1790 – The Music part 2 - Better and better, hard to imagine!

Hob 3#	Opus #	Key	New Grove #	Instrument(s)	Notes
65	64 #1	C	48	2 Violins, Viola & Cello	Haydn's own order of composition is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 & 5, which is reflected in the New Grove numbers by Feder
68	64 #2	b	49	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
67	64 #3	Bb	50	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
66	64 #4	G	51	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
64	64 #6	Eb	52	2 Violins, Viola & Cello
63	64 #5	D	53	2 Violins, Viola & Cello

 

John Bland - Op 64/65

Tucked quietly away in the niche between the revolutionary Opus 33 quartets and the gigantic Opus 76 are some wonderful works of the sort which make Haydn unsurpassed as a composer of quartets. One of these several sets of six has acquired a reputation among musicians and musicologists as being pretty much perfect. Learned, but not too learned. Cutting edge for the time, and yet not avant-garde either. Opus 64 is yet another fruit of 1790, a year which is proving to be of great interest for us, both musically and historically.

As is usual with Haydn's quartets, there is little notice of their beginnings, and in this case, very little documentation of their completion, even. No extant letters to publishers nor to aristocrats. Floyd and Margaret Grave make a few inferences from their structure: there is little or none of the sorts of attention-getting musical devices which are used in later quartets for public performance, thus they were most likely completed before such a prospect presented itself, that is, before the death of the Prince. All we have to go by are five of the six autographs, all dated by Haydn "'790".

Once again, as with Op 54/55 and some of the symphonies (88 & 89), we see the involvement of Johann Tost. With almost no background documentation, musicologists are rightly loathe to comment on how all of this works. You will see me hanging from that limb very shortly though!

Leopold Koželuch, composer & publisher

One of the first publications appears to have been by Sieber in Paris. As you recall, this was the connection which Tost made in 1787 when he sold Op 54/55 and the symphonies, along with the Gyrowetz symphony for good measure. As was his custom, Sieber broke the set in half and published it as two groups of three (Opp. 64/65). The actual first publication was in Vienna though, and not by anyone we've run across before. Leopold Koželuch was a highly popular Viennese composer and music teacher to the social set. He was, in fact, Mozart's main rival for popularity (= income) in 1780's Vienna. In 1784 Koželuch founded his own publishing firm (Musikalisches Magazin). It not only provided an ideal vehicle for publication of his own compositions, it also allowed him to publish those works of whichever of his contemporaries he could enlist. Thus, he published Mozart, for example, and here we see a coup for him: he published Haydn's Opus 64!

It is possible the route of these works to Vienna was through Paris, since Koželuch had solid contacts throughout Europe, notably in Paris (Boyer and Sieber among names we know), London (Longman and Bland likewise), and Amsterdam. But Koželuch's came out in April of 1791, while Sieber's, not until June. As we will see, Haydn was not in Vienna in April, 1791, and so the accompanying dedication "To Johann Tost" wouldn't have crossed his radar. As a further 'out of chronology' side note to this, the second edition, published in Vienna in 1793, when Haydn was in Vienna, did not contain this dedication. Even though the order of the works differs between Sieber and Koželuch, the actual texts of them is virtually identical, indicating they came from the same source, which we postulate to be Tost. The only other major publication was that by Bland, also in June, 1791, and its text differs somewhat, probably because it was provided from Haydn's own manuscripts, which he brought to London with him.

Perhaps you remember this letter I published during the discussion of the sonata for Marianne Genzinger?

[To MARIA ANNA VON GENZINGER, VIENNA. in German]

Estoras, 6th June 1790.

Nobly born, Most esteemed and kindest Frau von Gennzinger !

…snip…
Between ourselves! I must inform Your Grace that our Mademoiselle Nanette* has commissioned me to compose a new pianoforte Sonata for you, but which no one else can own. I esteem myself fortunate to have received such a command. I shall deliver the Sonata to Your Grace in a fortnight at the latest….

…snip…
 *NANETTE was (Maria) ANNA De JERLISCHECK, who took over as (not as mundane as it sounds) Chief Housekeeper after the death of the Princess. After the death of the Prince, she married Johann Tost.

This period, in June, 1790, was also the time when Haydn is believed to have been heavily at work on Opus 64. But there are other letters, which I haven't yet published, between Haydn and Genzinger, in which Nanette is mentioned, and they lead one to wonder at the sort of hold which she had on Haydn. He certainly seems to be somewhat in awe:

On June 20^th:

…The day before yesterday I delivered the new Sonata to Mademoiselle Nanette, my patroness; I had hoped that she would express a wish to hear me play this Sonata, but up to now I have not received any such order, and for this reason I also do not know whether Your Grace will receive this Sonata in today's mail or not…

And in the same letter:

N. B. Mademoiselle Nanette must know nothing of the fact that this Sonata was already half completed, for otherwise she might get the wrong impression of me, and this might be very disadvantageous for me, since I must be very careful not to lose her favor.

Then, on June 27^th:

3 days ago I had to play this Sonata at Mademoiselle Nanette's in the presence of my gracious Prince. At first I rather doubted, because of its difficulty, whether I would receive any applause, but was soon convinced of the contrary, inasmuch as I was given a gold tobacco box as a present from [her] own hand.

There are many more examples like these, many of which date from the next month, when Haydn was finally picking out a Schanz fortepiano for Marianne, which was paid for by the Prince, through Nanette's agency, yet again. Clearly, this was a woman of power. Haydn, a very astute judge of which way the wind blows, made every effort to remain on her good side. And after the death of the Prince in late September, she married Johann Tost. Interesting!

