Index of additional works

CHR W. GLUCK: DON JUAN OU LE FESTIN DE PIERRE, BALLET PANTOMIME (1761). ORIGINAL VERSION

Sinfonia. Allegro / Andante Grazioso / Andante / Allegro forte risoluto / Allegro gustoso / Moderato / Grazioso / Allegro / Moderato – Presto / Risoluto e Moderato / Allegro / Allegro / Allegro / Andante staccato / Larghetto / Allegro non troppo 

Abridged version of: 

Sybille Dahms, «A few queries about the original version of Gluck and Angiolini's Don Juan»,
in: Christoph Willibald Gluck und seine Zeit (Christoph Willibald Gluck and his times), edited by Irene Brandenburg, Laaber 2010, pp. 148-157.

When the pantomime ballet Don Juan was performed for the first time on 17 October 1761 with music by Christoph Willibald Gluck and choreography by Gasparo Angiolini, only a few members of the audience can have realised that they were witnessing an event which would later be recalled as a milestone in the history of ballet. Le Festin de Pierre / The Stone Guest's Banquet, as the premiere was entitled, was one of the first fully-formed ballets en action, for here a complete dramatic storyline played out without any spoken or sung text, but using only the newly developed language of gesture and facial expression: in the language of the body en action, as Noverre dubbed it in his Lettres sur la Danse et sur les Ballets. In Don Juan, the silent body language was complemented by Gluck's perfectly matched score, which supplied all the semantic qualities required as substitutes for the spoken word. «Music is an essential component of a pantomime ballet. It is the music which talks; we merely make the gestures», wrote Angiolini in his foreword to the programme for Don Juan.

The climate for establishing innovations in the arts in general, and the theatre in particular, was especially propitious in Vienna at that time. In 1754, Count Giacomo Durazzo, a diplomat and passionate theatre-lover born in Genoa, had been appointed Director of the Imperial Theatres in Vienna – the Burgtheater (the theatre most commonly frequented by the imperial family and the nobility) and the Theater am Kärntnertor (popular with the bourgeoisie/middle classes). As the Austrian State Chancellor, the Prince of Kaunitz, introduced changes to Austria's foreign policy which resulted in a rapprochement with France, Durazzo made his own attempt to strengthen the ties between the two countries' cultural lives, and as an Enlightenment figure, was particularly keen to initiate constructive engagement with artists and intellectuals from Paris. His most significant correspondent in the French capital was the multi-talented Charles Simon Favart, who not only supplied him with libretti and sheet music for comedies and opéras-comiques, but also with the actors, dancers, set designers and stage technicians to go with them, and helped him to establish a French theatre company at the Burgtheater. At the same time, Durazzo surrounded himself with a select group of artists, intellectuals and amateurs of noble birth, who supported and encouraged him in his efforts to establish an autonomous Viennese theatre, a theatre which was to combine the new spirit of the Enlightenment with the tradition of Austrian folk theatre and Italian opera. From 1761, Gluck adopted a leadership role in this inspired and inspiring circle, with librettist and adventurer Ranieri de' Calzabigi by his side. Another member of the circle was the Viennese ballet master Franz Anton Hilverding, who began as early as in the 1750s to experiment with folksy Austrian genre ballets, which corresponded entirely to the type of production Durazzo was keen to stage; he was soon assisted in this by his brilliant pupil, a native of Florence called Gasparo Angiolini. When, in 1758, Hilverding answered the call of Tsarina Elizabeth and accepted the post of ballet master at the Russian court, Angiolini succeeded him as master of ballet at the Viennese theatres, whilst continuing to occupy the position of 'premier danseur' or lead soloist.

There is evidence of a close working relationship between Angiolini and Gluck from 1758; both began by experimenting with small genre ballets à Ia Hilverding before eventually turning in 1761 to an important work of world literature upon which a pantomime ballet called Le Festin de Pierre / Don Juan was based. With their Don Juan ballet, they not only opened up a new, important chapter in the history of the dance form; there is little doubt that the work also served as a pilot project for Gluck and Durazzo's ideas on opera reform. These reforms not only meant changing the conventions of musical dramaturgy, but also approaching stage presentation in a novel, dynamic manner, by way of the protagonists' movements on stage and with the help of the sets and stage technology. A similar attempt had already been made in Hilverding and Angiolini's ballets during the 1750s. So it seems to have been only a logical consequence of this that a year after Don Juan, on 5 October 1762, the team of Gluck, Calzabigi and Angiolini presented the public with its 'azione teatrale' Orfeo, which I regard as the epoch-making opera in which the Durazzo circle saw the majority of its ideas come to fruition for the first time.

The theory that the ballet Don Juan was actually something of a pilot project is supported by the fact that it was documented in a relatively large number of sources which inform us not only about the work itself, but also about the creative process involved and how the work was received. But this extensive body of documentation also raises a few weightier issues, especially as regards the musical sources, because – as is the case with many of Gluck's works – the composer's own original score is believed to have been lost. Handwritten copies, most originating from Gluck's lifetime and which comprise voice parts, scores, piano reductions and other instrumental arrangements, provide us with different versions of the ballet:

The familiar long version still commonly performed today, which comprises 31 numbers; it was discussed in two critical editions in the 20th century. This is also the version in which the ballet first appeared in print, to be precise in the form of a piano reduction published by Wollank in Berlin in the early 19th century (probably prior to 1825). Only one late 17th century manuscript of this long version has survived; various additional copies were prepared on the basis of this source during the 19th century.
The short version consisting of 15 numbers, all of which are included in the long version, although it would be more accurate to speak of 13 numbers, as No. 25 of the long version was subdivided into three parts here. Eleven handwritten copies of this short version have survived; several indices (such as paper quality, handwriting characteristics, a lack of information about dynamics, articulation, etc.) suggest they date back to a period not long after the earliest performances.
There is also a second long version, which is kept at the library of Parma Conservatory and has attracted little attention thus far, despite bearing Gluck's name on the title page and containing at least as much original music as the widely-known long version. This Parma version comprises 19 numbers; every number in the short version is used, but often extended to three times the length.

But it is not just the music of the Don Juan ballet which has survived. There is also Angiolini's 'programme', which he probably worked on for the premiere with Calzabigi; the French version was published by Trattner in Vienna and the German version by van Ghelen. It includes a short essay by Angiolini, his first 'dissertation', in which he explains the «coup d'essay» to revive the pantomime 'dans le style ancien'. He also mounts a defence of the choice of material: Don Juan had already been performed as spoken drama; why should it not also be successful in dance form? In addition, he added a ballet libretto or scenario of sorts, a description of the action which he subdivided into three acts. Although the Viennese were more than familiar with the subject-matter at the time – Molière's comedy had been staged at the French theatre, and a German version had won considerable public acclaim at the Theater am Kärntnertor – Angiolini was clearly a little uncertain as to whether the newly-developed pantomimic language used by his dancers would in fact be properly understood by audiences with no prior experience of the genre.

It is clear from this 'libretto' that it contained only an extremely limited selection of the themes from the spectrum covered by the Don Juan mythology, a rich seam of legends from the Mediterranean region which had been dramatized in countless versions, some of high literary merit, since the early 17th century. These Don Juan dramas, which also exerted a powerful influence on the musical theatre of their time, introduced a great diversity of standard motifs and topoi. When measured against this repertoire with its robust traditions, the three acts of Angiolini's Don Juan appear to present a greatly abridged and simplified version:

Don Juan seduces Donna Elvira, the daughter of the Commander; the latter attempts but fails to exact revenge, and is killed in a duel with Don Juan.
Don Juan invites his friends and mistresses to a banquet. As the celebrations are in full swing, the ghost of the dead Commander appears as a statue. The terrified guests flee. Don Juan invites the statue to join the banquet, and the statue summons Don Juan to its tomb in turn. Don Juan accepts the invitation, and the spectre leaves. Don Juan tries to lighten the mood among his guests, but they flee once more. Don Juan orders his servant to accompany him to the graveyard, but he refuses to obey.
Inside the mausoleum, the spectre enjoins Don Juan to show remorse and counsels him to change his ways. Don Juan remains obdurate. Hell opens up, and a great throng of Furies harry Don Juan and drag him down into the abyss.

