1795 – The Year part 8 - Goodbye, Piccadilly, Farewell, Leicester Square

London Bridge, Monument & Church of St Magnus
J.M.W. Turner c 1795

It has certainly been a busy four and a half years. Given that Haydn was in his fifty-ninth year when the Prince died in September of 1790, and when he said his final good bye to his friend Mozart in December, it was likely not with an idea in his head of what the next five years had in store for him.

A lot of ink has been spilled over the years concerning Haydn's isolation from society in rural Eisenstadt or in Eszterháza. And yet, nothing of what we have seen has demonstrated him to be anything but an extraordinarily well-finished gentleman, conversing easily with highest society, conducting business like any other businessman of his time, receiving his Doctorate from Oxford in a manner which made the most favorable possible impression on all in attendance. I think it speaks volumes about his character to see the Rohrau lad, and how he lived up to his 1761 contract. I had paraphrased that entire document in an earlier essay, here is Article 3 (in my translation):

III    He will refrain from drinking and acting like a fool in front of his subordinates so they won't lose respect for him. He will act like a gentleman/courtier.

I think King George and Prince Paul Esterházy would have been in agreement, he learned his lessons well. He was, after all, invited to come live at the Palace!

In many ways, Haydn was a beneficiary of English liberality concerning class distinction. While many Englishmen (then and now) may have thought they carried the weight of the world due to class discrimination, the truth of the matter is far different. Haydn could have easily regaled them with stories of how musicians and entertainers, as a class, were treated in the Habsburg realms. What might they have thought, for example, of the Prince's decree that there would be no contact between musicians and their families during the Season at Eszterháza? Or the requirement that any Princely employee could only marry with permission from the Prince? But from the time Haydn arrived in London, he was treated like an aristocrat. Which of itself must have been disorienting.

But as an "aristocrat", he got to see whatever he wanted, and meet whomever he wished to meet. In the off season he traveled wherever he wished, with extended journeys in August, 1791, November, 1791, June, 1792 and June, 1794. Not to even mention the great picnic outing to Oxford to become Doctor Haydn. The single mention of being denied access was to the Portsmouth (or Godsport?) Navy Yard:

[Third London Notebook – ca. 9 July '794]

The Dockyard, or the place where ships are built, is of an enormous size, and has a great many splendid buildings. But I couldn't go there, because I was a foreigner. Hard by is a new and most splendid ship-of-the-line with no cannon, called the Prince of Wales. The King and his family stayed 3 days in the Dockyard at the gouverneur's [sic] house.

As we have seen, the purpose of these trips was multifold; sightseeing was high on the list, and not to be underestimated. The Notebook entries profess to the profound interest of their author in simply seeing the wonderful sights available in his host country. Meeting people he either knew or had heard of, such as Herschel and Rauzzini, was another priority. As well, attending parties, gatherings and salons for the sake of conversation and exchange of ideas, an 18^th century ideal, was of paramount interest. But the ultimate occupation was one which he already pursued; writing and realizing music.

It is hard to imagine the output of this 60+ years old composer during his years in England. The flame of inspiration was certainly not flickering yet! Among other things, during his final two months he compiled this list of things he recalled writing while there. I left off the column containing the number of sheets of music paper each work took, but I discuss it briefly below. Just these five years produced a career's worth of music for many composers! 

