Haydn Seek

1774 – The Music part 2 - The Symphonic Trio of 1774

Hob	Key	NC	HRL	Name	Instruments
55	Eb	60	61	The Schoolmaster	2 Oboes, Bassoon, 2 Horns & Strings
56	C	63	62		2 Oboes, Bassoon, 2 Horns (C alto & F), 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings
57	D	64	63		2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings

So after you have committed to paper something like Il distratto, where do you go from there? If you're Haydn, apparently you go right back to what you were doing already, writing a trio of very fine symphonies that don't have theatrical connotations.

Our previous symphony, #54, is (fairly) accused of being uneven in quality, although I am scarcely judgmental enough to say it on my own. It's true to some extent that the Adagio assai overshadows much of the balance though. If one concedes this, then looking at #55 can only be like taking refreshment: four movements, all excellent, interesting and well matched with each other. One of the wonders of Haydn is this ability to test some ideas, look a bit off-balance, then recover the top spot with apparent ease.

One of the long line of musical historians who have pre-digested Haydn for us is a Viennese named Aloys Fuchs. Sometime in the 1840's, he was making a list of Haydn's works, and somehow mixed up entries in the Entwurf Katalog. There was a Divertimento ( sadly lost) listed there called Der verliebte Schulmeister (The Schoolmaster in Love). Perhaps being temporarily overcome with good Viennese beer, Fuchs somehow managed to apply the name to Symphony #55. You can read any number of other explanations (I have), but they are all stretches of the fervid Romantic imaginations which persist even today. It had absolutely nothing to do with resembling the "metrical ticking of the schoolmaster's stick' or anything else remotely to do with a bloody schoolmaster!  Now you know the rest of the story, and why I tend to sneer at names, too.

Some highlights to listen for in this work are the wonderfully skillful manipulation of the orchestra during the second movement theme and variations. The tonal coloration is set by the steady playing of the strings, con sordino (using a mute), coupled with the very sparing use of the winds, which only appear in two variations. By this point in his career, Haydn was already well on the way to transforming the variation form from the self-limiting style of the Baroque to the Classical which was fully integrated into sonata form. This is a nice example of it. Another interesting area is the trio of the minuet, which actually is a trio. Then, something unusual, the Finale: Presto, is mainly made of a second variation set. Pondering this, it is hard to think of another example of a work in which fully half of the movements are sets of variations. This second set has another interesting feature also. It is a rondo in which the return ( the B & C etc. which you see in analyses) is a variation of the first theme rather than a new theme each time. This is a symphony which needs repeated listening to extract all the pith, and stands up to it quite well.

Our symphony #56 is another in that great series of Viennese C major works which we have been enjoying from Haydn since way back at Symphony #2! But this standout work shows what a long way we've come since then. #56 is a brilliant work in a year of brilliant works. As we saw in #54 & 55, new things are coming out of Haydn's workshop, developed from ideas which are still arising from the complete musical review of 1769-72. Just to mention a few things of note in this work; there are trumpets in C (alto, of course) and one of the horns is in C alto, ordinarily the horns would have been C basso. Right from the beginning, Haydn exploits these instruments to create a brilliant sound. As we saw also in #54, this work has bassoon obbligato, although only in the slow movement. Slow steps…

As we looked at a few years ago, there are now basically two kinds of symphonies, since the third type, the Church Symphony, has finally been left behind. And the last time it came up, the examples of Grand Symphonies at the time typically included our 'festive' C major genre. Yet this work, trumpets, timpani and all, is not apparently a grand symphony, it is an archetypical example of a Austrian Chamber Symphony. As we discussed earlier, Johann Georg Sulzer's General Theory of Fine Arts (1771-74), states:

"It (a chamber symphony) 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…"

And this work does just that. It is not Maestoso, nor otherwise florid. Since it was not intended for any known occasion, it had no requirement to be grand. It is just as defined here, much like earlier works such as #42. Also, beyond the exercising of the orchestra, once again we discover the true beauty of the work in the slow movements. This Adagio is nearly as long as that in #54, timing out at over 14 minutes! Where it differs though is instead of the dreamy, abstract quality of #54, what we find here is very lyrical and melodic. It even has an extended solo for the bassoon! The oboes are also very up front here, accompanied by the muted violins. Haydn's reputation for being a master of the slow movement is totally built on movements like this one!