The question arises of whether the audience at the premiere of the ballet Don Juan saw it in the form described in the programme. Two invaluable eye-witness reports demonstrate that this was not the case.
One of these eye-witnesses was Philipp Gumpenhuber: an assistant choreographer and stage manager at the Viennese theatres, he was the scion of a dancing dynasty in Austria. In his handwritten Repertoire de tous les Spectacles, qui ont été donné [sic] au Théatre de la Ville he wrote daily reports on all the rehearsals, performances and other important incidents in the everyday life of the theatre, very probably on the instructions of Count Durazzo, to whom these reports were also dedicated.
Gumpenhuber supplies interesting information about the dress rehearsal, which took place on the same day as the premiere, and mentions that the ballet was in only two parts. He also names just two protagonists: Don Juan, danced by Angiolini himself, and the Commander, danced by Pierre Bodin, one of the 'premiers danseurs' in the French company.
In a description by the second eye-witness, Count Karl Zinzendorf, this already abridged version of Angiolini's original scenario appears to be even shorter. A passionate theatre-lover who never missed a premiere or any important event in the life of the theatre and whose journal is consequently an invaluable resource for students of the theatrical life of Vienna during the period in question, he was of course present in the audience at the premiere of Don Juan. The description in his journal mirrors the printed scenario only in terms of the first act and the first part of the second act; from the time the spectre first appears, however, the action begins to differ markedly from that described by Angiolini. After the terrified guests have fled, there follows a scene in which Don Juan makes fun of the ghost by imitating its movements: «Don Juan s'en moque et imite tous les mouvements du spectre.» This dramatic scene of mockery leads directly into the finale with the Dance of the Furies and Don Juan's descent into Hell.

There is no summons to the tomb by the ghost, no second entrance and subsequent flight of the guests, no scene between Don Juan and the servant, and no dramatic dialogue between the admonishing ghost of the Commander and the impenitent Don Juan. These omissions – and here the accounts of Zinzendorf and Gumpenhuber tally when they claim that there were only two acts to the performance and only two main protagonists, both male – suggest that Angiolini was unable to realise the intentions he detailed in the programme at the time the premiere took place.
Even in this short version, Don Juan must nonetheless have been considered a success: the ballet was staged ten times over the following six weeks, giving Angiolini the time and opportunity to consider a few essential improvements. Fortunately, we know about Angiolini's attempts to revamp the ballet with a change of cast from the information recorded by Gumpenhuber on 2 February 1762. The most important of these concerned the role of the Commander: the 'danseur noble' Pierre Bodin was replaced by the character performer Turchi junior (probably Vincenzo Turchi).
Theatre enthusiast Count Zinzendorf, who attended the ballet again on 8 February 1762, notes in his journal how astonished he was at the changes made to the dramatic dialogue scene between the Commander's ghost and Don Juan at the beginning of the third act, which obviously replaced the mockery scene he had witnessed at the premiere. But even this change does not appear to have put an end to Angiolini's experimentation with the Don Juan ballet, as is evident from Gumpenhuber's Repertoire. In April 1763, his reports reveal that Angiolini must have introduced a third protagonist – the servant or 'domestique' – into the pantomime ballet at this point, if not before. It was now in its definitive form, which was more or less consistent with the intentions stated by Angiolini in the programme printed in 1761.
There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that Angiolini or Gluck ever revised their successful ballet again after 4 October 1763, when it was staged for a final time at a gala performance in Schönbrunn Palace. It began to reach European audiences and to be revised and reworked by others by no later than in the mid-1760s, however, especially in Italy and Germany, later in England and Scandinavia, and even in Spain and Portugal.

It has often been a matter of speculation that Gluck may possibly have composed a relatively large number of dance movements at the outset, from which Angiolini then selected those which he deemed suitable for his dramatic pantomime. Only about twenty minutes worth of music was required for the very restricted plot of the original scenario as printed, which almost perfectly corresponds to the short version; and it would appear (as discussed above) that Angiolini did not even make use of all fifteen of these numbers at the premiere on 17 October 1761, when he was still struggling to master the new, unfamiliar language of pantomime. But there is no question that the storyline of the ballet had to play out in the shortest possible time if the dramatic mode of exposition was to be rigidly observed, just as Angiolini observed in 1765, i.e. four years after Don Juan, in his treatise for his tragic ballet Semiramis: «L'art du geste qui abrève merveilleusement les discours, qui par un seule signe expressive supplée souvent à un nombre considérable de paroles, reserre lui-même par sa nature la durée de I'action pantomime.»

At any rate, this short version appears to have predominated in the two years which followed, as is evident from musical sources which contain scene directions coinciding with the text of the original libretto/scenario. However, adaptations of the ballet which were made in later years by a number of choreographers in Italy and Germany led to the original storyline being elaborated. Naturally enough, these changes made it necessary to augment Gluck's original music from 1767, which had accompanied the short version. This is especially apparent from the long version which is now kept in Parma and which very clearly shows that parts of the short version were extended, and a few new compositions added. If we now consider the widely-known long version from this point of view, the question arises of whether this version, which bears Gluck's name, might not also contain elements which did not originate with Gluck, but were instead contributed by other composers; I am referring here to those elements which the choreographers required for their own purposes. Augmentations of this type were common practice in the theatres of the period during which Gluck and Angiolini were active. This would mean that the long version with which we are familiar was made up of the short version from 1761 and another seventeen movements, at least some of which might have been the work of different composers. The following circumstantial evidence provides some support for this hypothesis:
We already knew that two movements from the long version (Nos. 15 and 20) are absolutely identical to two movements from Joseph Starzer's ballet music for Noverre's Adèle de Ponthieu (Vienna 1773). Musicologists such as Richard Engländer, who edited the long version in the complete works of Gluck (Vol. II/1), came to the conclusion that Starzer might have borrowed these movements from Gluck's Don Juan and, as a result, dated the long version back to sometime before 1773. But might we not be looking at this the wrong way round, especially given the excellence of Starzer's ballet music, elements of which even inspired some of Mozart's instrumental works? And there is another clue to consider too: the extended musical versions such as the Parma version, but also Galeotti's adaptation for the Copenhagen Ballet, make exclusive use of movements from the short version, and never from the long. Finally, the most compelling argument of all may be the fact that Gluck, who is known often to have borrowed music from earlier works for later compositions, only ever used music from the short version of the Don Juan ballet, which we should probably now view as the original version, in operas such as Iphigénie en Aulide and the Paris version of Orphée (both 1774), the French version of Cythère assiégée (1775) and Armide (1777), as Klaus Hortschansky established categorically in his comprehensive study of works by Gluck which were reused by the composer. There is a possibility that some of the enigmas associated with the well-known long version may be solved in the near future, perhaps with the assistance of the database project conducted between 2003 and 2006 by the Department of Music and Dance Studies / Derra de Motoda Dance Archives at the University of Salzburg, which scrutinised more than 220 ballets from the period of the Viennese Classical School by composers such as Joseph Starzer, Franz Aspelmayer, Florian Deller and others.
As things stand, however, it seems very likely that the short version of the Don Juan ballet comprising 15 (or 13) movements should be regarded as Gluck's original version of the ballet music, as this is the only version which is consistent with Angiolini's libretto/scenario of 1761. It is in this form that a performance of Don Juan is soon to return to the concert hall and – it is very much to be hoped – to the stage.

