When Maria Theresa visited Nicholas Esterházy in his palace in Eszterháza, the prince gave her a royal welcome. He extended the palace with an enormous hall where the celebration would be held but this wing of the building had burned down a short time before the queen's arrival. The prince then immediately decided to have a small mansion built for Her Majesty in the park, in which garden entertainment took place.
After the night's lavish entertainment, Maria Theresa asked the prince how much this wonderful little mansion had cost.
- Eighty thousand florins
- 'O, das ist für einen Fürsten Esterházy eine Bagatelle!' (Oh! This is a mere bagatelle for an Esterházy Prince!)
In the bat of an eye, the word "Bagatelle" was glaring above the gate of the mansion. This has been the name of the luxurious building since then.
Sign on the Bagatelle at Eszterháza today
Here comes the Empress! Of all the visitors we have seen so far in Eszterháza, and all the ones to come, this was the orbital apogee of Society. Try as I might, finding other topics of unrelated interest in 1773 has proved to be a snipe hunt. We'll see.
The year started off on a more personal note, as Haydn finally received in hand the year's pay which was left him eleven years previous in Prince Paul's will. Even though the probate was completed and he was notified and petitioned, it still took nearly two years for the money to be forthcoming. What is wealth for, if not to hang on to as long as possible!
The Wahr troupe of actors are back for another season. We know a little bit more about their repertoire this time, because of a notice in the Pressburger Zeitung from the beginning of 1774, which is a list of the plays they are performing this year during their winter season in Pressburg, almost certainly the same plays from the summer in Eszterháza. A few highlights on the list include;
- Le Distrait by Regnard
- Thamos, King of Egypt by Gebler
- Hamlet by Shakespeare
- Macbeth by …well, you know…
- Le partie de chasse du roi Henri IV by Collé (held over from last year)
- Die Feuersbrunst (The Burning House) by Großman
- Orestes & Electra Hard to know which one it was, or if it was based on the Euripides' or Aeschylus' version, there were so many of them.
I picked out the more interesting ones, but there are at least as many others. Le Distrait may be more recognizable by its Italian name, Il Distratto, next year we will see Haydn making a symphony (#60) out of the incidental music he wrote for it. Gebler's Thamos… was set by Mozart beginning in 1773 and extending through 1780. The overture and 2 of the choruses were completed before the Vienna premiere in 1774, and according to Landon it is possible they were performed in Eszterháza for Maria Theresia. If true, this would be the first music of the young Mozart known to be performed there. We saw the Collé work performed last year for the Prince Rohan, and we will see Die Feuersbrunst performed as a marionette opera in another year or two. There is a strong probability of Symphony #59 being used as incidental music for it, which is the currently popular belief in the Feuersymphonie name origin. Why the Shakespeare? According to an article in the Pressburger Zeitung reviewing the later performance of Il Distratto, Haydn was even then in the process of writing incidental music for Hamlet. Would it had survived, if in fact he completed it. The documentation of it being performed by the Wahr troupe at least reinforces the idea of its accomplishment. Perhaps even now the music lives on, unbeknownst to us, in a symphony.
This isn't the time or place to review the life and times of Maria Theresia: suffice to say she was a very interesting, intelligent woman with a good bit of native
intolerance but a great deal of the makings of an Enlightened Ruler. She was a music lover and had been a fine singer and keyboardist in her younger days, as a student of Hasse. If you went ahead and referenced the link I provided for her biography, you will have noted the practical end of her public life in 1765 upon the sudden death of her beloved husband, Francis I. This is the reason why you see Emperor Joseph II being in charge of the realm long before her death in 1780. But although she was retired from public life, she never stopped being the political animal which was the essence of her nature. And one of the major goals which she set out to accomplish, and the main reason why she is coming to Eszterháza in this year of 1773, is to bring the Hungarians ever closer and more tightly entwined with Austria. And who better to bind tighter than Nicholas, Prince among Princes in Hungary?
She arrived September 1 with three of her children. She never went anywhere in August because she declared it a month of mourning for Francis I. They arrived mid-morning and were greeted by a gathering of the leading Hungarian nobility. Late in the afternoon there was a performance at the opera house of Haydn's newest opera, L'Infedeltà Delusa. It was after this opera that the famous quote attributed to Maria Theresia, "if I want to see a good opera, I have to go to Eszterháza" was said. And indeed it is a 'good opera'. It was newly composed on a libretto by Marco Coltellini, it is pure comedy, not any sort of allegory, thus unusual for an opera-on-a-mission such as this one was. As we will see later, Haydn had composed it as a Name Day gift for Prince Paul's widow, and it was performed in July. It is highly likely it was also played in May for the Prince alone, so in the event it was well-rehearsed by the time the Empress arrived to see it! As a side note on Coltellini, he was in disfavor with Maria Theresia and in fact had lost his job in 1772 as Court Librettist due to his satire being a bit on the strong side for her taste. I wonder if there was some underlying reason why Esterházy chose this opera, beyond its quality, for this event. Landon mentions that Haydn was preparing a revival of Acide for the occasion, and in fact we saw in our 1762 look at it, the opera was revived and performed in 1774, but Landon says the work was done in 1773. Even more reason to wonder why.