Dancing a Saltarello

The final thing to note in this work that we haven't seen before is the 4^th movement Italian dance, a saltarello. Defined as a fast triple-meter rhythm, we don't see it in Classical music until the 19^th century when it shows several times, most prominently in Felix Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. But here is Haydn, using it in 1774. I have to say, this is the quickest tempo movement I can recall hearing so far! One thing we see Haydn doing is taking it easy on his horns and trumpets by alternating them so they get a bit of rest for the lip. Not a whole lot of rest for the fiddles though, they are busy from start to stop. This is a splendid movement to finish this piece with, it provides a great contrast to the beautiful Adagio and the traditional Minuet.

Right away we hear a difference in #57; it opens with a long, Adagio introduction! We haven't seen this before, introductions, if present at all, were a few bars long, at most. It acts as nice preparation to get ready for the distinctly NOT Adagio material which follows. This quick-time Allegro is unmistakably Haydnish, similar in many ways to his normal sonata-Allegro first movements. Which is not in any way saying something negative, since this is a fine thing to be! A couple of things of note to listen for: the violins are used in a sort of perpetuum mobile fashion, giving a tremendous sense of forward motion. Also there are several instances of canonic entries of the strings particularly during the wrap-up where they lead into the final phrase by the horns. If you, like I, were a great admirer of symphonies such as #42, you will love this opening movement!

The third of this trio of symphonies again provides a masterful Adagio. It is a theme and variations, one of Haydn's favorite forms, but this time it isn't the variations which capture the listener so much as the brilliant theme they are based upon. The theme has three parts, one of which has a notable little pizzicato figure which completely sticks in your mind. As the theme unwinds, it marks its place with the return of this pizzicato figure. Each of the four variations then expresses its variety not so much as a change of ornamentation or tempo, as is the norm, but with changes in orchestration. The melodic part of the theme becomes richer and fuller sounding, and the filigree notes in the violins fill more and more, but the underlying simplicity of the original theme is never buried away, and the pizzicato figure always returns, even if played by the horns! The movement is also closed out with the original pizzicato, gently plucked into silence.

The minuet is almost classic, but it wouldn't be Haydn without some little oddity: when we wind down to the end of the repeat of the minuet, the last two chords have switched over to the minor key, audibly different from where we were. And suddenly we realize that instead of being the last two bars of the minuet, they were the first two bars of the trio! It is an interesting way to take us through this splendid little dance, worthy of a master. The finale is yet another rocking Prestissimo. Brown calls it another saltarello, and indeed it is one in all but name. Landon and Webster actually identify it back to a 17^th century Austrian tune called Canzona & Capriccio on the Racket of Hens & Roosters by Poglietti. Either way it is a real workout for the violins, who are again working a perpetuum mobile to the hilt.

So, whether these three masterpieces were ever intended to be a trilogy or just happened to be three separate pieces composed the same year really makes no difference. In terms of showing us the state-of-the-art of the New Haydn of the mid-1770's, there could be no better audio aid for the interested listener than to dedicate a couple of hours to listening to some superior entertainment!

Next time we will have a look at the more intimate works of this year. I hope you have some time to give these symphonies a try!

Thanks for reading!

1774 – The Music part 1 - Oops, I forgot...

NC	HRL	Hob	Key	Name	Instruments
61	60	54	G	Version 1	2 Oboes, 1 Bassoon, 2 Horns & Strings
62	64	60	C	Il Distratto	2 Oboes, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings

 

"At the Comédie Française" by Antoine Watteau

What a great year for symphonies! It is fair to say these works are the highlight of the year in music. In this essay we'll look at two of them, and next time the trio which I've always thought of as a set of three, rightly or wrongly.

There are apparently, although it is still in dispute, three versions of #54; the original which we are looking at now, from an autograph manuscript of 1774, Version 2 which has a slow introduction added, plus second bassoon and timpani, all from 1776 manuscripts, and a putative version 3, to which two flute and two trumpet parts were added, possibly for performance in London in the 1790's. The dispute revolves around Version 2, with some fairly prominent names claiming that all the changes were made for the 1776 version and merely carried off whole to London. I don't have a preference myself, it is only the original which concerns us here.

In terms of interest as a work unto itself, #54 is not a particularly unique addition to Haydn's oeuvre at the time. It is a nice symphony, with superb horn writing, as we have come to expect, and a slow movement which we will look at a bit more. But the most interesting part about this symphony lies in what Haydn does with the orchestration.