Tost was a musician, but much like Haydn, he had more than his share of entrepreneurial spirit. Once he left the Prince's employ, he set himself up in a quiet little business of buying music works from composers and selling them to publishers. Not on a huge scale, but enough to get by when coupled with his income as a cloth merchant and his fortuitous marriage to the wealthy Nanette De Jerlischeck. He was well-known in Vienna as a friend to music. As an example, when Mozart's Eb String Quintet (K 614) was published, posthumously, in Vienna in May 1793 by Artaria along with the one in D major (K 593, composed in 1790), the edition's title page noted that the works had been "Composto per un Amatore Ongarese" (Composed for a Hungarian Amateur), the outcome, according to an advertisement in Die Wiener Zeitung, of "the earnest solicitation of a musical friend." Constanze Mozart said that the Hungarian was Johann Tost, who was born in Uherské Hradisté (actually in Moravia, today part of the Czech Republic). In his biography of Mozart, Ivor Keys speculates that Haydn, out of concern for Mozart's financial woes, may have been the "musical friend" mentioned in the newspaper announcement as the person who encouraged Tost to commission the two quintets. Given what we will see later when we review the events of the last part of 1790, along with what we know of Haydn, this rings elegantly true.

So now we come to the part where we put the pieces together and try to make sense of Opus 64. It goes without saying there are thousands of books, essays and doctoral theses published every year, and it is likely that someone, somewhere, published these thoughts already, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. So here is how I think things went.

Since Haydn had already dipped his toe in the waters, so to speak, of having Tost front for him with publishers, I believe he would have evaluated the experience, seen the problems, which mostly came from his own efforts at competing with Tost (and losing the profits from Artaria on Opp. 54/55 in the bargain), and decided to let Tost take them and do the selling himself. Probably with the understanding to stay away from the deal already in place with Bland in England. So, Tost commissioned them, gave Haydn a nice piece of money up front, and then used his connections with publishers to get them published for a nice return on his investment. What would the historical perspective have looked like if it all came about this way?

• Haydn would have taken care of Bland (check);
• Tost would have taken care of Paris and Vienna with no sign of Haydn's machinations (check and check).
• Haydn would have found it highly beneficial to maintain a mutually respectful relationship with Tost's fiancée, who was also the Chief of Household for his boss; (check).
• This is all beginning to look promising as a premise, I think. Occam's Razor, of which my favorite version is stated by Bertrand Russell, is particularly apt here: Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities. (check)
  

So what of the music then? What do these six 'nearly perfect' quartets consist in?

Op. 64	Hob. III	1st mvmt. Tempo	2nd mvmt. Tempo	3rd mvmt. Tempo	4th mvmt. Tempo
		Key | Meter	Key | Meter	Key | Meter	Key | Meter
#1	65	Allegro moderato	Allegretto ma non troppo	Allegretto scherzando	Presto
		C | 2/2	C / c | 3/4	F | 2/4	C | 6/8
#2	68	Allegro spiritoso	Adagio ma non troppo	Allegretto	Presto
		b | 4/4	B | 3/4	b / B | 3/4	b / B | 2/4
#3	67	Vivace assai	Adagio	Allegretto	Allegro con spirito
		Bb | 3/4	Eb | 2/4	Bb | 3/4	Bb | 2/4
#4	66	Allegro con brio	Allegretto	Adagio: Cantabile e sostenuto	Presto
		G | 4/4	G | 3/4	C | 2/4	G | 6/8
#5	63	Allegro moderato	Adagio cantabile	Allegretto	Vivace
		D | 2/2	A | 3/4	D / d | 3/4	D | 2/4
#6	64	Allegro	Andante	Allegretto	Presto
		Eb | 2/2	Bb | 3/4	Eb | 3/4	Eb | 2/4

If Haydn hadn't turned over the marketing of this opus to Tost, we would almost be looking around for the equivalent of some "new and special way" letters to be sent out! The similarities are striking, to say the least. To point out only the most obvious, this pair (i.e. - Opp. 33 & 64) are the only ones of all the quartets with the same home keys (C, b, Bb, G, Eb & D). Surely no coincidence there. Another point of return to the past involves the sequence of movements in #1 & 4; the minuet/trio come as the second rather than the now-standard third movement, not seen since Opus 33 (& 42). Finally, both of the b minor quartets open with the same sort of gambit, which involves leaving a tone missing so you can easily think it is in D major (the relative major of b minor), and not confirming b minor until later on.

I haven't seen any convincing explanation of why Haydn might want to revisit the past, if indeed he was doing so. We have seen from time to time where he has incorporated earlier ideas and devices into new works, sometimes with great effect. One of these, for example, is the 1775 trio of the minuet of Symphony Hob 68, where he moved the upbeats in relation to the bar lines so the beat is very difficult to find. He reused this same idea in 1789 in Symphony #92 where it was effective enough to be a highlight of the work! Or in the very same symphony, where we see for the first time the prominent ostinato beat which we would see again in Symphony #101, which gave it the name The Clock. Haydn had no fear of storing good ideas for a rainy day.

But this doesn't seem to be the case here, there don't seem to be any reinterpretations of previous thoughts. The only commonality, and it is peripheral at best, that I can see is this one: in Opus 33, all of the "minuets" were scherzos of a sort. In Opus 64, all of the slow movements are variations of a sort. It is the only time Haydn ever did either one of those things. The final thought I have is this: if there are indeed 'rough patches' in Opus 33 (and who would know better than Haydn?), then they were certainly smoothed out here. Opus 64 is virtually flawless, it spans the range of potential for the genre, it is perfectly balanced in true Classic style. If you are among those who hasn't got to know this group, you need to change that; soon!

Next time, we will sing!

Thanks for reading!