It is impossible, of course, to sum up an entire, productive, year with a few extracts from correspondence. But letters were a big part of the year, and we start out with these three letters to present a snapshot which is surprisingly encompassing.
[To ARTARIA & Co., VIENNA. German]
Estoras, 1st March 1784.
Dearest and best friend !
The day after tomorrow, this coming Wednesday, you shall certainly receive the Lieder. Yesterday my opera Armida was performed for the 2nd time with general applause. I am told that this is my best work up to now. ….
respectfully,
Your wholly obedient servant,
Haydn
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[To NADERMANN, MUSIC PUBLISHER IN PARIS* (in German)]
Nobly born, Most highly respected Sir !
Since you, good Sir, accepted three of my Symphonies last year, I offer you once again three brand new Symphonies, very diligently composed and neatly and correctly copied, for the price of 15 ducats; I would deliver them by the end of November. If, good Sir, you accept this offer, I shall devote my energies to delivering to you at the first opportunity the pianoforte piece which you asked for in your last letter. In the hope of receiving the favor of an early reply I am, with the most sincere esteem, Sir,Your wholly obedient servant,
Josephus Haydn.
Estoras, October 25th, 1784
*Nadermann bought out Boyer, who had bought Haydn's works in 1783 following the letter we saw.
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[To FRANZ PHILIPP VON WEBER, Hofsecretaire AND MASTER OF CEREMONIES AT THE MASONIC LODGE "ZUR WAHREN EINTRACHT", VIENNA (German)]
[Only the signature autograph]
Nobly born, Most highly respected Herr Hoff Secretaire,
The highly advantageous impression which Freemasonry has made on me has long awakened in my breast the sincerest wish to become a member of the Order, with its humanitarian and wise principles. I turn to you, Sir, with the most urgent request that you have the kindness to intervene on my behalf with the Lodge of the Order, in order to implement this, my petition, as indicated above.
I have the honor to remain, with profound esteem,
Josephus Haydn
CapellMeister to Prince Esterházy.
Vienna, the 29th of the Christmas Month, 1784.
In our first piece of a letter, we see two events which have occupied Haydn for a good while; the culmination of the three year gestation of the second group of 12 Lieder for Keyboard. I don't imagine he foresaw in 1781 that it would be March, 1784 before they were complete. Busy fellow! The second, and larger, event was, of course, the production of Armida. The first performance was February 26, 1784, and fifty-four more performances followed, through 1789, easily making this his most successful work at home.
There were 104 opera performances in '84. The season began with the premiere of Armida, but it wasn't the only opera seria of the season. After last year's Giulio Sabino by Sarti got the ball rolling, this year his La Didone abbandonata followed with 9 performances. Like Armida, and something which I didn't mention last year, this opera used a crowd of 'extras', including 24 of the Prince's grenadiers to stage the battle scenes; twelve were 'Moors' and twelve others were 'Trojans'. The premiere had to be postponed for two days so the soldiers could take fencing lessons. Times change!
Also on the list were the usual dramma giocoso comedies from such familiar names as Pasquale Anfossi, Domenico Cimarosa and Francesco Bianchi, and reruns of popular favorites by Sarti, Haydn, Cimarosa and Paisiello. One other opera besides Armida which was a big hit for the year was Luigi Bologna's L'isola di Calipso abbandonata ('Calypso's Desert Isle'), which, with 41 performances by 1789, became #2 on the All-Time Top Hits after Armida.
We haven't spoken about drama in quite a while, but it would be a pity to overlook the Diwald German Theatrical Troupe. There are at least a dozen different plays performed this year by German playwrights, and even two Shakespearean translations, those perennial favorites, Macbeth and Hamlet.
One of the great documentary benefits for opera researchers came in 1784, when, for unknown reasons, Haydn made a list of the operas he had on hand and ready for performance at the time. There are 73 titles, including 11 of his own! In addition, there are five marionette operas. I am not planning to follow this up in detail here and now, just making note of the information and marveling at the fortuity of the survival of this unusual document.
There was certainly other music for the year, also. On January 31, Artaria announced the publication of 14 Menuets de Ballabili (Hob 9:7), scored for Flute, 2 Oboes, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, Timpani & Strings. It is fortunate I am not given to ranting, because like so many others of Haydn's dances, these haven't been recorded, and this despite the fact of the scores being easily available! If that isn't worth a rant, I don't know what is! It wouldn't take much over three or four CD's in a box for some small period instruments orchestra to be able to release the entire oeuvre of dances and marches. But no, we are much more in need of more London Symphonies; they have barely been touched yet…
Adam Elsheimer c1610
Sorry about that. This year, Tonkünstler-Societät (Musicians' Society) asked Haydn to reprise his successful oratorio of 1775, Il ritorno di Tobia. He thoroughly revised the work, making substantial cuts in the longer numbers to tighten up the action, and also composing two outstanding new choruses. It was performed in Vienna in March (22 & 29). To show how widespread Haydn's fame was becoming, the original version was being performed in the Court of Portugal in Lisbon on the 19th!
It is believed by many musicologists that these performances are where Haydn finally actually met Mozart. Players for this version included some names well known from Mozart's later operas; Nancy Storace, Catharina Cavalieri and Valentin Adamberger. Also Carl Friberth came back and did the 2nd performance, reprising his role as Tobia from nine years earlier. Once again, and probably more deservedly, the oratorio was an outstanding success and raised a considerable sum for the Society.