For the first time in Haydn's symphonies, we see the bassoon as an obbligato instrument unto itself, in several places adding its tone color and harmonic ability independently of the bass section. This is something which would become the norm for the next hundred years, and it arose in this humble symphony. The second major orchestrational innovation involves sectionalizing the instruments and using them as blocks to support the harmony while the melody is played by a different block. Which is to say, The Winds play the harmony in one section while The Strings play the thematic material. And vice-versa. It isn't the sopranos and altos supported by the basses now, as it was previously. Not the entire work, of course, nothing is as thoroughgoing an implementation as that! It shows up in blocks of 8-10 measures at a time. But these two developments make this a major landmark in Haydn's symphonic style, thus this symphony deserves its kudos, even if it isn't the reincarnation of #44!

The slow movement, Adagio assai, is generally considered to be the high point of the entire work. This is a rather unusual tempo indication in Haydn, and also one of the longest movements he composed in a symphony. While being deeply expressive and almost passionate at times, it also seems almost abstract. It is the sort of movement which could have stood alone, perhaps. It evokes in the listener a sort of encapsulation of the time it was composed; as Landon says, its tonal palette seems to sum up all that was good about the Eszterháza years. With the orchestral violins muted, their distinctive tone provides the background against which the solo violins, the oboes, and especially the horns move the music forward with a constant triplet figure punctuated by pedals from the horns and staccato highs from the oboes. Verbal descriptions don't suffice to bring to life the wonderful ambiance of this movement. Even if the entire remainder of the symphony serves only as a setting to display this jewel, it is a worthy piece!

Symphony #60 – Il distratto
It isn't often you see me use a name with a symphony! However, since this is really the incidental music to a play, it is fitting to have the play's name appended. I concede…

The musicologists are unanimous that you can't begin to appreciate this symphony unless you are completely familiar with the play. Makes me wonder how I have managed all these years knowing nothing about the Comédie Française or any of its doings! However, I freely admit that knowing Regnard's story line gives a far greater appreciation of some of the bizarreries presented by the orchestra in helping to portray the absent-minded Monsieur Léandre! So, here in a nutshell:

Regnard's comedy, Le Distrait, was first performed on December 2, 1697. The play is a caricature, a comic portrait. Our hero, Léandre is in love with Clarice, but in order to inherit money from his wealthy uncle, he has signed a contract to marry Isabelle. The latter is loved by a chevalier, the brother of Clarice. He and Clarice have an uncle, Valère, who wishes for them to marry according to their wishes. In his absentmindedness, Léandre forgets that a marriage contract has been signed. This infuriates his rich uncle, who disinherits him shortly before dying. Isabelle's mother (a manipulating shrew if there ever was one!) now refuses to let her daughter marry Léandre. Valère, by offering to make the chevalier his heir, wins her consent to the proposed marriage between her daughter and the chevalier. Valère also promises a considerable sum to Clarice, removing the financial obstacle to her marriage to Léandre. She consents to the marriage and is ready to reconcile herself to the fact of Léandre's distractions and absentmindedness. The chief merit of the plot is to accentuate the peculiar trait of the protagonist, Léandre, in amusing scenes, as when, for example, he does not notice that his stocking is down, asks for gloves when he already has them on, takes someone else's carriage, throws away his watch, writes a letter to one lady and sends it to another, forgets an important communication, and even forgets that his marriage contract has been signed.

The strength of the play lies in its wordplay, Regnard's forte. The comedy is supplied in main by Léandre's forgetfulness. And this is the point which Haydn plays upon.

In terms of the relationship of symphony to play, it couldn't be more straightforward:

Overture                                          Movement I

Entr'acte between 1^st & 2^nd act       Movement II

Entr'acte between 2^nd & 3^rd act      Movement III

Entr'acte between 3^rd & 4^th act       Movement IV

Entr'acte between 4^th & 5^th act       Movement V

Finale                                             Movement VI

A modern production of Le Distrait at Comédie Française

This won't be a dissertation on all the relationships of music to plot; Elaine Sisman has already written one of those (Haydn's Theater Symphonies), but a few points cry out to be highlighted. The overture is played before you know anything about the play except the title, The Absentminded Man. Haydn can't really hit on any specific point in the plot to highlight, so he highlights the title, whetting the appetite for what is to come. He does this by starting right off with a standard slow introduction followed by a brisk Allegro. But as things seem ready for the next step, the music suddenly begins to just sort of mill around, as though the composer or orchestra simply got lost. The whole thing just gets derailed for a bit, and then, after a bit of flailing for the right chord, gets retracked. It must have made the musically knowledgeable (most of the audience at its première, no doubt) laugh out loud. This same passage, when repeated in the recapitulation, again comes in for a hit, as the chords used are inappropriate and intentionally weaken the music at the same time they speed things up instead of slowing them down. Finally, Haydn suddenly begins to quote the famous Symphony #45 (Farewell), as though his mind had begun to wander from the topic at hand. There is no way the Prince, especially, could have failed to see the humor in that!

