1783 – The Year of Kraus & the Princess

Joseph Martin Kraus - (1756 - 1792)

With this year, we finally arrive at the time in Haydn's biography when we find more documentation about his relationship with Artaria & Co. than we do with the Prince. Since they are hard to escape these days, I have read a variety of essays on the 19^th century's rather chilly reception of Haydn. You probably have too, at least about this part: Haydn was belittled because he was a lackey of the Establishment, so to speak, and he wrote only by command of the Prince. One of the major fallacies in this argument is something I am pointing out here for the first time, as far as I've ever read, something which has been virtually ignored by most, if not all, of these chroniclers of 19^th century foolishness: nearly every bit of Haydn's music that was known to these 19^th century critics was music which he wrote for publication, thus it was public, thus it had nothing to do with the Prince. All the symphonies from #76 forward, for example. All of the then-known keyboard trios, the Seven Last Words, all of the string quartets, all of the keyboard sonatas after this year; in short, they would have been very hard-pressed to even name a work Haydn wrote for the Prince. The only exception I can think of is The Six Late Masses; well, someone always has to commission masses. This should make one think.

In addition to this year's new music, Haydn had an ongoing project with Artaria to publish older music, usually in an updated format which was more saleable to the general public, Artaria's bread and butter. Thus we see a piano reduction of the Laudon Symphony:

[To ARTARIA & Co., VIENNA. German]

                                    Estoras, 8th April 1783.

Nobly born, Most highly respected Sir !

I send you herewith the Symphony, Sir, which was so full of mistakes that the fellow who wrote it ought to have his paw [Bratze] chopped off. The last or 4th movement is not practicable for the pianoforte and I don't think it necessary to include it in print: the word "Laudon" will contribute more to the sale than any ten finales. My continued unhappy condition, that is, the present necessity to operate on a polypus on my nose, made it impossible for me to work up until now. You must therefore have patience about the Lieder for another week, or at most a fortnight, until my enfeebled head, with God's help, regains its former vigor….

Your wholly obedient servant,
Joseph Haydn

If you have read any other correspondence from a composer to his publisher, these letters are an amusing precursor, most especially to those of Beethoven. Someone has to be Quality Control. Among many other items on the table are additional piano reductions, and six of the Baryton Octets which were rescored for Flute, 2 Horns and Strings as Op 31. Last year, six overtures from operas: L'isola disabitata, L'incontro improvviso, Lo speziale, La vera costanza, L'infedelta delusa & Il ritorno di Tobia were also turned over to Artaria, some with finales composed to replace the segue into Act I.

Of course, there is never a time when Haydn isn't busy being an opera maestro. It is his bread and butter. There are records for 105 opera performances this year, Many are names we have seen before; the Prince liked his buffa, although it seems as though Haydn was looking for something a bit more on the serious side. So we see the following new operas in the list for the year:

Pietro Guglielmi	Il ratto della sposa	3 performances
Vincenzo Righini	La vedova scaltra	14 performances
Domenico Cimarosa	L'Italiana in Londra	5 performances
	Il falegname	3 performances
Giuseppe Sarti	Giulio Sabino	20 performances
	Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode ("While Two Dispute, the Third Enjoys")	10 performances

In addition, there were repeated operas from earlier seasons, including, of course, Haydn's most recent, Orlando paladino, and La fedeltà premiata. We don't have any surviving insertion arias from this year, but as always, the scores of the operas are heavily edited, obviously heavily 'customized'.

A fine disk with both symphonies

From a personal, i.e. non-business, point of view, probably the most interesting event of 1783 was a visit to Vienna and Eszterháza by the young German/Swedish composer Joseph Martin Kraus. Kraus was sent on an extended Grand Tour of the musical centers of Europe by his patron, King Gustav III, in order to allow him to survey the state of music in such places as Vienna, Naples and Paris. At some point in April, while in Vienna, he saw a rather poor performance of Haydn's Stabat Mater. But in October he showed up at Eszterháza and spent some time there. He presented a symphony of his own composition to the Prince, which received its world premiere under Haydn's baton. Now called VB 143 in D major, it is brilliant, as all of Kraus's works are. Kraus also presented the Prince with a copy of his c minor symphony (VB 142) to which he added the parts for a second pair of horns especially for the Eszterháza Orchestra. If you know Kraus' music, his original c # minor symphony (VB 140) is perhaps his most compelling symphonic work. For this occasion, he transposed it down to c minor and left out the minuet, for artistic reasons known only to him, and brought it with him on his tour. A couple of comments from both sides of this meeting have lived on. Haydn later said that Kraus was 'the first genius I ever met', indicating his relationship with Mozart was still in its early stages, perhaps. Kraus wrote in his travel diary how enjoyable his stay in Eszterháza had been, and what a 'right good soul' Haydn was, except for his compelling interest in money. I don't know how much can be made of this; the difference in their backgrounds goes a long way towards giving a varying point of view on the value of making money!

No other great, momentous events pop up this year, it was life as usual, or what passed for usual in the early '80's. Perhaps it is the undocumented aspects of Haydn's life which had the most influence on him; he is reading more texts on Enlightenment themes, discussing Freemasonry with his salon cronies, thinking about how to apply these to his music. One wonders to what extent these social thoughts, which were sweeping Europe at the time, might be applied to music, specifically to Haydn. The old canard that Haydn had little or no involvement in anything but writing music is patently false, but to what extent did his personal, moral code influence what he put on paper? This is something to look at, something which could cause a person to reevaluate just what morality represented to the 18^th century. I will be looking at this, I would challenge you to do the same. You might find it compellingly interesting.

Next time, a look at the music: a famous cello concerto, more Lieder, keyboard sonatas for the young Princess and a Dramma eroico which has all the earmarks of opera seria...

Thanks for reading!