1795 – The Year part 6 - Great things come in smallish packets

Hob. 08#	Genre	Key		Name		Instruments
01	March	Eb		Derbyshire #1		2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, Trumpet & Serpent
02	March	C		Derbyshire #2		2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, 2 Horns, Trumpet & Serpent
Hob. 26a#	Genre		Key		Title		Voice
31	Canzonetta		A		Sailor's Song		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
32	Canzonetta		g		The Wanderer		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
33	Canzonetta		E		Sympathy		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
34	Canzonetta		Ab		She never told her love		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
35	Canzonetta		G		Piercing Eyes		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
36	Canzonetta		A		Content		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
41	Canzonetta		f		The Spirit's Song		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard
42	Canzonetta		Eb		O Tuneful Voice		Soprano or Tenor w/Keyboard

George IV Entering Dublin in 1821
by William Turner de Lond
Accompanied by a Mounted Cavalry Band, perhaps
playing Haydn's 'March for the Prince of Wales'?

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As I mentioned last time, 1795 was a much bigger year for smaller music than for the large music we were expecting. One of the things we have learned so far over the years is that Haydn seems to have put as much effort and ingenuity into his smaller works as he did in the largest ones. He certainly left himself plenty of opportunities for that here.

There is a genre which I am enamored of, and which Haydn certainly wrote a goodly amount of music in, but sadly, little of it has survived. Marches for military wind band have a tendency to be ephemeral. Prince Esterházy had a wind band during the entire time Haydn worked for him, and Count Morzin had one before that. There can be no doubt about Haydn writing any number you wish to place here of pieces for them, but scarcely a dozen can be heard today. In 1792, we heard the marvelous march which Haydn composed for the Prince of Wales. This year, we find this rather odd story in Dies' biography. Haydn actually does get the times in the story mixed up, or maybe Dies does, but as for the rest of the tale...

[From Joseph Haydn: 18^th century Gentleman & Genius by Vernon Gotwals*]

[Dies: 20^th visit, 17 May 1806]
[snip]…he received a visit from an officer who was, to be sure, very polite but no friend of small talk, and who briefly stated the purpose of his visit. He wished that Haydn might compose two military marches for him. Haydn excused himself, saying that the opera Orfeo [NB (me) – undoubtedly not so. Perhaps Symphony 103/104?] left him no extra time, that he only wrote when he was in the right humor for it, and could not know whether the estro musicale [musical inspiration] would take him early or late. He would—if it were agreeable—get a competent composer to write them under his personal supervision.

"The marches must be by you. If I had wanted what you are proposing, I should not have come to you."

While the officer was saying that, his hand played with the guineas in his pocket, now and then gathering up a handful and letting them roll back again in the pocket.

"The sound of the gold," said Haydn, "reminded me that England was to be my land of opportunity, so I asked him how much time he was allowing me to wait for the estro."

"A fortnight. And the price?"

"Fifty guineas."

"Here is my hand on it; I shall come on the appointed day."

Haydn completed the marches. The officer came, Haydn sat down at the pianoforte and played the first march (E flat major) with his usual expressive performance. The officer, motionless as a statue, listened.

"He doesn't like it," thought Haydn. The playing ended. The officer said as coldly as possible, "Ancor una volta" [Play it again!]

Haydn, not knowing what to make of it, played the march a second time, and redoubled his powers in the playing, while casting a furtive glance toward the officer's countenance in the hope of reading approval there. Not a trace of it! When he had ended, the officer stood up. Haydn thought, "He will not hear the second march even once." Meanwhile the officer brought a roll of fifty guineas out of his pocket, handed it over to the astonished Haydn, and still saying nothing, took the one march and started to go away.

"Don't you want to hear the second march too?"

"No," the officer replied, "it can't possibly be better than the first. Farewell! Tomorrow I sail for America."