Every single movement presents some aspect of the characters and plot in the act which we have just seen, as a recollection, and a preview of what we will see soon. The last one I will present here, though, is in the finale, which approaches slapstick in my mind's eye! The finale recapitulates the opening movement mainly, but early on it presents a visual image which is hard to beat. Léandre has taken up the mnemonic device of tying a knot in his handkerchief in order to remember that he is supposed to get married. Hilarity ensues. Haydn represents this by getting a few measures into the finale and suddenly stopping the action and having the violins retune their instruments after having played in scordatura at the end of the previous movement. Then they resume playing the remainder. It is an unmatched moment in musical history!

OK, for once, the musicologists were right. It is nice to know the plot of the play, although I still enjoyed it before knowing. I freely admit, I thought it was bizarre, but not knowing why didn't diminish my enjoyment. I hope you will share that enjoyment with me.

Next time we will have a look at the trio of symphonies which completed this great symphonic year. Meanwhile, enjoy the music,

Thanks for reading!

 

Celebrating Haydn - From Beginning to End

 

The record of Haydn's baptism from Rohrau parish registry

This post marks a special event for me, for a couple of reasons;

1. I posted my first essay here one year ago this week,
2. This is my one hundredth essay in this series!

A year ago, I hadn't suspected the level of interest which existed in Haydn, beyond the basics like "what's the best recorded cycle of London Symphonies?" or "how about that Sturm und Drang?! ". In the many years I have been enthusing over Haydn, for every dedicated Haydnisto I met online there seemed to be ten classical listeners who couldn't be bothered to listen to anything pre-Beethoven except for Bach or late Mozart! And so it is a particular and unexpected surprise to have nearly five thousand views of these pages by this 52^nd week, a number which tells me my original idea, that accurate and accessible information about Haydn was too difficult for the average listener to get hold of, was substantially correct.

So far I have tried to present, in strictly chronological order, facts which you aren't likely to run across in your daily reading. Things such as the history of the Austrian Applausus tradition, for example, which I researched for two months until I finally found some information in one book, relatively obscure to the non-specialist and immoderately expensive. I know that essay didn't interest everyone, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how often it actually did get read. Of course, my underlying motive was to learn about it for myself since I share your frustration at not being able to get my questions answered.

Ultimately though, what I am trying to do is to help to create some context for your listening. Having moderated a large classical music chat board for over ten years, I am all too well aware of the variety of interests which people have, and the equal variety of disinterests. Only a small percentage of the total of listeners is really keen on going further with their listening experience, to the point where they care about why a work was composed, on which occasions such a work was performed, what instrument(s) it was played on, and who was listening to it? This is a large part of what context consists in, and these are exactly the sorts of questions which are all too rarely answered in our liner notes!

So far, I have covered the first twenty-five years of Haydn's active musical career (1750 – 1774). We are at almost exactly the halfway point of the journey, since his final complete original composition was the Harmoniemesse of 1802. As Haydn got more famous, information (and misinformation) about him gets more and more plentiful. So I am discovering that an essay now, if it is to include the information available about year X or work Y, is going to be lengthier, both in the research and in the execution. For those of you who are put off by that, and I know there are some, I apologize for it, but I can't change the facts. The net result will be that the second half of Haydn's career probably won't be recounted in a year like the first half was!

In addition, I am intending to add some different features, for example; when we come to a work which is amply represented in recorded performances, I will present some different listening options. This will probably not be in a 'Battle of the Bands' format. Well, unless, by popular demand…

A second project to begin this year will be to expand fjhaydn.com to hold more than just the blog, and to start a music and events timeline which will offer a graphic view of the juxtaposition of the major (and not so major) happenings of Haydn's life along with the music he was producing at the time.

Finally, I will begin a picture gallery of various representations of Haydn and the people and places he was affiliated with. Some of the pictures I have provided here already took me hours to uncover, and so I will make it easier for you to access them.