_{¹ «La musique est essentielle aux Pantomimes; c'est elle qui parle, nous faisons que les gestes», in: G. Angiolini, Le Festin de Pierre. Ballet pantomime, Vienna: Trattner 1761, p. 14.
² For more detailed information, cf. B. A. Brown, Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna, Oxford 1991.
³ C. W. Gluck, Don Juan. Pantomimisches Ballett, edited by R. Haas (Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich 30/2, Vol. 60), Vienna 1923. C. W. Gluck, Don Juan / Semiramis. Ballets Pantomimes, edited by R. Engländer (Complete works of Gluck II/1), Kassel, etc. 1966.
⁴ Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Mus. Ms. 7827).
⁵ These are to be found in Brussels (Bibliothèque Royale), Munich (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) and Dresden (Sächsische Landesbibliothek).
⁶ For additional details about the sources, cf. the edition of this version in the complete works of Gluck, which is still in preparation (Complete works of Gluck II/2).
⁷ To name just a few of these: Tirso de Molina, El Burlador de Sevilla y Combidado di Pietra, Madrid 1630; G. A. Cicognini, Il Convitato di Pietra, Florence and Pisa 1632; Molière, Dom Juan, Paris 1665; T. Shadwell, The Libertine Destroyed, London 1676; C. Goldoni, Don Juan Tenorio o sia Il Dissoluto Punito, Venice 1736.
⁸ Part of Gumpenhuber's Repertoire, which covers the 1758-63 seasons (with the exception of 1760), is now to be found in the Harvard Theatre Collection, and part in the music collection of the National Library of Vienna. An annotated critical edition is currently being prepared for print by Gluck scholars at the Department of Music and Dance Studies of the University of Salzburg.
⁹ The journals of Count Karl Zinzendorf cover the years 1752-1813 (56 volumes); they are kept at the Family, Court and State Archive in Vienna. Their publication has been a work in progress since 1999 as part of an international research project at the University of Graz. There is also an annotated edition of the journals written by the Count in his youth: Karl Graf Zinzendorf, Aus den Jugendtagebüchern (1752-1763), edited by M. Breunlich / M. Mader, Vienna 1997.
¹⁰ K. Zinzendorf, Die Jugendtagebücher, pp. 239ff.
¹¹ «The art of the gesture, which marvellously abbreviates the dialogue, and often substitutes a single, expressive sign for a considerable number of words, compresses by its specific nature the duration of the pantomime action.» G. Angiolini, Dissertation sur les Ballets Pantomimes des Anciens publiée pour servir de Programme au Ballet de Semiramis, Vienna 1765, B5. The short version comprises the following numbers from the widely-known long version: 1, 2, 5, 18, 19, 21-26, 30, 31. For a comparison of the two versions, cf. the appended summary.
¹² The sources in question are a score at the State Library in Regensburg, a voice part at the University Library in Münster, and the so-called 'Paris Scenario' held at the Library of the Paris Conservatory and the State Library in Berlin. These scene directions have been added to the critical edition of Don Juan which is being prepared for publication.
¹³ K. Hortschansky, Parodie und Entlehnung im Schaffen Christoph Willibald Glucks (Analecta Musicologica 13), Cologne 1973, p. 298.
¹⁴ The database project Ballettmusik im Kontext der Wiener Klassik at the Department of Music and Dance Studies of the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (Derra de Moroda Dance Archives – collaborators: Irene Brandenburg and Michael Malkiewicz, led by: Sibylle Dahms) was conducted with resources from the Austrian Scientific Research Fund. It contains incipits of every movement of the individual ballets, as well as much additional information, for instance on the dancers, choreographers, librettos/scenarios and stage sets.
¹⁵ The short (or original) version has already been performed at the 2006 Klangbogen Festival in Vienna (Theater an der Wien) under the baton of Heinrich Schiff, by Marc Minkowski and the Musiciens du Louvre on a European concert tour in December 2006, as well as at the 2008 Mozart Festival in Salzburg. The Bärenreiter-Verlag publishing house has produced accompanying material. The score, which was prepared for print by the author, will appear as Vol II/2 of the complete works of Gluck 2010 together with Gluck and Angiolini's ballet Alexandre et Rosane, edited by I. Brandenburg.}

VOL. 1 _LA PASSIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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WILHELM FRIEDEMANN BACH (1710–1784): SINFONIA F MAJOR C2 FK 67

Vivace / Andante / Allegro / Menuetto I alternativement – Menuetto 2 – Menuetto 1 da capo

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

As with the hunting piece of Haydn’s Symphony no. 22, a work for strings composed by Bach’s eldest son during his time in Dresden (1733–1746) also combines old and new compositional ideas – one of them being the traditional three-part form of the Italian opera sinfonia, which in the manner of the suite is given an additional minuet movement with a canonic middle section that according to Peter Wollny ‘was apparently a favourite of Wilhlem Friedemann’. Often appearing in other contexts [such as the Harpsichord Sonata in C major Fk 1A], it seems to be filled with the spirit of Georg Friedrich Händel in its calm, festive tone.
The minuet is preceded by a music that – to return once again to the words of Johann Friedrich Daube – never shies away from a powerful contrast in the ‘alteration and division of its melodic elements’, and can even sound strange to experienced ears: a vivace that begins like a Baroque overture but is soon invaded by increasingly bold leaps, sudden semiquaver repetitions and rhythms rutted with pauses that seem to ‘owe much to the instrumental style of Jan Dismas Zelenka’; an andante whose falling arpeggios and chains of chromatic suspensions recall contemporary works for the stage by Johann Adolf Hasse, for example; an allegro characterised by echo effects, striking rhythms and dynamic contrasts.

Although the work of Friedemann Bach, much of which has been lost, traditionally plays no special role in the development of the classical symphony – particularly because even into the composer’s final years in Berlin it was not much distributed – today it has the reputation of being a noticeably early form of the so-called sensitive style, which was to become the trademark of his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel and earn him much greater fame.

_{¹ Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Collected Works, vol. 6, Orchestral Music III: Symphonies, ed. Peter Wollny, Stuttgart 2010, p. VI.
² The resulting sequence of movements corresponds almost exactly to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 1, also in F major.
³ Translated from Johann Friedrich Daube, Der musikalische Diletantt: eine Abhandlung der Komposition, Vienna 1773, p. 162.
⁴ Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Collected Works,op cit., p. VI.
⁵ See Marc Vignal, Die Bach-Söhne: Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Fiedrich, Johann Christian, Laaber 1999, p. 52ff.}

VOL. 2 _IL FILOSOFO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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JOSEPH HAYDN: Overture to «L'isola disabitata» Hob.XXVIII:9 (1779)

Largo – Vivace assai – Allegretto – Vivace [assai]

by Christian Moritz-Bauer
 

First performed for the name day of Nicholas I Esterházy de Galantha, on 6 December 1779 (or on the eve of the celebrations arranged for it), only three weeks after the destruction by fire the Eszterháza theatre, the azione teatrale entitled L’isola disabitata – devised by no less than Pietro Metastasio after motifs from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe – has a special status. With only one stage set – the action takes place on a lonely West Indian island, lapped by the ocean waves, where thirteen years previously two sisters had been compelled to seek refuge from a storm and have since been stranded – the work could be performed without the usual elaborate décor. To compensate, it had no less than seven arias, both touching and stirring, and in the end a quartet sung by the two friends Gernando and Enrico, now returned after having been abducted by pirates, with Costanza and Silvia. And all the recitatives are performed accompagnato, that is with orchestral accompaniment, a particularly dramatic form also used, for example, by Christoph Willibald Gluck in Orfeo ed Euridice. The overture, in G minor, which is consistent with the idiom of ‘Sturm und Drang’ in our composer’s symphonic work, began to take on a certain life of its own even in the early 1780s:

[…] concerning the symphony of my present very new opera, which has not yet been fashioned, I can oblige no sooner than after the first production, but if in the meanwhile you would like two others from of my operas, which no one, not a single soul, possesses, you can have each for 5 ducats, and I promise you that I will make them up to half a dozen.¹

It should only be mentioned in passing that this advanced praise, written to the Vienna art and music suppliers Artaria & Comp. in August 1782, refers to the still unfinished instrumental prelude to Orlando paladino. At any rate, only a few weeks later, Haydn – famously shrewd in business matters – was able to post the ‘requested 5 pieces, neatly and correctly written and well composed symphonies’, whose ‘publication, because the brevity of the pieces makes the engraving very inexpensive, will make a considerable profit’.² Ultimately they were reborn (following a not always harmonious further correspondence with the company’s proprietors, Carlos and Francesco Artaria) as SEI SINFONIE A GRAND ORCHESTRE Opera XXXV: the orchestral preludes to the Esterháza operas L’incontro improvviso, Lo Speziale, La vera costanza and L’infedeltà delusa, followed by the oratorical Il ritorno di Tobia and headed by L’isola disabitata as Sinfonia I.
The overture to L’isola disabitata, which is divided into four sections, is without doubt one of the most interesting of its kind: while other works are either in the traditional three movements of the Italian overture, or their single-movement form – as with Il mondo della luna – tempted the composer to reuse them as the first movement of a concert symphony, this one is a veritable anticipation of the subsequent dramatic action, a kind of tone painting of the inner fortitude, despite her torments of despair, of the main protagonist.
Haydn was especially fond of his ‘uninhabited island’: ‘If you would hear my little opera l’Isola disabitata and my most recently composed opera la fedeltà premiata: then I assure you that suchlike works have not yet been heard in Paris and just as little in Vienna,’³ he wrote in May 1781. Although he was unable to give the opera a second season – too much was the challenging role of Costanza tailored to the exceptional abilities of the Italian soprano Barbara Ripamonti – at least its overture could be enjoyed throughout Europe, distributed in the following years of the 18th century in various copies and reprints, among them an arrangement of the allegretto for voice, piano and other instruments as desired, with specially written English lyrics: ‘Gentle Sleep, mine eyelids close.’

_{¹ Haydn to the publisher Artaria, Vienna, 16 August 1782, translated from Joseph Haydn. Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Dénes Bartha, Kassel et al. 1965, p. 118.
² Haydn to the publisher Artaria, Vienna, 29 September 1782, translated from ibid., p. 119.
³ Haydn to the publisher Artaria, Vienna, translated from ibid. p. 97.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

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JOSEPH HAYDN: ARIA «SOLO E PENSOSO» HOB. XIVb:20 (1798)

by Christian Moritz-Bauer
 

With this aria, whose first verse has provided the maxim for the third part of the Haydn2032 projects, we have the honour of attending a performance of Joseph Haydn’s last secular composition for solo voice with orchestral accompaniment. Written in 1798, it is a setting of sonnet XXXV from Petrarch’s Il Canzioniere (ca. 1337), the selection of which was considered ‘extremely unusual for the late 18th century’¹ by the editors of Haydn’s complete works. But in Europe’s extreme east – meaning the Russian Empire – the turn of the 18th to the 19th century was a time of intense interest by the educated population in this particular Italian poet, one of the most important personalities in Western cultural history because of his writing in the vernacular, the translation of whose works into Russian expressed a desire to advance the empire’s own national language.² At any rate it does not seem to be a matter of chance that in the year of the completed Creation, Haydn – who in the early 1780s had into personal contact with the then heirs to the Russian throne, and in 1804 was to delight the late tsar’s German widow, Maria Feodorovna, by sending her his (one- to many-part) Songs with Piano-Forte Accompaniment – was confronted by a Russian grand duke, later to become Tsar Alexander I, or his younger brother Constantine, with the suggestion of setting to music this Petrarch sonnet – although naturally in the Italian original – which had recently been translated by Mikhail Kaizerov. This can at least be gathered from the caption on the title page of the autograph: ‘Aria. del Haydnmpria / le parole del gran Prencipe di Russia.’

Haydn’s setting has repeatedly been accused of sacrificing the metrical structure of the undramatic sonnet to the principles of opera.³ Worse still, that his music runs the danger of making a serious aesthetic mistake in interpreting the inner dialogue with Amor, as a personified image of Petrarch’s unrequited love of Laura, not as steady discourse but in the sense of a light-bringing way out for the voluntarily exiled narrator, now fallen prey to melancholy. (Haydn’s own mood, described in a letter from the loneliness of the Pannonian winter of 1790 to his bosom friend Maria Anna von Gennzinger in Vienna, cannot be ignored: ‘Now – I sit in my solitude – abandoned – like a poor orphan – with almost no human company – unhappy – full of memories of precious past days …’⁴)
The farewell to the Italian aria bade by ‘Solo e pensoso’ exhibits some features of Haydn’s late orchestral movements: it requires two clarinets instead of the usual pair of oboes, and in its opening adagio ritornello creates an almost religious atmosphere, which is additionally concentrated at the start of the allegretto section. Motivic relationships to the Agnus dei of the Nelson Mass, or anticipations of the Credo and Et resurrexit from the Harmoniemesse, underline this impression. The religious image is broken into by the odd harmonic structure of the work, which proceeds from B-flat major via F major to the submediant D-flat major, where it persists until the beginning of the tercet verse on the harsh roads trod by the lonely self burning with desire. The return to the tonic allows space for a few modest yet all the more touching fioriture in the vocal-instrumental melodic parts. Although the composer’s personal feelings had meanwhile returned to a state of inner peace and freedom, the self-portrait of a poet in picturesque rural scenes must have appeared entirely apposite to him. And appropriately enough the first performances of the aria took place in the time of inner contemplation, namely at two pre-Christmas concerts given by the Vienna Tonkünstler-Societät on 22 and 23 December 1798. The solo was taken by a certain Antoinie Flamm, who as an alto must have been somewhat taxed by a part extending to b♭''.⁵

_{¹ Translated from Joseph Haydn Werke, series XXVI, vol. 2, Arien, Szenen und Ensembles mit Orchester, 2nd edition, ed. Julia Gehring, Christine Siegert and Robert v. Zahn, Munich 2013, p. XIX.
² See Tatiana Yakushkina, ‘Was there petrarchism in Russia?’, in Forum Italicum 47 (1), pp. 15–37.
³ See Andrea Chegai, ‘Divergenze tra forma poetica ed effetto estetico: “Solo e pensoso” musicato da Haydn’, in Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi VII Centenario della nascita di Francesco Petrarca Arezzo, 18–20 March 2004, ed. Andrea Chegai and Cecilia Luzzi, Lucca, pp. 425-433.
⁴ Haydn to Maria Anna von Gennzinger, 9 February 1790, translated from Joseph Haydn. Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. Dénes Bartha, Kassel et al. 1965, p. 228.
⁵ See H.C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, vol. 4, Haydn: The Years of 'The Creation' 1796–1800, London 1977, p. 334.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

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D. CIMAROSA: IL MAESTRO DI CAPPELLA (1793?)

Scena for bass-baritone and orchestra

by Christian Moritz-Bauer
 

The ‘music for the comedy entitled ‘The Absent-minded Gentleman”’ carved out a career for itself, and was soon performed not only at Eszterháza and Pressburg, but also at the Theater am Kärtnertor in Vienna and the Neues Hoftheater in Salzburg, where it received unusual media attention for the period. Success had come knocking at Haydn’s door, and expectations for further incidental music by him ran accordingly high. So it almost goes without saying that the theatre companies contracted by Nicolaus I never failed to mention the Esterházy court Kapellmeister as their very own ‘musical director’ in the theatre calendars published annually.