Highlights of the Catalogue of the works Haydn wrote in and for England between 2nd January 1791 and 1795 [in English]
Haydn's Listing (as he wrote it down)	What we think it is
Orfeo, opera seria.	L'anima del filosofo – an easy one to start off
6 Symphonies.	Hob 93 – 98
Concertant Symphonic.	The Sinfonia concertante in Bb  - Hob 1:105
The Storm. Chor.	Which Haydn called Madrigal in the manuscript Hob 24a:8
3 Symphonies.	Hob 99 – 101 from 1793-94
Aria for Davide.	We saw its performance in May, 1791: lost
6 Quartettes.	Opus 71/74
3 Sonates for Broderip.	Pianoforte Trios Hob 18-20
3 Sonates for Preston.	Pianoforte Trios Hob 21-23
2 Sonates for Miss Janson.	Hob 50 & 52 from 1794
1 Sonate in F minore.	The Piccolo Divertimento Hob 17:6
1 Sonate in g.	Pianoforte Trio Hob 32
The Dream.	Pianoforte Trio Hob 31
Dr. Harrington’s Compliment.	What art expresses – we saw this in 1794   Hob 26b:3
6 English songs.	The 1st Book of Original Canzonettas Hob 26a:25-30
100 Scotch songs.	The 1st set of songs for Napier Hob 31a:1-100
50 Scotch songs (for Nepire). [sic]	The 2nd set of songs for Napier Hob 31a:101-150
2 Flute divert.	It has never been known just how Haydn originally divided up the nine movements.       Hob 4:1-4
3 Symphonies.	Hob 102 – 104 from 1794-95
4 Song for Tattersall	The 6 hymns which we saw in 1794. Hob 23 Nachtrag: a-f
2 Marches.	for Sir Henry Harpur, the Derbyshire Marches Hob 8: 1 & 2
1 Aria for Miss Poole.	For one of the Salomon concerts. Unfortunately lost.
God save the King.	We don’t know what instrument(s) Haydn set it for, but it is lost.
1 Aria con Orchestra.	Lost
Invocation of Neptun.	The Aria & Chorus from Mare clausum for Abingdon. Hob 24a:9
10 Commandments (Canons).	Canons Haydn set for a Saxon minister in London. Hob 27a:1-10
March for the Prince of Wales.	Haydn wrote 2 versions, one for the Prince’s wind band, the other for the orchestra of the Royal Society of Musicians. Hob 8:3 & 3a
2 Divertimenti a più voci.	These are 2 of the Lira Divertimenti (Notturnos) for the King of Naples which Haydn reorchestrated for London. He actually did at least four of them, autograph manuscripts are still extant. Hob 2:27, 28, 31 & 32 plus some of the Lira concertos.
24 Minuets and German dances.	These are the Redoutensaal dances of late 1792. Hob 9:11 & 12
12 Ballads for Lord Avingdon.	Hob 31c:16 (1-12)  12 Sentimental Catches & Glees
Canons.	There is no way to know what canons Haydn refers to. Maybe the one he wrote for Oxford (Thy voice, O Harmony, is Divine) and the one he wrote for Rauzzini (Turk was a faithful dog)? If so, they are Hob 27b:46 & 45
1 Song with the whole orchestra of Lord Avingdon.	Unknown. Lost? Probably.
4 Contrydances [sic]**	Apparently lost. Probably for/with Abingdon
6 Songs	The 2nd Book of Original Canzonettas Hob 26a:31-36
Overtura Coventgarden	The Overture to Windsor Castle for Salomon. Hob 1a:3
Aria per la Band.[la Band = Banti]	The Scena di Berenice for Banti.     Hob 24a:10
4 Scotch songs.	Unknown, lost
2 Songs	The two canzonettas which were not part of the two sets of six: O Tuneful Voice & The Spirit’s Song Hob 26a:41 & 42
3 Sonates for Broderip.	Pianoforte Trios Hob 27-29
(not mentioned by Haydn) 1 "little sonat" in D  for pianoforte	for Maria Hester Park Hob 16:51

Haydn also wrote down the number of sheets of paper it took to do each work. A sheet was a large piece of paper, folded in either half or quarters (Haydn used both ways). So "40 sheets" in one circumstance was 80 pages (the Sinfonia concertante), but in another case, "11 sheets" is 44 pages (in Scena di Berenice). So when his sheets came up with a grand total of 768, we can only guess how many actual pages of music that is. As I mentioned in the title of the list, this is 'highlights', I deleted several entries which are just like the ones we see here marked 'lost' or 'unknown'. All in all, it is a prodigious quantity of music, and for people who have just heard Haydn's music for the first time, there is a good chance the music they heard is on this list. The London Symphonies, the last keyboard sonatas, the great keyboard trios; these have become Haydn's calling card. The upcoming years will see him writing more quartets, returning to masses, and producing his two great oratorios, along with many more Scottish Songs. But as we will see, many of those works will retain the English influence he adopted in London, and the contacts he made there will be with him for the rest of his life.

The first edition of the trios for Becky Schroeter, published in October 1795	One volume of Salomon's chamber arrangement of London Symphonies

The last performance of the Opera Concert was on 1 June. Haydn didn't leave for home until 15 August. How did he manage to keep himself busy those last ten weeks? We do know a little bit…

The Times – June 2, 4, 6 & 8

Mr. Ashe's Concert
On Monday, 8 June, 1795, will be a Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental music; at which Madame Mara has kindly consented to perform.

Leader of the Band Mr. Cramer.

Pianoforte, Mr. Clementi; and Dr. Haydn will preside during the Performance of His Grand MS Sinfonia. &c &c

It was Haydn's last appearance at a London concert hall. He spent his final two months fulfilling obligations, both real and perceived, to produce music for his creditors and his friends.

We have seen what some of these obligations were. Most are on the list above. The works we have looked at in the last few essays; the 50 Scots Songs for Napier, the publication of the Pianoforte Trios, the second set of canzonettas, all needed to be prepared for publication. There is also little doubt about him working along with Salomon to get the symphonies, which they drew up a contract for at this time, arranged for string quartet, flute and pianoforte. Salomon is named as the arranger, and no doubt he did much of it, but included are several changes in the orchestral autographs which are in Haydn's handwriting, which probably resulted from the original performances. However the work burden was distributed, these are masterful arrangements which gave an amazingly fine representation of these works even with just six instruments. Given the market set up to feed amateur musicians, the likelihood is that Salomon made far more money from these arrangements than he ever saw from the full orchestral versions.

One of the things we haven't looked at during this series is the huge market in England for arrangements of music of all sorts. While there was an unending appetite for the latest pianoforte trios and sonatas, which could simply not be satisfied by the composers of the day, the slack was more than taken up by the other music which was rearranged for suitable forces. And while salons were a virtually perfect outlet for the less self-conscious player, the vast majority preferred to entertain their family and friends in the confines of their own parlor.