I am always open to discussion, there is nothing I like better than to share information with like-minded readers. And by that, I mean I would be delighted to receive information from you, too! There are still many subjects which I would love to write about, but I have no data about them, or only a tantalizingly small amount. As an example, the marionette opera essay took me over a month, simply because the available information was so sparse. So if you have something you would like to share with me, or if you have questions you would like answered, by all means, my email address is linked in the right sidebar and I would love to hear from you.

So again, thank you all for making my first year here so gratifying. If I have encouraged even one person to finally listen to Haydn's music, or to re-listen with a new ear, then I feel I have succeeded in my goal.

Best wishes, and thanks for reading AND listening!

 

  From the opening verse of Haydn's song  Der Greis ('The Old Man')

Hin ist alle meine Kraft!
Alt und schwach bin ich;
Wenig nur erquicket mich
Scherz und Rebensaft!

Hin ist alle meine Zier!
Meiner Wangen Roth
Ist hinweggeflohn! Der Tod
Klopft an meine Thür!

Unerschreckt mach' ich ihm auf;
Himmel, habe Dank:
Ein harmonischer Gesang
War mein Lebenslauf!

1774 – The Year of the Theater

I guess that sometimes it is easy to slip out of the mindset of being able to understand the 18^th century submission to authority, especially when we are talking about artists. The concept is so foreign to what we have inherited from Beethoven and his successors, we tend to forget that artistic freedom was not just sitting there waiting. Haydn had far more freedom than some of his peers, which is evidenced by how quickly his music advanced from late Baroque and galant to what we retrospectively have termed 'High Classicism'. While it is true that his innate genius was a major contributing factor to this evolution, another, often overlooked, aspect is his freedom as an employee of Prince Nicholas to write pretty much anything he pleased. Nicholas relied on Haydn's good taste to keep him from going right over the edge! Earlier composers, such as Fux, Caldara, Bonno and Wagenseil, to name but a few, were unable to write anything but conservative music even though at least some of them also possessed a fair measure of the requisite genius. In the main, they would have been penniless and out on the street if they displeased their employer, the highly conservative House of Habsburg. For Haydn, though, the approval of his patron meant he could cut a new pathway, and he certainly did that!

But to get back to the year 1774, we find Haydn well along on his new line of composition, which is mainly stage music. No more string quartets, piano trios, random divertimenti; in fact, only a few of the previous fad, baryton trios! Instead it is overtures, incidental music, opera revisions, adaptations, and occasionally taking some time out to write two kinds of symphony: a few of the real deal symphonies we have come to love, and those which are adapted from stage music. Not to forget, some keyboard sonatas which must have seemed like a blessed respite for their composer, or so it would seem.

A main player in Haydn's life at this point was the chief actor, Carl Wahr. In this, the third year of his contract to supply dramatic entertainment for the summer season at Eszterháza, the Prince had agreed to supply costumes, scenery and, especially, music for the dramatic productions. And while the opera house was up and running, the opera mania of subsequent years was only in its infancy. Wahr, however, had an expanded repertoire every year, and by 1774 he was getting ever deeper into Shakespeare. This year we see Macbeth actually produced, along with King Lear. The local newspapers and guests' journals give great reviews, and the descriptions of Wahr's stage style cast him in the mold of the great British actor of the time, David Garrick. Haydn's early experiences writing stage music for the multi-talented Kurz-Bernardon throughout the 1750's were his first paying effort composing other than church music. Although the singspiel Der krumme Teufel (The Limping Devil) was his first and most prominent effort for Kurz, it is believed he wrote also many other pieces for him throughout the '50's due to the surviving pieces of music for Kurz which, although anonymous, bear many hallmarks of Haydn's early style. In addition, his studies with Porpora prepared him for dramatic writing, and perhaps whetted an appetite which was already present. In any case, it is easy to feature Haydn enthusiastically taking on this charge from the Prince, viewing it as yet another opportunity to test his talent and give his share to the joint entertainment effort. How else to view such incredible efforts as the incidental music to Regnard's Le distrait (Il distratto or The Distracted Man)? As we will see, Haydn also took this music and created Symphony #60, but even as stage music, it was brilliant, constantly placing the theme of forgetfulness in front of the audience. As he did in all other genres to which he applied himself, Haydn excelled with his stage music. The little of it which has survived, coupled with the mass of journals, diaries and newspaper articles serves to let us know what we have missed by the fact of the transience of incidental music!