Meanwhile, Haydn had been entrusted with a new principal task by his employer around 1776. In that year, Eszterháza Palace began a regular opera season, which soon settled down to an annual production of about 100 performances. In addition to this, of course, there were also plays such as farsi, comedies and tragedies, as well as ballets, pantomimes, marionette operas, and from time to time an orchestral ‘academy’ (concert), so that (except for Holy Week and high religious feasts) the princely stages had a show on almost every day!

Domenico Cimarosa was by far the most frequently performed opera composer at Eszterháza. Haydn gave a total of twelve of his more than sixty stage works in the years between 1780 and 1790 – a period during which this native of Aversa, near Naples, was in the process of becoming the most successful member of his profession all over Europe. The highpoint of his career was certainly his appointment to the court of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, where from 1787 to 1791, for the first time, he was allowed to play the Kapellmeister, a function he had so splendidly caricatured only the year before in a farsa per musica called L’impresario in angustie.

It is doubtless in this context that we should situate the scena for bass-baritone and orchestra Il maestro di cappella. This piece, rediscovered for the concert repertory in the middle of the last century, possibly had its premiere on 2 July 1793 at the Royal National Theatre in Berlin, with the Milanese singer and composer Antonio Bianchi.

This twenty-minute one-man show for solo singer is a witty parody in which a conductor of the ‘old school’ tries to knock into shape the ensemble playing of his orchestra, consisting of flutes, oboes, horns and strings. To his chagrin, however, the players react in extremely undisciplined fashion: they are distracted, make false entries and disagree musically. In his distress the maestro – in order to avoid ‘playing the fool’ any longer – does his best to get the individual sections of the orchestra to pay attention to each other by singing passages onomatopoeically to them, and above all tries to make them count correctly. His success vindicates him – and achieves a ‘harmonious sound’!

Nevertheless, as he attempts to instil in his musicians the sensitivity required for ‘an Allegro cantabile’, he is forced to acknowledge that the playing of the horns thoroughly destabilises his conception of orchestral blend, and he brings the rehearsal to an end with polite posturing.

VOL. 4 _IL DISTRATTO

Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Novaro, Il Giardino Armonico

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SYMPHONY IN C MINOR VB 142 (Vienna, 1783)

Larghetto – Allegro / Andante / Allegro assai

Christian Moritz-Bauer

Joseph Martin Kraus was born in Miltenberg am Main on 20 June 1756, to Johann Bernhard Kraus, an official of the Electorate of Mainz, and Anna Dorothea, née Schmitt, who came from a dynasty of master builders. In the course of his humanistic education at the Jesuit College in Mannheim, he came into contact at an early age with the artistic community resident at the «Court of the Muses» headed by the Palatine Elector Carl Theodor, at a time when its special pride and joy was the court orchestra, which enjoyed an almost legendary reputation throughout Europe. After commencing studies in philosophy and law in Mainz (January 1773), where his youthful, impetuous mind first conceived notions of social and political freedom, he soon transferred to the University of Erfurt. There he took lessons from Bach’s former student Johann Christian Kittel, of which Kraus made good use to compose sacred works during the ensuing year-long interruption of his studies, which he was obliged to spend in Buchen im Odenwald, now the family home, because of a campaign of defamation against his father. Under the influence of Heinrich Leopold Wagner’s Neue Versuch über die Schauspielkunst (New essay on the dramatic arts, translated from the French Essai sur l’art dramatique of Louis-Sébastien Mercier), and in order to express in writing his resentment of the absolutist authorities, he swiftly penned Tolon, a spoken tragedy in three acts. Its language, which makes conspicuous use of the tone of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, was subsequently also to fill the letters of this critical son of the bourgeoisie, who moved to Göttingen in November 1776 to resume his studies there.

In the university town in Lower Saxony, Kraus came into contact with the «Hainbund» (literally, «League of the grove»), a group of students active in the literary field, including Carl Friedrich Cramer, Friedrich Hahn, Anton Leisewitz, Heinrich Voss, the cousins Johann and Gottlieb Miller, and the brothers Friedrich Leopold and Christian zu Stolberg-Stolberg. What the Hainbündler had in common was their veneration of Klopstock and Bürger, their intense love of fatherland and freedom, and their passionate rejection of the Ancien Régime and of the writings of Christoph Martin Wieland, who they alleged was a corrupter of morals; all these themes were brought before the public in their mouthpiece, the Göttinger Musenalmanach. Although the Bund as such was already history by the time the young student from the Odenwald arrived in Göttingen, the temporary return of Hahn allowed his ideas a brief summer-long period of extra time.
For Kraus, at any rate, Hahn’s friendship seems to have had a liberating effect on his subsequent artistic output. So much is revealed by the anonymously published pamphlet Etwas von und über Musik fürs Jahr 1777 (Something of and about music for the year 1777), written within the space of a few months, in which Kraus permits himself to defy many a composing luminary of the day in eloquent and irreverent fashion. In the course of the essay’s interjections and exclamation marks, the lively objections and brief rejoinders by both named and unnamed interlocutors, one thing quickly becomes clear: what surges forth here is once again the voice of Sturm und Drang, the cult of genius that had become so fashionable. And yet one may ask whether the very clear partisanship on behalf of Gluck’s operatic reform programme that emerges so clearly here actually derives from genuine admiration of the Viennese dramatist rather than from a Hainbund-motivated rejection of Wieland’s libretto for Anton Schweitzer’s Alceste (1773). A few years later, when Kraus was fortunate enough to meet the grand seigneur of Classical music theatre in person, he drew a portrait of him that might have come straight from some heroic poem by Klopstock: «I have found my Gluck – he esteems me, that is good; but he also loves me, and that is better! He is a kind-hearted man, but fiery as the devil, and in that respect I am a mere jest compared to him. When he really puts his mind to it – oh my! Then he really roars, and every nerve is strained and vibrates.»¹

In the meantime, other important events occurred in the young man’s life, the first of which was the decision he made in Göttingen to devote himself henceforth to music and to turn his back on his homeland. A more or less direct stimulus for this may have come from Carl Stridsberg, a friend and fellow student who was also a poet: he not only conceived a stage work with Kraus, but also painted an enticing picture of his Swedish homeland as a paradise of the fine arts.
The point of departure for the period of cultural prosperity that the Kingdom of Sweden experienced towards the end of the eighteenth century was the accession of its monarch Gustav III (of German blood on his mother’s side), who reigned from 1771 to 1792. Already in the first years of his reign he had founded two academies in Stockholm – one for music, the other for the fine arts – to the leading positions in which he appointed outstanding personalities from home and abroad. One of these was our Kraus, who had previously refused all protection and recommendation from those in high places, but was finally given an opera commission there a full two years after his arrival in Sweden, in June 1780: the libretto, called Proserpin, was written by the court poet Johan Henrik Kellgren.
From then on his situation quickly improved: before the end of the year Kraus was commissioned to rehearse Gluck’s Alceste and appointed a member of the Academy of Music. This is followed by the successful premiere of Proserpin at Ulriksdal Castle (1 June 1781) and, barely two weeks later, his appointment as deputy Kapellmästare at court.
Now the road to success seemed to lie open before Kraus. The Royal Opera House, which had been under construction since 1775, was due to be opened in Stockholm’s Gustav Adolfs torg (Square) at the beginning of 1782 with another stage work by the newly appointed deputy Kapellmästare – Aeneas i Carthago was its title. But the inauguration date was delayed and, even worse, when the composition was already more than half finished, a rueful Kraus was obliged to break to his parents the news that the prima donna Caroline Müller, cast in the role of Dido, had left Sweden to flee her creditors. This event brought to a premature end his biggest undertaking so far in the world of music theatre. Kraus’s king then sent him on an educational grand tour of the cultural centres of Europe within a week of the opening of the opera house, which finally took place on 30 September 1782 with a singspiel by Naumann. Contrary to appearances, however, the journey was not intended to make amends for Kraus’s disappointment, but in fact been had already planned for a long time.

Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Eszterháza, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Paris, plus an excursion to see Padre Martini in Bologna and to the Handel centenary celebrations in London – the itinerary will hardly surprise anyone who is knows the importance of music theatre in the output of the German-Swedish composer. And yet it was above all his symphonies (more than a dozen of which may already have been in existence when he set off on his journey) that were decisive in spreading the fame of Kraus the «Classicist». It would appear that the young musician – who was well aware of his «genius» and more than once gave priority to «fullness of heart» (the concept of «Fülle des Herzens» dear to the Hainbündler Leopold zu Stolberg) over the prudence of the older generation – hardly ever sought to supplement his travel budget by selling any of the music he had brought with him.
Haydn was not the only one to be astonished by this attitude. His well-meant advice to bear in mind the importance of «ringing coin of the realm» earned the older composer a biting put-down in Kraus’s correspondence. In this respect, however, another acquaintance – the commercial agent Johann Samuel Liedemann – could rejoice in a gesture of quite another sort, which he mentioned in a letter to Emerich Horváth-Stansith de Gradec, scion of a Hungarian noble family and vice-ispán (viscount) of Spiš County: «All we have of him consists of an overture from his opera, a quartet from among his earlier works, and a sonata which he inscribed to me as a memento of his friendship. Now he is working on a symphony, which he will also dedicate to me.»²
We have now reached September 1783. Kraus had been staying in the capital of the Habsburg Empire since the beginning of April, attending opera and oratorio performances, giving private concerts in the house of his friend Liedemann and meeting the leading figures of the Viennese music scene. Christoph Willibald Gluck, to whom he was drawn like a «pilgrim to relics of the Holy Land»³, was top of the visiting list. This was followed by encounters with Salieri, Vanhal and Albrechtsberger (whom he found «good as gold») and an audience with Emperor Joseph II. There is no report of any meeting with Mozart, however, and the decision, shortly before he travelled on to Italy at King Gustav’s command, «to go to Eszterháza for a short time to take leave of my Haydn»⁴ seems to have brought about the first and only meeting of Kraus and Haydn, whose responsibility for the current theatrical season at Eszterháza Palace made his presence indispensable there and thus precluded a visit to Vienna.
But that meeting did not take place for another couple of weeks, during which the young Swede obviously tried to do something to further the dissemination of his musical œuvre. Hence he not only carried on composing, but also made contact with the copyist’s workshop of Johann Traeg, whose manuscript copies of music enjoyed widespread distribution beyond the borders of Austria. In this context, there are repeated references to a »Symphony in C minor«, a work which in the distant future was to be singled out from the small but extremely distinguished canon of symphonic works by Joseph Martin Kraus as one of »the most significant examples of its genre from the 1780s.«⁵

The true success story of the Symphony in C minor, which had probably been available in Traeg’s copies of the parts since the beginning of 1784, only really got underway when it was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig in 1797, at the instigation of Fredrik Samuel and Gustav Abraham Silverstolpe. The fact that a laudatory review soon followed in the newly founded Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung seems to have been just as beneficial to the Silverstolpe brothers’ efforts as the words of Joseph Haydn, who is said to have remarked that same year to Fredrik Samuel, then serving as a diplomat in Vienna: »Kraus was the first man of genius I ever knew. Why did he have to die? He is an irreplaceable loss for our art.«⁶
The surviving autograph manuscript of the work probably dates from Kraus’s later stay in Paris and is a revision of the Sinfonia in C sharp minor VB 140, written earlier in Stockholm, now augmented by a second pair of horns and influenced by the impressions he had gained in Vienna. It begins with a slow introduction, which in turn pays homage to his »Ritter Gluck«, quoting the opening of the Overture to Iphigénie en Aulide in expanded scoring and with a more densely developed contrapuntal texture. The subsequent course of the composition, expressed in urgent musical discourse, has rarely been so tellingly described as by the eloquent pen of the music theorist and reviewer Justin Heinrich Knecht: »One must indeed admire the exquisite, soul-stirring modulations that pour forth one after another in this symphony, the splendid and distinctive bass lines, the assiduous handling of the inner voices, the beautiful and simple accompaniment of the wind instruments, and above all the impassioned ideas of this great master.«⁷
Even if – to return to Haydn – his enthusiasm for Kraus was probably kindled more by the Symphonie funèbre on the death of Gustav III, which Silverstolpe presented to him as a gift by in 1797, than by this musical monument to the younger man’s veneration of Gluck, we may infer from another quotation from a letter by Johann Samuel Liedemann dated December 1783, which refers to the meeting of the two composers at Eszterháza, that although »Kraus’s pieces... are not to his Prince’s taste, when the Prince is absent and he wants to spend a good day«, Haydn had those very pieces played to him.⁸
Thus Kraus must have continued his journey into Italian territory with a certain feeling of satisfaction, and not only because Prince Esterházy had shown himself »most condescending« towards him and he had been able to establish new friendships and business relations in Vienna. At any rate, his compositional output had grown considerably there – by about twenty songs, a string quartet, a flute quintet and at least one, if not several symphonies...

_{¹ Letter from Kraus to his parents in Amorbach (Odenwald), dated »Wien den 28t Junius 1783«.
² Ingrid Fuchs, »Haydniana in einer altösterreichischen Adelskorrespondenz«, in Internationales musikwissenschaftliches Symposium »Dokumentarische Grundlagen der Haydnforschung« im Rahmen der Internationalen Haydntage Eisenstadt, 13. und 14. September 2004, ed. Georg Feder & Walter Reicher (Tutzing: 2006), pp.55-79, here p.72.
³ Draft letter to the Stockholm theatre director Christoffer Bogislaus Zibeth, dated »[Vienna,] 15 [April 1783]«.
⁴ Cf. note 1 1.
⁵ Gabriela Krombach, article »Kraus, Joseph Martin«, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Zweite, neubearbeitete Ausgabe, ed. Ludwig Finscher, Personenteil, vol. 10 »Kemp-Lert» (Kassel, Stuttgart etc.: 2003), columns 622-626, here column 624.
⁶ Letter from F. S. Silverstolpe to Marianne Lämmerhirt née Kraus, the composer's sister, published in Helmut Brosch, »Quellen zur Biographie von Joseph Martin Kraus, c) Frederik Samuel Silverstolpes Briefwechsel mit Kraus' Vater, Schwester und Schwager«, Mitteilungen der Internationalen Joseph-Martin-Kraus-Gesellschaft, vol. 5/6, 1986, pp.1-35, here p.21.
⁷ Justin Heinrich Knecht, »Recensionen. Oeuvre de Joseph Kraus, Maitre de Chapelle de S.M. Le Roi de Suede. Premier Cahier […] 1) Sinfonie für ein grosses Orchester [...]«, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, vol. 1, 3 Oct. 1798 - 15 Sept. 1799 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel), columns 9-11, here column 11.
⁸ Fuchs, op. cit., p.73..}

VOL. 5 _L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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W. A. MOZART: MUSIC FOR THAMOS, KÖNIG IN EGYPTEN K345/336a: nos. 2-5 & 7a (Salzburg, 1775/76)

Nr. 2-5 & 7a  (Salzburg, 1775/76)

Maestoso – Allegro / Andante / Allegro – Allegretto (Melodram) / Allegro vivace assai / Without tempo indication (Pheron’s despair, blasphemy and death)
 

[Impresario: Carl Wahr]

