomasini on first violin and Weigl on cello, with himself in the viola or second violin chair to get a little more challenge? Perhaps you feel I am belaboring this idea for more than it is worth, but my interest lies in performance style. It has always been one of my pet peeves to hear these early quartets performed as by players togged out in tuxedos and playing so formally as though they were giving a recital before the Queen. If I am correct (and I believe I am), then this was good time Saturday night music, where the performers were not sweating into their starched collars, instead they were having a wonderful time conversing musically, audience be damned! If you are already a fan of these works then you will know there are few groups who perform it that way, but the few who do have my admiration for using their ability to further the art rather than following the deep ruts left by the horde which has preceded them.

A final note; possibly the real reason, above all, is Haydn's need to try new things, and to have a 'workshop' genre in which to test new ideas. The quartets are rife with new ideas, some of which show up later in other, larger works. Since no one in Austria, and therefore in Haydn's experience, ever performed a quartet in public, unlike in England where it was commonplace, he could safely consider this a private genre which might not ever have an audience. With three musical companions to give feedback, what better way to try out new ideas?

If analyzing the music is your ambition, there is plenty of literature out there to help you with it. Despite the fact I haven't acquired the taste yet for musical analyses, I still have a book or two, not so much for telling me the first movement is in sonata form, but rather to help me to place these works within the context of the life and works of Haydn. My choice is this one by Floyd and Margaret Grave.

In the bigger picture of Haydn's many string quartets, what importance do Op. 9 (and 17) carry? First and foremost, they codified the structure of the genre; four movements, fairly standard tempos, inner movements including a dance (minuet) or variation thereof (scherzo). More technical aspects include use of the first movement as a display of texture and motivic complexity, using the slow movement as a place for the first violin to display some virtuosity, using the minuet, much as he did in his symphonies, as a place to put his individual stamp on the work with his characteristic eccentricities, and finally, the use of the finale as a display of his rhetorical mastery, making his final musical argument, throwing in a surprise or two. In all of his subsequent quartets, despite the permutations and combinations available to him in structuring his cycles and the works within them, he would continue to use variations on the themes established in these two opuses.

Below are two sets of recordings of Opus 9. Both are on period instruments, both use period performance styles as they are understood today. I would be hard-pressed to recommend one over the other, but I chose them here because they display the two sides of the performance dichotomy which I outlined above. If you are shopping for a set of these quartets, you might test drive one of these and see if it suits your ear.

Next time we will look at some other chamber works of the year. I think you will enjoy them.

Thanks for reading!

	One of the first period instruments recordings ever of Opus 9, and played with that wonderful, casual style which symbolizes for me an ideal for early Haydn quartets, which he never wrote for 'recital' venues.
The much newer London Haydn Quartet, great sound and perfect precision make a very enjoyable listen.

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!

1769 – The year the String Quartet returned!

A Strolling Troupe of Commedia del Arte Players - Nicholas Lancret

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!

Cover picture from the book of Goldoni's libretto

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!

1768 – The music part 5 – A proper opera house

Hob. #	Genre	Libretto	Instruments / Notes
28:03	Opera buffa  Lo Speziale (Der Apotheker) (The Pharmacist)	Based on a libretto by Goldoni	2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Horns, Bassoon, Strings & Continuo (Harpsichord)

 

Artist's rendering of the first Eszterháza Opera House

In late summer of the year, an event which would slowly but surely change life at Eszterháza took place, amid all the pomp and circumstance which Nicholas was able to conjure. When we first saw an opera at Eisenstadt, in January 1763, it was Acide, which was performed either in the garden or in the 'music room'. This was followed in 1766 by La Cantarina, the performance of which we know taking place in Pressburg during Carnival. It seems clear for a man of Nicholas' tastes that an opera house was in order. And so it was! As you can discern from the drawing, it was an imposing structure, completely to the Princely taste, and reportedly equipped with all the amazing machinery and accoutrements which any metropolitan would boast of. Naturally!

More than being a hobby for Nicholas, though, opera became a virtual obsession for the next 20 years. Incredibly, by the late 1770's and through the 1780's, one hundred or more opera performances per season were being produced in the little opera house at Eszterháza by Süttör. As we will see in future years, Haydn's cumulative duties as an impresario became the greatest part of his life. In addition to composing a dozen operas for the Prince, he also had full responsibility for every aspect of staging all of the other operas which were performed, even unto composing replacement arias to suit the talents of his own singers. As the opera category comes up in years when Haydn composed one, I will try to illustrate different aspects of these responsibilities.

When you read about Lo speziale, you will see it called by different genres. In places it is a dramma giocoso, which is what its author, Carlo Goldoni, would have called it. In the Italian tradition, operas were either serious (opera seria) or comic (opera buffa). There were conventions attached to each of these genre whereby the characters had to act a certain way depending upon their social class, and the music was tailored to those conventions. So, a buffa style character couldn't sing an aria in the noble style. If these conventions were unduly breached, then the audience would be at a loss since the agreed-upon cues, which hinted at the motivations of the characters and suggested hidden things about them, suddenly became all wrong. In short, Goldoni gained his fame by successfully combining the two genres into one which he called dramma giocoso (joking drama). "So, Gurn, why is this an opera buffa?" you ask. Well, due to a critical shortage of singers in Eszterháza, Haydn had to trim the five buffa parts and two seria parts down to just four buffa parts. What is left, however, is the entire kernel of the opera, stripped of all its excess. The result is actually quite brilliant on several levels, not least that the opera retains all of Goldoni's humorous characterizations and situations, Haydn's excellent music, and the whole thing lasts less than 70 minutes, which must be some sort of record for an opera of any stripe!

So this, then was the grand opener for the new opera house. I suggest you follow the link above in order to read a very cogent synopsis of the opera. The players were Haydn's usual top-line stars. Note for the second consecutive opera, Barbara Dichtler was playing a 'pants role'. The tradition of women playing men's parts was well entrenched in Italian opera, and as a mezzo, Dichtler must have been well-suited vocally for these roles. Another name I will point out, if only to test your memory. Maddalena Spangler. We haven't run across this eighteen year old singer's name so far, but the last name

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 1768 (Conductor: Joseph Haydn)
Sempronio, an old apothecary	tenor	Carlo Friberth
Grilletta, Sempronio's ward	soprano	Maddalena Spangler
Mengone, Sempronio's apprentice	tenor	Leopoldo Dichtler
Volpino, a young rich dandy	mezzo-soprano (breeches role)	Barbara Dichtler

should remind you of someone we've met on our odyssey. Any bells ringing? No. Well, fortunately for young Maddalena, Haydn's memory and his gratitude for past kindnesses rendered led him to hire and train the daughter who was a babe-in-arms of the Spangler's of Vienna, who, when Haydn was booted out of the St. Stephen's Knabenchor, offered him a place to sleep other than in the alley. Eighteen years later he was able to return the favor.

In the event, the opera was a hit. The quality must have contributed to the Prince's growing enthusiasm for opera, a devotion which would shortly surpass the current fad of the baryton. One wonders what Haydn himself thought of this apparent new trend. It would be hard to imagine anyone voluntarily taking on the tremendous workload which would soon devolve onto his shoulders, yet writing vocal music was his passion, and in lieu of sacred music, very little of which he wrote specifically for the Esterházy's, secular opera may have been the next best thing.

So, this is 1768. A huge year musically, but still just a harbinger of the years ahead. Still, one could sit back and enjoy this year's works for quite some time, if only a string quartet or two would pop up. For that, we will have to wait until next year!

Thanks for reading!