Given my particular tastes in history and music, one event of 1784 has intrigued me more than any other since I first read of it years ago. Another name which frequently shows up with Nancy Storace's in any discussion of Mozart in the 1780's is that of an Irish tenor named Michael Kelly. He was a highly successful singer and usually played the lead role opposite Storace. He was also prominent on the musical/social scene and knew everyone and everything going on in Vienna. In 1826 he published his autobiographical Reminiscences in which appears this intriguing paragraph which has colored the relationship of Mozart and Haydn ever since:
[Stephen] Storace (Nancy's brother) gave a quartet party for his friends. The players were tolerable; not one of them excelled on the instrument he played, but there was a little science between them, which I dare say will be acknowledged when I name them:
The 1st Violin …………….. Haydn
The 2nd Violin ……………. Baron Dittersdorf
The Violoncello …..…...…. Vanhal
The Tenor (Viola) …...…… Mozart
The poet Casti and Paisiello formed part of the audience. I was there, and a greater treat, or a more remarkable one, cannot be imagined.
On the particular evening to which I am now specially referring, after the musical feast was over, we sat down to an excellent supper and became joyous and lively in the extreme…
Hard for any music lover to read this and not wish to have been there! Given the time between the event and the recounting of it, musicologists ever since (in a fit of jealousy, I'd wager) have questioned aspects of this story. For me, the swapping of the roles of the violinists would be the only thing I would offer. Ditters was one of the preeminent violinists of the time, and Haydn would have been delighted to play second fiddle to his old friend. No one seems to doubt it happened though, and to me, the light it casts on what was entertainment for musicians and specifically how the relationship between Haydn and Mozart could have been conducted within the limited time available to Haydn. Another thing lending credibility to the story, in my view, is the members of the audience. Casti was a librettist, Court Poet Laureate in fact, and Paisiello was in town to set one of Casti's opera librettos, Il re Teodoro in Venezia. Shortly after this, Kelly and a couple of friends went off to Eszterháza for a three-day visit with Haydn, and he tells of the Prince sending them out for a tour of the grounds in a carriage with Haydn as guide. 1784 was the year the estate was finally completed, and by Kelly's description, the Prince had every right to be very proud of his accomplishment.
Haydn was also paying the price of fame, which is that famous people get written about, true or not. European Magazine, in October 1784, published a long, anonymous, article about him. It is so full of errors, it becomes easy to see why there were so many misconceptions about the real Haydn. One in particular, a totally bizarre criticism, had some influence at the time, although it was later discredited. It accuses C.P.E. Bach of being part of a cabal who criticized Haydn's music (in the late 1760's and early '70's). It goes on to say Haydn never complained about it, but his answer to their criticism was as follows here:
This anecdote will account for a number of strange passages that are here and there dispersed throughout several of the sonatas that have been reprinted in England from the German copies, of which we shall point out the few following passages by way of illustration. Among others, Six Sonatas for the Piano-forte or Harpsichord, Opera 13 & 14, are expressly composed to ridicule (C.P.E.) Bach of Hamburg. No one can peruse the second part of the second sonata of Op 13, and the whole of the third sonata in the same work, and believe Haydn to be in earnest, writing from his own natural genius, and committing his chaste and original thoughts on paper. On the contrary, the style of Bach is closely copied, without the passages being stolen, in which the capricious manner, odd breaks, whimsical modulations and often very childish manner, mixed with an affectation of science, are finally hit off and burlesqued.
This bizarre story, which goes on at length, really must be read in its entirety to be fully appreciated. The sonatas referred to here, Hummel's Op 13 & 14, are the ones we know today as Hob 16:21-26 (Op 13) and 27-32 (Op 14).
And as we began with letters, so we also end with some. Bach actually wrote this open letter to the Hamburg Unpartheiische Korrespondent to refute some of the greater bizarreries which pertained specifically to him:
My way of thought and my occupations have never allowed me to write against anyone: the more I was astonished about a passage in a recent article in The European Magazine in England, where I am accused in a mendacious, crude and shameful way of having written against the good Herr Haydn. According to my news from Vienna and even from members of the Esterházy Kapelle who came to me, I must believe that this worthy man, whose works continue give me much pleasure, is surely as much my friend as I am his. According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value.
Hamburg, 14th September, 1785 C.P.E. Bach
While such scurrilous writings are amusing today in retrospect, at the time, when information traveled more slowly (note to youngsters reading this: this was 1784 BB (Before Broadband)), a lot of damage to people's reputations was done this way. Note also the dates; it was fully a year before Bach's reply was published, another sign of the pace of information exchange!
The final event of the year also has fateful overtones, since we have the benefit of knowing the future. On December 18, Emanuel Schikaneder and his German opera company presented, at the Kärntnerthortheater, a German translation of Haydn's La fedeltà premiata. The Emperor and the whole court were there, according to newspaper reports. So were the Mozarts.
The Wiener Zeitung reported 'the house was so full six hundred people had to be turned away'.
And the Wiener Blättchen writer says 'with the excellent music of a Haiden and the right performance of it, the work could not fail to gain general applause'.
Finally, the Wienerische Kronik chimed in on the general chorus with 'on Dec. 18 Schikaneder and Kumpf gave an opera, Die belohnte Treue by Haydn, this man who is just as unappreciated as Handel whom the English, after his death, gave a place in the royal vaults of Westminster Abbey so that, as a wit observed, posterity could know where the kings of England lie'.
And not to forget to mention, in 1784 Haydn received a commission to compose six symphonies for Paris. If you recall our last letter, reproduced at the beginning of this novella, Haydn applied for membership in the Freemasons, obviously after giving it some thought and talking to people in the Society. Within just a short time, the Masonic lodge in Paris solicited business from him. Coincidence? We shall see in due time.
So, 1784 promises to be a big year, let's go ahead and have a look at the fine music Haydn produced for it. Next time, three secret symphonies.
Thanks for reading!