Around the turn of the year 1775/76 – at about the time when Haydn was engaged in transforming his music for Die Jagdlust Heinrich des Vierte into a concert symphony – Carl Wahr enjoyed a success at the Theater im Ballhaus in Salzburg. The heroic drama Thamos, König in Egypten (Thamos, King of Egypt), written by Baron Tobias von Gebler, was staged there on 3 January 1776 with musical accompaniment by the court orchestra of the Prince Archbishop under the direction of Michael Haydn, Joseph’s younger brother. The music for the drama was mentioned in the press (something by no means common at the time), even though the Theaterwochenblatt für Salzburg restricted its remarks to the dismissive comment that the ‘composer of the choruses . . . has extended the fifth act excessively with repetitions’. That ‘composer’ – as research has since demonstrated with certainty – was none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who had already written an early version of the aforementioned choruses on commission from the playwright during his stay in Vienna from July to September 1773. Various studies in the specialist field of the chronology of the handwriting and watermarks of Mozart’s autograph have confirmed that, in addition to these vocal numbers integrated into the stage action, the Salzburg performance in question also included four instrumental interludes between the acts, along with a melodrama, and a musical descent into hell ‘à la Don Juan’, all composed especially for that later occasion, which took place on the Catholic feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. The same research has also established that the surviving autograph must have been written in a period that can be situated between around April 1775 and July 1776.¹

The scene is set in ancient Egypt. Ramasses has deposed King Menes from his throne; the latter has not been seen since and has therefore been declared dead. In fact, disguised as the Chief Priest Sethos, he has withdrawn behind the protective walls of the Temple of the Sun. Unbeknownst to him, Tharsis, his daughter and heiress, is also serving in the temple under the borrowed name of Sais. She secretly loves Ramasses’s son Thamos, who is to ascend the throne after his father’s death.

The action now begins to unfold. The treacherous Pheron, whom Thamos disastrously considers to be one of his closest friends and advisers, sets out to influence the forthcoming process of accession to the throne in his favour (Maestoso - Allegro). The syncopations that dominate the musical texture underline the constantly increasing drama. The second act concludes with music (Andante) which – according to the abbreviated annotations to the autograph score in Leopold Mozart’s hand – contrasts the fundamentally honest character of Thamos (represented by solo oboe) with the falseness of Pheron (the two bassoons answering the oboe in thirds).

Pheron foments a conspiracy against Thamos. With the help of his accomplice Mirza, the highest-ranking Virgin of the Sun, he seeks to win Tharsis’s affection in order to obtain the throne for himself through marriage, using any means – including the lie that Thamos in reality loves a certain Myris and (worse still) has chosen Pheron to marry ‘Sais’. But, in order to defend herself from her supposed fate of marrying Pheron, the maiden decides – resorting to the dramatically heightened device of melodrama – to consecrate herself to the gods as a Priestess of the Sun (Allegro - Allegretto).

Once Pheron has realised that his plan is doomed to failure, he tries to conquer the throne by force of arms. Thamos in turn understands that he and Sais/Tharsis have been deceived. The fourth act closes in a situation of ‘general confusion’ (Allegro vivace assai).

The moment has come for Menes, the old king, to reveal himself and order the arrest of Pheron. Cheated of her last chance of success, Mirza stabs herself, while Pheron, having cursed the gods, is struck by lightning (‘Pheron’s despair, blasphemy and death’, without tempo marking). Sethos unites Thamos with Tharsis, whose vow to become Priestess is invalid because it was sworn without her father’s consent, and declares the couple to be the rightful heirs to his lost throne, which they are to take up immediately.

¹ On this subject, see notably Alfred Orel, ‘Mozarts Beitrag zum deutschen Sprechtheater: die Musik zu Geblers Thamos’, Acta Mozartiana 4 (1957), pp.43-53, 74-81; Harald Heckmann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Serie II, Werkgruppe 6, Band 1: Chöre und Zwischenaktmusiken zu Thamos, König in Ägypten. Kritischer Bericht (Kassel and Basel: 1958), pp.4-7; Alan Tyson, Wasserzeichen-Katalog (Kassel and Basel: 1992 = W. A. Mozart. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Serie X, Werkgruppe 33, Abt. 2, Teilband 1), pp.

VOL. 7 _GLI IMPRESARI

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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ANONYMOUS (attributed to Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber) SONATA JUCUNDA IN D MAJOR C. App. 121 / B. IV 100 (Kroměříž / Kremsier, c.1677–1680)

Adagio – Presto – Adagio – Allegro – [no tempo marking]

Christian Moritz-Bauer

To begin the second part of the programme we take a detour through one of the richest regions (in terms of both general and musical culture, especially folk music) of the former Habsburg Empire: Hanakia, which is now the Haná region of Moravia in the Czech Republic. The trade its inhabitants plied with central and eastern Europe made them widely known.

The anonymous Sonata Jucunda for two violins, three violas and basso continuo is probably the most significant work of late seventeenth-century art music to attempt to imitate the music of the Hanáks. This ‘cheerful sonata’ has survived in Kroměříž (Kremsier), in a single manuscript from the important collection of Bishop Karl von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, and was copied out by the composer, trumpeter and choirmaster Paul Josef Vejvanovský, probably between 1677 and 1680.¹

Like many other works evoking peasant music-making, it deliberately conveys by compositional means the impression of a disorderly playing style, sometimes even down to faulty ensemble. For example, at one point the violino primo and violetta parts play simultaneously in D major and D Mixolydian respectively, joined a few bars later by the lower violas in bare fifths (played on open strings). The following section is also decidedly jocular, identifying the minor second as a comic feature. The ‘punch line’ is delivered in the last six bars of the sonata: the dispute over the correct key is finally settled and a short but solemn solo passage ends the merry round.

_{¹ See Robert Rawson, ‘Courtly Contexts for Moravian Hanák Music in the 17th and 18th centuries’, Early Music 40/4, November 2012, pp.577-591.}

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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BÉLA BARTÓK: ROMANIAN FOLK DANCES (1917)

arranged for string orchestra by Arthur Willner (1881–1959)

Jocul cu bâtă (Stick Dance) / Brâul (Sash Dance) / Pe loc (On One Spot) / Buciumeana (Dance from Bucium) / Poarga Românească (Romanian Polka) / Mărunțel (Fast Dance)

Christian Moritz-Bauer

In his Romanian Folk Dances, the melodies for which he collected in 1910 and 1912 on field trips to the counties of Bihar, Maros-Torda, Torda-Aranyos and Torontál and arranged for piano in 1915 and for small orchestra in 1917, Béla Bartók used a range of compositional stylistic devices which can be bracketed under the specialist terms dűvő and esztam. They helped the composer-ethnographer to express the conception of simplicity, purity and authenticity by means of which he sought to instil new life in the music of his Hungarian homeland from its own folk roots.¹

The first piece, Jocul cu bâtă, represents a stick dance once performed for Bartók in the village of Voiniceni by a fleet-footed boy and two Roma musicians on violin and kontra. (The latter instrument, widespread in Transylvania, is a form of viola whose flattened bridge enables simultaneous playing of its three strings. In this dance it performs a continuous dűvő.) The inspiration for Brâul, a sash dance for young female dancers, and Pe loc with its exotic arabesques, was the playing of a fifty-year-old man on the furulya, the traditional fipple flute of shepherds.

The fourth dance comes from Bucium. Its augmented seconds belong to the standard repertory of Transylvanian musical folklore. Poarga Românească (Romanian polka) captivates with its continuous alternation between 2/4 and 3/4 time. At the same time it forms the prelude to a rapid finale, which reaches a fiery conclusion in two fast dances or mărunțel.