In late eighteenth-century London, as today, the market of music consumers clearly extended far beyond those performers and listeners who assembled for public concerts. Arrangements made possible a considerably expanded and prolonged circulation of works-albeit often in truncated or simplified form that were otherwise accessible to relatively few. They also offered the possibility of a domestic setting for performance of such works, one in which the amateur could participate in music-making, at ease among family and friends.

Publishers eager to feed this market took a pragmatic if casual approach to the masterpiece. Indeed, the marketing slogan for works in arrangement might have been "Have it your way." It is not surprising that in London, as elsewhere, by far the favorite way was with keyboard, either as solo instrument or in ensembles.

Gretchen Wheelock*

As we have noticed, many of the publishers of the time, such as Bland and Longman & Broderip, and eventually Clementi were also instrument makers. Even those who weren't publishers, such as Broadwood, were closely allied with various publishers. The reasons are self-evident: there is an age-old debate, which continues today, over the relationship between technological advancement and greater intricacy of compositions to take advantage. The clear question is which of these things drives them forward? In London in the last half of the 18^th century, they weren't taking any chances. Whether musical ideas or techniques improved, or technology improved, they had it covered. Vienna in the 1780's was called, famously by Mozart, the 'Land of the Piano'. But this is only because he hadn't seen London since he was a child. If I had the time to expand on this theme, I would really like to go into the remainder of Wheelock's paper, which shows that one of the main products of this relationship was the marrying of classic English poems, usually pastoral, to a huge variety of musical masterpieces. And so we find works such as this:

Some Haydn works for Pianoforte & Voice (adapted from Wheelock ibid.):

Haydn Work	Poet	Title
Opus 33 #6, 4th mvmt	Mary Whately	Hymn to Solitude
Duo for Violin & Viola 1st mvmt Hob 6:3	Thomas Tickell	Colin & Lucy
Divertimento for Winds 4th mvmt Hob 2:11	James Hammond	Love Elegy VI
Op 33 #2 3rd mvmt	James Hammond	Love Elegy VIII
Keyboard Sonata 1st mvmt Hob 16:39	John Hawkesworth	Life, an Ode
Symphony #69 4th mvmt Hob 1:69	C. Smith (?)	from the Sorrows of Young Werther (Tis she I adore, tho fair yet unkind)

You must admit, the musical sources for these 'ballads' are probably not exactly what you were thinking about when you heard them in their original incarnation!

The Siege of Quiberon (June-July 95)
by Paul-Émile Boutigny

It should not be overlooked, especially now, how the ongoing French Revolution was affecting affairs far beyond France's own borders. While Haydn was busy tidying up loose ends in London, and more or less idling along to his inevitable return to Vienna, the war business was still booming across the Channel. Haydn was not in any particular rush because his new Prince, Nicholas II, had been lingering in Naples, but he returned to Vienna in June, and things were coming to a swift conclusion.

For some little while now, rumors, which Haydn could scarcely avoid having heard, were swirling that the French Revolutionary Wars were, to all intents and purposes, lost to England and Austria. They were the only two members of the Coalition left standing at this point, but they demonstrated a steadfast refusal to give it up, and so things kept going. On 27 June, a small English fleet allied with a cadre of Royalists from western France, landed on the Breton coast at Quiberon. The fighting lasted through July, but by early August all of the Royalists and émigrés had been captured and executed.

Haydn signed the contract with Salomon over the London Symphonies on 13 August. He didn't have a whole lot of baggage for the trip. Clementi gave him a cup made out of a carved coconut (a highly prized item in those days), trimmed with silver. Tattersall had given him the engraved silver plate for the 6 Psalms. He also had a little key to the future, innocuously enough it was a libretto from Salomon which he was told was written for Handel, about the Creation of the World. Finally, and most surprisingly, he was gifted with a talking parrot! I have been unable to discover what sort it was, I am a parrot lover as well as a Haydnist and I would dearly love to know. Haydn had this parrot for the rest of his life, he taught it to call him Papa. A fond reminder of what he always said was the greatest time of his life.

With all this in mind, it should be no surprise to discover that on 15 August, Haydn and Elssler and their baggage slipped out of London, not to Calais and through the Austrian Netherlands as one would normally do, but by ship to Hamburg, Germany, then southeasterly overland through Dresden, and finally home in Vienna by the last of August. The journey of a lifetime was finally over!

~~~~~

And as this era of Haydn's life draws to a close, so, too, does Year 4 in the life of this blog. It has been my great pleasure to have shared what I have learned about Haydn with you, my loyal, patient and supportive group of readers. 46 years of Haydn's creative life have been captured so far, if even in the most cursory way. There are still more years to go, not nearly as adventurous, perhaps, but if anything, even more creative. I hope you will continue to check in with Haydn through the remainder of his creative years. As is often promised but rarely lived up to: the best is yet to come.

Thanks to all 40,000 of you for stopping in to visit!

And thanks for reading!

 

* Gretchen A. Wheelock - Marriage à la Mode: Haydn's Instrumental Works "Englished" for Voice and Piano