1783 – The Music part 1 - Play it as written, please

Hob. #	Genre	Key	Number	Instrument(s)	Notes
7b:2	Concerto	D	2	Solo Cello, 2 Oboes, 2 Horns in D & Strings	Composed for Antonin Kraft

The title page of Haydn's autograph Concerto in D for Cello

One of the things which I have learned so far while writing these essays is how generous Haydn was with his music. We see in this year Kraus talking about Haydn being all about the money, and at the same time, we see him, yet again, writing a concerto for a comrade, very likely one which didn't net him a kreutzer.

A common criticism of Haydn has long been that he struggled with concertos. There are some simple, historical facts here which are either conveniently ignored or else tossed in as appeasement for the thinkers to mull. Ones such as 'well, he said, himself, he was no virtuoso, so it follows he wouldn't have been able to compose for one…' is an example. This conveniently overlooks a couple of facts; Haydn's personal humility would have never allowed him to brag about his playing ability, which was apparently prodigious on several instruments, even if not in the 'traveling virtuoso' class. The second is the clear fact of the virtuoso quality of his writing in other forms. His symphonies contain parts which simply didn't travel well because they are too hard! His string quartets likewise. His keyboard sonatas, often said to sound easy, are attested to by modern masters as being, like Mozart's, easy to play but very difficult to play correctly.

Another theory, one which I subscribed to for a long time, involves the probability that not a whole lot of virtuosos made their way to and through Eszterháza and thus there was simply no reason to write concertos. There is absolutely no indication of Nicholas ever asking for or wanting to hear a concerto, after all. However, we do hear of meetings in Vienna with the occasional master, and this may have initiated works such as Hob 18:11, the keyboard concerto in D. My current thinking on this subject is much simpler, perhaps underrated for that reason; when Haydn started writing 'classical concertos', the genre hadn't been invented yet. It was clear to anyone paying attention back in the 1750's, and Haydn was certainly one of these, that the Baroque concerto was simply not cutting it anymore in this advanced galant era. But this doesn't mean there was a ready replacement right at hand. And so it fell to this generation, including Haydn, Ditters, Boccherini and others, to work out a new concerto form. And while it didn't happen overnight, by the time Mozart sent keyboard concertos into the stratosphere of popularity, he wasn't working from a blank slate, he was perfecting a form which had been built by the generation before.

But the largest single purpose for these compositions which we know about is as vehicles for friends or band members to play, possibly not at Eszterháza at all. The violin concertos for Tomasini, the first cello concerto for Weigl, the horn concerto for Leutgeb, all of those fall into this category, as do the lost Violone Concerto, and probably the Concerto for 2 Horns. Weigl was one of the finest cellists of his time and left the Esterházy employ for Vienna where he became a well-known man-about-town. He was replaced, eventually, by Xavier Marteau, another first rate cellist who gained lasting fame by knocking out the eye of the Princely oboist with his ring. But from 1778 until the disbanding of the orchestra in 1790, the first chair cello was manned by a Bohemian of extraordinary talent named Antonin Kraft. And in 1783, Kraft, by now a composition student and good friend of Haydn, became the recipient of this Concerto in D.

Throughout the 19^th century and the first half of the 20^th, this was one of those works 'attributed to Haydn'. It was even speculated to have been written by Kraft himself. In fact, its story is much like that of the C major Cello Concerto composed for Weigl, in that no manuscript was known until the original was found in Prague 1962! The original score (parts, actually) of this work, title page pictured above, was found in 1954 and it proved indisputably to be by Haydn.

di me, giuseppe Haydn - '783
by me, Joseph Haydn - 1783

Here is a thumbnail look at this work, which will be followed (spoiler alert!) by a brief look at how it was nearly ruined by the Romantics' efforts at 'modernizing' it, along with a brief advert for authentic performance.

The concerto is in three movements:

I	Allegro moderato	D major	4/4
II	Adagio	A major	2/4
III	Rondo: Allegro	D major	6/8

It is emblematic of Haydn's style, always but especially in the 1780's, that even the most technically demanding parts are written in a way which doesn't accentuate the difficulty. This is not one of Haydn's most difficult works, but the solo part is very challenging in the first and last movements because of the double stops and octaves. It is technically demanding without being overtly virtuosic, the epitome of Classic Style. It needs to be played by a cellist who can handle the subtle virtuosity without being concerned over showing off.

Instead of concentrating on building and releasing tension, which is the essence of tonal sonata form, Haydn instead makes the first movement seem almost leisurely, and holds the orchestra in check so they don't overrun the soloist. The second movement is cantabile, the cellist needs to make his instrument sing! Not always the easiest thing to do well, and so another opportunity for subtle showing off. The finale is a Rondo, the opening 'A' theme stated by the cello and built from there. The initial theme is a sort of pastoral, folksy tune, and the rondo capitalizes on this simplicity by making the return of the cello part more and more challenging each time. The ending is a very quiet closure of a final statement of the theme. No fireworks or cadenzas.

It is interesting to read Landon's take on the subject of this (and other) concertos by Haydn (C & W II – p 570). He doesn't like it, no question about it. In fact, he goes as far as to say there has never been a good cello concerto (excepting Haydn's in C) by anyone, anywhere, anytime. It must be the cello is not suited to be a solo concerto instrument. Whew! The pity is that he failed to use this opportunity to tell us about this work and 'sell it' in favor of a diatribe against the entire genre based solely on his personal taste.

In 1837, a publication in Germany, quoting Kraft's son, Nicholas, also a famous cellist, said that this work was actually written by Kraft. Since the only available print score by André had been published in 1804, and contained some uncharacteristic, un-Haydnish markings, this idea was seized on to make the work less certain in provenance. What is actually shown is a fine example of collaboration between composer and performer to make the work play in a way which is totally customized to the player's strengths and abilities. Two examples which the 19^th century might have understood would be the collaboration of Ferdinand David with Mendelssohn and equally, that of Joseph Joachim with Brahms, on their violin concertos. They didn't 'compose' anything, they provided technical advice on how to make the work more idiomatic for the player. In a superb essay on this concerto and its existence in the late 19^th century, Dr. George Kennaway (Haydn's (?) Cello Concertos, 1860-1930: Editions, Performances, Reception) shows us comparative prints of the score as restated by the various editors and cellists of the day. When people today discuss period performance and the subject of 'Romanticizing' the score comes up, those of us who aren't musicians are sometimes knocked out of the discussion because we can hear a difference but are unable to describe what actually has happened here. Kennaway's use of a two-measure sample from several different 'versions' shows dramatically how alterations, concatenated from one to the next, change the entire rhythmic structure and add virtuosity for its own sake, exactly what Haydn and Kraft were avoiding! And the addition of more and more instruments to match an orchestra of 1900, for example, completely strips a work like this of its charm and its entire reason for being: to be a subtly virtuosic vehicle for a special player. The music itself simply can't stand up to that treatment.

We are now in an age of a return to nature, so to speak, and this work is being played from the original text. It is fair to say it is miles better this way, and it isn't an affectation to prefer this to what was available in the first three quarters of the 20^th century. Give it a try, using one of the recordings pictured here, and you might find yourself disagreeing with Landon and saying, instead; the cello is a marvelous solo concerto instrument when played as written!

Next time we will look at what was going on with the keyboard this year.

Thanks for reading!