Sir Henry (Harpur) Crewe
7th Baronet (1763-1819) -
by Sir Thomas Lawrence

This story seems to be a combination of things as they actually happened, and things which Haydn later filled in with details as he remembered them. Sir Henry Harpur, who commissioned the works, was the Sheriff of Derbyshire, and also the founder of the Derbyshire Guards, a "body of Cavalry consisting of Gentlemen and Yeomen". It isn't known if the officer in the story is Harpur or one of his representatives, I rather think the latter. This organization occurred in 1794-95, and it was 1795 when he commissioned the marches from Haydn. The autographs still exist, one of them dated in Haydn's hand. Thus my assertion that Orfeo [L'anima filisofo](1791) is right out and it was possibly one of the late symphonies which had Haydn otherwise occupied at the time. The original printing which Harpur had made contains both marches in full orchestration as well as in piano arrangements, which are so well done that Landon feels they must have been by Haydn himself. This is congruent with the story Haydn told Dies. They are especially nice marches, although the lack of trios, which eliminates the need to repeat the opening makes them unduly short. As for me, I could easily stand them being five minutes each!

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DUKE ORSINO

And what's her history?

VIOLA

A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

Shakespeare – Twelfth Night - Act 2. Scene 4.

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Since Haydn first met Anne Hunter in 1791 or '92, they had been separated by circumstance until April, 1795. But in the meantime, Haydn's Six Original Canzonettas, published in 1794, had been a resounding success, and he had also been working on a second set. Anne almost certainly gave him the poems to set all at once, probably just before he left the first time in June (or early July?), 1792. We have spoken quite extensively about Haydn's great attraction to the English pianoforte. When you combine this with the English passion for home music making, it was a natural outlet for Haydn's creative power. Although he only completed three solo sonatas and the Piccolo Divertimento, they were, perhaps, his most inspired solo works. In addition, as we shall see in the immediate present, he wrote fifteen accompanied sonatas (keyboard trios) from 1793 to 1796, and at the very least, fourteen original songs and 150 Scottish National Songs. And these are just among the works which have survived, which we know is not everything. One could legitimately argue that most or all of these works would not have been composed had this fascination with the pianoforte not existed.

From a timeline of Anne Home-Hunter:
On 17 April [1795] Haydn visits Anne in Blackheath and she may have collaborated with him on his Second Sett of VI Original Canzonettas dedicated to Lady Charlotte Bertie, daughter [NB (me) recte: wife] of the Earl of Abingdon. Perhaps she gives him two poems that he later set to music: 'O Tuneful Voice' and 'The Spirit's Song'. Haydn leaves England for the last time.

Caroline Grigson - The Life and Poems of Anne Hunter - Haydn's Tuneful Voice

This may be the correct sequence of events, although current theory has Haydn already possessing all of the poems he was to get from Anne, which is ten. As far as we know, this is the only time Haydn saw Anne again after her husband died, although, as always, it is so very difficult to be sure. My own thought on what they were up to that April day involves the poems which were not by Anne. Her rich store of literature and great knowledge of poetry would have been an invaluable aid to Haydn in the selection of the four texts which she didn't write.