Another little known fact of 1774 is that at least three of Haydn's early operas were staged in the opera house. It is commonly thought that these works were composed, served their useful purpose, and then placed on a shelf in the library never to be heard again. However in 1774, Acide, La Cantarina, and Lo Speziale were all revived, apparently successfully, given the glowing description in Der Historiche-kritische Theaterchronik von Wien (1774 edition) which provides an incredibly valuable recounting of the author's experiences at Eszterháza. In addition to finding the Wahr information, we discover it is also the only source for the opera revivals, and also the première of another marionette opera, Genovefens, which Haydn didn't compose, but which he adapted and orchestrated.

Another piece of music which we shall have to consider this year, although it was not completed until 1775, is Haydn's first oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia. He took what amounts to a leave of absence to begin it, going back to Kismarton in November while the rest remained in Eszterháza until well into December. This is yet another ideal example of why it is so difficult to date Haydn's works; it had to have taken months to compose, but stretched across two years, and not to mention, reworked in the early 1780's!

So, we have a year with no famous visitors, the opera not open for a regular season, it must have been pretty easy on the musicians, eh? But no, as we will see, there are five symphonies for starters, an untold number of musica dramatica, operas updated, keyboard sonatas, and oh, yes, baryton trios! So let's push on and have a look at the interesting year, 1774.

Thanks for reading!

1773 - The Music part 4 - Pulling the right strings

Hob. #	Genre	Libretto	Name	Key	Instruments / Notes
29a:1a	Singspiel for Marionettes	Unk	Der Götterath	C	Only the overture and one fragment remain / 2 Oboes, 2 Horns, 2 Trumpets, Timpani & Strings w/continuo
29a:1	Singspiel for Marionettes	Unk	Philemon und Baucis	d	2 Oboes, 2 Horns & Strings w/continuo

Philemon & Baucis in a modern production

Since I was a child, puppets always had a fascination for me. Apparently, the requisite 'voluntary suspension of disbelief' state was not too hard for me to achieve. Little did I know though, I was part of a centuries-long tradition of puppetry which rose to include even opera among its ranks. And my interest was shared by people who spanned the full social spectrum.

Not just the social spectrum either, but the temporal one. Marionettes actually date back to ancient Greece, and have been found in Egyptian tombs, also. There is an unbroken line right through to today, when puppet shows are still followed closely and attended by thousands annually. In contemplating the reasons for this popularity, I have wondered if psychologically it is easy for people to relate to puppets because, being non-human, puppets can enable our imaginations to identify the puppet either with our own selves or with people we know. This is, of course, the goal of every actor, but perhaps puppets have it easier due to the effect mentioned above; voluntary suspension of disbelief.

Another thing about marionettes, relating to 18^th century Europe now, is that packing up and moving along from town to town with a few people and a bunch of puppets and their wardrobe was a far less expensive and doable thing than moving an entire troupe of actors and opera singers around. And despite the fact of opera and music being written for the upper classes, there is no doubt the middle classes in their smaller towns enjoyed the music and drama too. Every small town in Europe didn't have an opera house or concert hall, but a large play-wagon with a foldout stage, a clavier and some clever performers could, and did, bring the music of the big cities to the small town for centuries. The main medium for these traveling players was not opera, though, but coarser fare, such as Hanswurst comedies in Austro-Hungary and Pulcinella ones in Italy and surrounding areas and Punch in England. Still, beginning in Paris in the late 17^th century and right up to the 20^th century, play-wagons continued to bring opera to small town Europe. And in fact, this afternoon, if you are in Salzburg, you can go to a playhouse and see Mozart's Die Zauberflöte performed by marionettes!

Even though Eszterháza's resident marionette troupe was just that; resident, this made them only slightly different than the touring companies. In 1773, their 'play-wagon' was the newly built Marionette Opera House, diagonally across the French Garden and facing the Opera House. Even though it no longer stands, or at best it was a gutted stack of rubble which was in process of being remodeled in 2011, contemporary descriptions are of a grotto with glittery cave walls with tiny fountains, and lit by hidden sconces opening into a relatively large gallery which, however, lacked boxes and had instead eleven rows of seats. It was a fairly substantial building, and among its many amenities were stage scenery walls which opened up a view onto the Garden, allowing special effects such as were produced for Maria Theresia.