The night ended with a masked ball in the Chinese Ballroom, of course with music provided by Haydn's Big Band. The mental picture of Haydn dressed in a Chinese costume while leading the band (they all were, in fact) is… compelling! The party lasted till 5:30AM, but the Empress only made it for an hour and a half.
The next day combined a formal luncheon with a parade of guests presenting their compliments to the Empress. It is described as "lengthy", and it was accompanied from beginning to end by the orchestra playing Tafelmusik, almost certainly including some Haydn symphonies. This would have been the occasion for the playing of the Symphony in C with trumpets and timpani. Exactly which symphony in C is still under discussion, although certainly the long-standing belief has been #48, thus giving its name, Maria Theresia. Since that work was now five years old, and there is a brand new symphony in C, #50, this year, this is now believed by many to be the work which should carry the name. Perhaps it was both; it was a long afternoon!
Another new feature this year is yet another opera house! This one is especially interesting because its players are marionettes! There is a still extant, long standing tradition in Europe which is virtually unknown in the US, of serious adult entertainment being performed by puppets. Most towns in Europe in the 18th century didn't have an opera house, the cost would have been prohibitive. But there were numerous touring companies who went from town to town actually performing operas! Nicholas was apparently quite enamored of this concept, and he caused to be built a beautiful grotto in the gardens which served as a marionette opera house.
After the extended luncheon, a walk through the gardens brought the entourage to this grotto, where the opera company, in league with the marionette operators, performed Haydn's first marionette opera, Philemon und Baucis. We shall discuss the opera itself in greater length later on, but for now, we should know that this opera was at least partly allegorical, and although the music for the toadying up part, which is part 3, is unfortunately lost. The libretto and the newspaper review tell the story though, which is basically of four characters called Clemency, Glory, Justice and Valor dressed in Hungarian native garb to represent the Hungarian people, and moving towards the Habsburg coat-of-arms with all the humility they could work up, being marionettes of course. Finally a figure representing Happiness appeared, clasping the coat-of-arms with one hand and heaping the others with goodies from a cornucopia with the other. It must have been quite a sight, and keeping the strings separate was probably a task for professionals, too!
All of this was followed by the mandatory huge fireworks display, probably greater than ever since it lasted for several hours. There was a ground display of the Hungarian Coat-of-Arms above the letters V-M-T (Vivat Maria Theresia), and local peasants singing and dancing, numbering in the several thousands. All of this lasted all night and was still lurching along the next morning when the Imperials finally took their leave.
Haydn's memories from this event, as he told Griesinger, consisted of having shot the game hens which she dined on at one meal (he loved to hunt, a little known fact), and the story he told about his days as a choir boy when the boys, in an adventurous mood, climbed up and were scampering around on the construction scaffolds which were erected around the palace at the time. They saw the Empress coming, but she saw them first, and commanded they be brought down and warned off, on penalty of a severe thrashing. In his typically Haydnish way, he came back the next day and climbed up again. Sure enough he was caught, and the thrashing was duly administered. He had an audience with Maria at this very event where she congratulated him on the music and presented him with a wonderful snuffbox (this being the reward of choice in those days). He told the story of the scaffold to everyone's amusement, and thanked her for that reward, too!
Just a week before Maria Theresia's visit, the organist at the Eisenstadt Bergkirche unexpectedly died. Surprisingly, Haydn went through a fair amount of maneuvering in order to obtain the job for himself. He auditioned a few players whom he found to be deficient for one reason or another, and ended up taking it on himself. This meant he would have to play whenever the Princely retinue was in Kismarton (the name Eisenstadt was called at the time, and the one I prefer to use), and pay someone to cover for him when he couldn't be there. In the end, a deal was struck with the local schoolmaster, Dietzl, to play in the summer and Haydn would play in the winter. Dietzl would get the money and Haydn would get the goods and victuals that went with the job. And, one would think, he guaranteed he would have to be home for the winter in order to play the organ. But Nicholas was no one's fool either, and he made sure to insert a clause in the contract that Dietzl would have to play in winter, too, anytime Haydn wasn't available. Nice try, though. Another, and much more likely reason for all this is that Haydn very likely wanted to have some time to himself, playing sacred music with like-minded others, far removed from the glitz and glamour that was life with Nicholas. This was the way he started out his career, after all, and there is every reason to believe in his sincerity when he wanted to continue his daily form of worship.
Overall, a good year, three symphonies, a great set of six keyboard sonatas, the first published under Haydn's supervision, an outstanding Italian opera, a German Singspiel; in short, a nicely rounded demonstration of his talents. So, let's onward and see what marvels the year produced!
Thanks for reading!