Hob 26a:31     Sailor’s Song – Anne Hunter High on the giddy bending mast The seaman furls the rending sail, And, fearless of the rushing blast, He careless whistles to the gale. Rattling ropes and rolling seas, Hurly-burly, hurly-burly, War nor death can him displease. The hostile foe his vessel seeks, High bounding o'er the raging main, The roaring cannon loudly speaks, 'Tis Britain's glory we maintain. Rattling ropes and rolling seas, Hurly-burly, hurly-burly, War nor death can him displease.	Hob 26a:32     The Wanderer – Anne Hunter To wander alone when the moon, faintly beaming With glimmering lustre, darts thro' the dark shade, Where owls seek for covert, and nightbirds complaining Add sound to the horror that darkens the glade. 'Tis not for the happy; come, daughter of sorrow, 'Tis here thy sad thoughts are embalm'd in thy tears, Where, lost in the past, disregarding tomorrow, There's nothing for hopes and nothing for fears.
Hob 26a:34     She Never Told Her Love – Shakespeare She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm in the bud, Feed on her damask cheek...; She sat, like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.	Hob 26a:33     Sympathy – Metastasio In thee I bear so dear a part, By love so firm, so firm am thine, That each affection of thy heart By sympathy is mine. When thou art griev'd, I grieve no less, My joys by thine are known, And ev'ry good thou would'st possess Becomes in wish my own.
Hob 26a:36     Content – poem/lyric by Anonymous (original title Transport of Pleasure, lyrics changed in 2nd edition but same music) Ah me, how scanty is my store! Yet, for myself, I'd ne'er repine, Tho' of the flocks that whiten o'er Yon plain one lamb were only mine. 'Tis for my lovely maid alone, This heart has e'er ambition known; This heart, secure in its treasure, Is bless'd beyond measure, Nor envies the monarch his throne. When in her sight from morn to eve, The hours they pass unheeded by; No dark distrust our bosoms grieves, And care and doubt far distant fly. 'Tis for my lovely maid alone, This heart has e'er ambition known; This heart, secure in its treasure, Is bless'd beyond measure, Nor envies the monarch his throne.	Hob 26a:35         Piercing Eyes – Anonymous Why asks my fair one if I love? Those eyes so piercing bright Can ev'ry doubt of that remove, And need no other light. Those eyes full well do known my heart, And all its working see, E'er since they play'd the conq'ror's part, And I no more was free.
Hob 26a:41     The Spirit’s Song – Anne Hunter Hark! Hark, what I tell to thee, Nor sorrow o'er the tomb; My spirit wanders free, And waits till thine shall come. All pensive and alone, I see thee sit and weep, Thy head upon the stone Where my cold ashes sleep. I watch thy speaking eyes, And mark each falling tear; I catch thy passing sighs, Ere they are lost in air.	Hob 26a:42 O Tuneful Voice – Anne Hunter O tuneful voice I still deplore, Thy accents, which I hear no more, Still vibrate on my heart. In Echo's cave I long to dwell And still to hear that sad farewell When we were forced to part. Bright eyes! O that the task were mine To guard the liquid fires that shine And round your orbits play, To watch them with a vestal's care, To feed with smiles a light so fair That it may ne'er decay.

 

Orsino & Viola from Twelfth Night
by Frederick Richard Pickersgill

In addition to the six works in the 'Second Sett of Original Canzonettas', Haydn also set two more Hunter poems in 1795, although he never had them published in England. O Tuneful Voice was Hunter's seeming farewell to Haydn, and his to her. The Spirit's Song, which Haydn thought was another Shakespeare poem, or so he told his publisher, was probably the very best of the ten songs which Haydn/Hunter produced together. Not only is the poem itself of especially nice quality, but Haydn's piano, in a soulful f minor, is a masterpiece of accompaniment, with surprising voice entries and modulations. If Haydn really did believe it was a Shakespeare work, perhaps that explains the extra effort he put into it. His other Shakespeare work, She Never Told Her Love, is, to my mind, the very finest of the fourteen canzonettas. Unlike other songs in those days, it is 'through-composed', that is, the entire is written out, it doesn't have any repeating stanzas. This was a commonplace by the time of Schubert, but a rarity before then. The true beauty of the song is in the lyric though. Haydn (and Hunter) pared down the original Shakespeare, which I quoted at the beginning of this section, one of the most singularly moving speeches Shakespeare wrote. Even so, Viola's raw emotion is right on the surface, captured forever in this little gem of a work.

One final point I'd like to make about these works stems from an observation I've made while looking through the fairly numerous recordings I have of them. Hardly any are sung by tenors, who would be equally well suited to the task. Haydn didn't write these solely for ladies to sing. He was well known to have a superb tenor voice. We saw this recently:

Memoirs of John Parke
After his introduction, Haydn, by desire of the Queen, sat down at the pianoforte and, surrounded by Her Majesty and her royal and accomplished daughters, sung, and accompanied himself admirably in several of his Canzonets.

I hope if you have a chance at a recital by a tenor you will take it up, or lacking that, there are a few nice recordings to enjoy, which will give you a different viewpoint on these wonderful works.

Next time we will look at even more 'small' works, some of Haydn's finest efforts among them.

Thanks for reading!

*Joseph Haydn: 18^th century Gentleman & Genius by Vernon Gotwals appears to be the first edition of Two Contemporary Portraits.