Along with the new entertainment came a new troupe of players, of course. The most important, and driving force of the entire project, was Karl Michael von Pauersbach, who worked for the Prince from 1773 to 1778. He did all the stage design, costuming, choreography and was probably the manipulator of the main characters. As we will see, when he left in 1778, the show went into a relatively steep decline. There were also singers hired specifically for the marionette opera, at least one of whom began with our current work and remained as late as 1810!

As we have already seen, the two works here, Der Götterath and Philemon und Baucis, were two separate stories blended into one. The origin of Der Götterath is unsure, but it may have been written for exactly the purpose for which it was used; to be a prologue for the opera production of Ovid's Philemon und Baucis, one of the stories from his famous Metamorphoses. Der Götterath ("Council of the Gods") represents a vehement argument among the gods on Olympus, who are displeased and offended by the actions of the people on earth. At the climactic moment, Jupiter, in a fit of rage, tosses one of his famous thunderbolts which, as fate would have it, strikes the son, and his fiancé, of the only two people who aren't being a problem! Such is the nature of mythology, is it not? Jupiter and Mercury decide to go to earth and assess the situation, which teeters apparently between wholesale destruction and merely retail destruction, it seems. And thus ends Der Götterath. Of the remains of this part, which was only performed the one time and never used again in subsequent recreations of P & B, we have the original poem, which is excessively long winded, since every god and goddess has something to say, it seems. In the only restoration, that of Manfred Huss featured here, the only part preserved and used was the final declaration by Jupiter that he and Mercury would descend to earth. But we music lovers have more than that: the original overture, two movements in C major, must have been deemed too fine by Haydn to merely let disappear into oblivion. He turned them into the first two movements of Symphony #50. So Der Götterath lives on!

Ovid's Metamorphoses was far from obscure in the 18^th century. Education at the time was based on The Classics, and this was certainly one of them. It served as inspiration for works like 12 Symphonies after Ovid by Karl Ditters, an immensely popular series of just a few years later. It is fair to say that 100% of the intended audience for this opera knew the story already, so Haydn's use of it was perfectly suitable for the situation, which, in the long run, was to warm the cockles of Maria Theresia's heart towards her Hungarian minions.

The story is straightforward enough. In a nutshell; Jupiter and Mercury search Earth to find people who still believe in the gods and act properly. Discouraged in this, they come to the house of Philemon and Baucis, who, even though they are mourning the loss of their beloved son and his fiancé from being hit by a thunderbolt from the clear blue sky (Jupiter must have been uneasy!) offer all possible hospitality to the two travelers. Jupiter is impressed by their earnest goodness and restores their loved ones to life, turns their house into a temple, and makes them priests. He proclaims to all the surrounding countryside that these are people who are true to the gods and shining examples of how people should be. The change from peasant to priest is their metamorphosis.

The final part of the play, wherein the joys of being subjects of the munificent House of Habsburg are extolled, is lost. So sad…

There are two modern recordings of this work available. The Brunner/Salzburger Hofmusik is the shorter of the two, mainly featuring the music that remains, which is not inconsiderable. The Huss/Haydn Sinfonietta version on BIS is as full a restoration as possible of the complete original presentation. Being a singspiel, it inevitably has a considerable amount of German text being read. If that doesn't bother you (and it shouldn't), then this brilliant reconstruction is the way to go. I usually refrain from making recommendations here, based on the old car sales caveat; your mileage may vary. However, when I see a project to restore history with so much effort and, obviously, expense put into it, I like to see the progenitors rewarded. The music performances alone make this a must-buy, but everything else puts it over the top!

That's it for 1773. I didn't post much more about the Missa Cellensis, since I pretty well said everything I knew back in 1766. But completing this major cantata Mass was also part of Haydn's agenda for the year.

Now we move ahead to 1774. Hope you enjoyed this look into the Year the Empress came to visit (again) as much as I did researching it.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the music!

1773 – The Music part 3 - An Opera for All Seasons

Hob. #	Genre	Libretto	Name	Instruments / Notes
28:05	Opera 'Burletta'	Marco Coltellini	La Infedeltà Delusa (Deceit Outwitted)	2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, Timpani, Strings & Continuo

When is a burletta not a burletta? Well of course, when Haydn gets his hands on it!

The libretto for the premiére

In early 1773, Nicholas decided to have a Name Day celebration in July (St Anne's Day) for his sister-in-law, the Dowager Princess Maria Anna, widow of his brother, Paul Anton. She still lived with the family, and survived Paul Anton by 20 years, dying in Eszterháza in 1782.

Haydn was commanded to write an opera for the occasion, so he procured a libretto by Marco Coltellini, who until recently was a Court Poet, and after an amendment or two by Carl Friberth, who was not only a lead singer, but also helped Haydn to adapt libretti to the resources available, he went to work.

Are you one of those people who can read a story synopsis or a score of an opera, or listen to a CD of the music, and visualize what the entire production must have been? I'm not, possibly one of the reasons why I have struggled with opera in the past. It is difficult to appreciate what the result of all of the different disciplines, including costuming and stage art, of course, might have been.

I will post a short version of the synopsis, since it's nice to know what the story is about, but one of the things I notice is the seeming familiarity of the story. Well, that, and every opera seems to me to have the same names for the characters. How does that work?

Synopsis

The opera is set in the Tuscan countryside

Act 1

Dowager Princess Maria Anna Esterházy

Filippo, brother and sister Nanni and Vespina, and rich farmer Nencio admire the beauty of the summer evening. Filippo is concluding a deal with Nencio. Sandrina, Filippo's daughter enters, the others leave her alone with her father, who tells her he has found her a husband. She protests that she loves only Nanni but Filippo dismisses the thought of her marrying a poor man.

In a room in Nanni and Vespina's house; Vespina sings of the pain of love but longs for its pleasures. She reveals that she is in love with Nencio.

Outside Filippo's house, Nencio sings a serenade to Sandrina. Vespina and Nanni eavesdrop on him as he asks Filippo to send Sandrina to him. Despite Sandrina's tears, Nencio says he will marry her come what may. Vespina enters and slaps him; Nencio and Filippo refuse to budge.

Act 2

Vespina has disguised herself as an old woman, so that when Filippo and Sandrina come out of the house she will tell them that Nencio was secretly married but abandoned her daughter. Filippo, angry at Nencio's supposed duplicity hurls insults at him; Nencio, baffled by this, is next approached by Vespina this time disguised as a German servant who says that her master, a marquis will be taking Sandrina as his wife.

Filippo is delighted by Sandrina's prospects as the wife of a marquis, but his daughter says that she wants love, not luxury. In her fourth disguise, Vespina enters as a notary accompanied by Nanni disguised as a servant and Nencio. A marriage contract is signed and witnessed, Filippo believing the bridegroom to be the marquis, Nencio thinking it the servant. When the disguises are thrown off, Sandrina is shown to be married to her beloved Nanni. Vespina confesses her tricks, Filippo accepts the outcome, and Vespina looks forward to wedding the chastened Nencio.

So there you have it. When I mentally picture Vespina disguised as a notary, the picture which leaps to mind is Despina disguised as a notary (of all things) in Mozart's Così fan Tutte. Does the entire story not seem vaguely familiar somehow, or is it just me?

Chances are, when the work was completed in May, the Prince got a private showing, which would have been the premiére. The July production for Dowager Princess Maria Anna was also a hit, and Haydn and the performers got the 'shower of gold' which they received any time they did something especially well. The cover of the libretto is shown above; I notice the names of the librettist and the composer are conspicuous by their absence. This is often true out in the world of commercial opera, but apparently the custom held even in private.

The third showing took place, as we saw, on the first day of the visit of Empress Maria Theresia, September 1^st. By now the players must have been well-rehearsed! As I noted earlier, this was the occasion of Maria Theresia's oft-quoted line about visiting Eszterháza to see good opera. She may have been pandering to the assembled musicians, but she was right about one thing; it is a 'good opera'. It should also be mentioned here that this was to become the most popular opera Haydn wrote, judging by performances during his lifetime.

So, what about burlettas then? Burletta is the Italian for little joke. It was not unreasonable for Haydn to use the term for this type of opera, even though it was also used for such a large variety of other musical entertainments. It was used in the sense of intermezzo, such as we saw in the 1766 Intermezzo La Canterina. This is a far more substantial work than La Canterina though, and neither does it compare to the other major usage of the time, where in England it was used to name works which were of the sort which we would now call music hall productions, light satirical pieces with musical accompaniment. It is the root of Burlesque. Hard to know why Haydn chose that particular descriptor for this work, but it is certainly a musical comedy, and a fine one too! You should give it a try.

Next time, we will look at the master puppeteer in action.

Thanks for reading!