_{¹ See Joshua S. Walden, Sounding Authentic: The Rural Miniature and Musical Modernism (Oxford, New York etc.: Oxford University Press, 2014), Chapter Six, ‘Béla Bartók’s Rural Miniatures and the Case of Romanian Folk Dances’, especially pp.170-171.}

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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JOSEPH HAYDN: SCENA «BERENICE, CHE FAI?» Hob. XXIVa:10

by Pietro Metastasio

Towards the end of his second London visit, Haydn wrote the solo cantata ‘Berenice, che fai’ on commission from the Italian soprano Brigida Banti. Its text comes from one of the farewell scenes most frequently set to music in the second half of the eighteenth century, found in Pietro Metastasio’s dramma per musica L’Antigono. The work was premiered at ‘Dr HAYDN’s Night’ on 4 May 1795, which also saw the first performance of the Symphony in D major Hob. I:104, the composer’s last major orchestral work.
Although the Egyptian princess Berenice has been promised in marriage to the Macedonian king Antigonus, she is in love with his son Demetrius. Torn between the emotion of requited love and the duty of loyalty to his father’s interests, Demetrius can find no way out of his awkward predicament and has decided to take his own life. In a succession of recitative, cavatina (interrupted in the middle of a line of verse), recitative and aria, the disconsolate heroine now laments her fate, longing to die at her beloved’s side – states of mind vacillating between madness and love, which Haydn expressed in a manner as dramatic as it is grandiose.

Scena / composta / per la Signora Banti / da me Giuseppe Haydn_mpria
[Parole del signor abate Pietro Metastasio]

[Recitativo]

Berenice, che fai? Muore il tuo bene,
stupida, e tu non corri? Oh Dio! Vacilla
l’incerto passo; un gelido mi scuote
insolito tremor tutte le vene,
e a gran pena il suo peso il piè sostiene.

Dove son? Qual confusa
folla d’idee tutte funeste adombra
la mia ragion? Veggo Demetrio: il veggo
che in atto di ferir... Fermati! Vivi!
D’Antigono io sarò. Del core ad onta
volo a giurargli fè: dirò che l’amo;
dirò...

Misera me, s’oscura il giorno,
balena il ciel! L’hanno irritato i miei
meditati spergiuri. Ahimè! Lasciate
ch’io soccorra il mio ben, barbari Dei.
Voi m’impedite, e intanto
forse un colpo improvviso...
Ah, sarete contenti; eccolo ucciso.

Aspetta, anima bella: ombre compagne
a Lete andrem. Se non potei salvarti
potrò fedel... Ma tu mi guardi, e parti?

Cavatina
Non partir, bell’idol mio:
per quell’onda all’altra sponda
voglio anch’io passar con te.

Recitativo
Me infelice! Che fingo? Che ragiono?
Dove rapita sono
dal torrente crudel de’ miei martiri?
Misera Berenice, ah, tu deliri!

Aria
Perché se tanti siete,
che delirar mi fate,
perché non m’uccidete,
affanni del mio cor?

Crescete, oh Dio, crescete
finchè mi porga aita
con togliermi di vita
l’eccesso del dolor.

Scena composed for Signora Banti by me, Joseph Haydn, in my own hand
[Words by the Abbé Pietro Metastasio]

[Recitative]
Berenice, what are you doing? Your beloved is dying,
foolish woman, and you do not run to him? Oh God!
My faltering step hesitates; an icy tremor,
hitherto unknown, runs through all my veins,
and my feet can scarcely bear their burden.

Where am I? What is this confused
host of dismal thoughts that clouds
my reason? I see Demetrius: I see him
in the act of striking . . . Stop! Live on!
I will be Antigonus’ spouse. Against my heart’s desire
I fly to plight my troth to him: I will say that I love him;
I will say . . .

Woe is me! The day grows dark,
lightning flashes across the heavens! They are angered
by my wilful perjuries. Alas! Let me succour
my beloved, cruel gods.
You hinder my steps, and in the meantime,
perhaps an unexpected blow . . .
Ah, now you will be satisfied; behold, he is slain!

Wait, noble soul: together, as shades,
we will journey to Lethe. Though I could not save you,
still, faithful, I will be able to . . . But you gaze upon me, and depart?

Aria
Do not go, fair idol of my heart:
over those waters to the farther shore
I wish to cross with you.

Recitative
Wretch that I am! What am I imagining? What am I saying?
Whither have I been transported
by the cruel torrent of my sufferings?
Hapless Berenice, ah, you are raving!

Aria
Why, if you are so many
that you can drive me mad,
why do you not slay me,
O torments of my heart?

Increase (ah God!), grow ever greater,
until excess of grief
comes to my assistance
by taking my life from me.

VOL. 9 _L'ADDIO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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W. A. MOZART: SERENADE IN D MAJOR «SERENATA NOTTURNA» KV 239 (Salzburg in January 1776)

Marcia. Maestoso / Menuetto – Trio (Menuetto 2do) / Rondeau. Allegretto – Adagio – Allegro

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

‘Mozart’s name has come to symbolise the history of the serenade and divertimento’, begins an article by Thomas Schipperges in the Mozart-Handbuch jointly published by Bärenreiter and Metzler in 2006. And he goes on to state that ‘[w]ithin Mozart’s own oeuvre, [this] genre – music lying outside the chamber or the church, the theatre or the ballroom – is regarded as peripheral’, only to emphasise immediately that although much has been written ‘about specific questions of terminology and dating, performing circumstances and practice’, behind ‘the philological detail . . . the individual compositions, . . . the music [itself] has usually taken a back seat’.¹

In the case of the work that has become known to music history as the ‘Serenata notturna’ and is still found more or less regularly on concert programmes today, it already seems hard enough to answer the ‘specific questions’ mentioned by Schipperges. We are frequently told, for example, that the heading in the autograph, which actually reads ‘Serenada [sic] notturna’, and the indication of the composer and date ‘di Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart / nel gennaio 1776’ are in the hand of Leopold Mozart. Moreover, the piece is said to have been intended as outdoor music, but its scoring without wind instruments and the period of its composition suggest rather that it was written for indoor performance, possibly even as New Year’s music. To all intents and purposes, though, it is generally assumed that we have no idea of the precise circumstances of its first performance and the related question of what prompted its composition.

The first correction to be made to the traditional narrative of K239 is the supposed title of the work. As we can read in Ernst Hintermaier’s 1988 Critical Report to theNeue Mozart-Ausgabe edition of the score published by Günther Haußwald in 1962,² this did not actually originate with Leopold at all, but was added by a certain Franz Gleissner – a fact that has been purely and simply ignored by prominent Mozart scholars right down to the present day. Gleissner, a court musician to the Elector of Bavaria, composer and co-inventor of lithographic printing, worked in 1800 and 1801 with the publishing house of Johann Anton André in Offenbach, compiling a list arranged by genre of compositions that André had purchased from Mozart’s widow Constanze a year earlier. This is probably how the originally untitled work came to acquire its posthumous name, a combination of the terms ‘serenade’ and ‘notturno’. (The Notturno for four orchestras K286, often regarded as a sister work to K239, whose salient features of scoring for several instrumental groups and three-movement structure it shares and whose autograph was lost in the turmoil of the Second World War, may well have been ‘christened’ by Gleissner in similar fashion.)

Furthermore, there is good reason to surmise that the work was not intended – like the majority of Mozart’s serenades and divertimenti – as open-air music or Huldigungsmusik to be played in homage to a higher-ranking person or group, or sometimes one or more friends or relatives of the composer, and certainly not as New Year’s music. Rather, the occasion for the composition of the Serenata notturna seems to lie in the direction of the Redouten or masked balls held at Salzburg’s Town Hall, then situated on the Kranzlmarkt. These took place every Wednesday and Sunday between Candlemas and Ash Wednesday, and were regularly and enthusiastically attended by both upper- and middle-class citizens, including Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart. Ferdinand von Schidenhofen, Salzburg court councillor, district chancellor and friend of the Mozart family, reports in his diary:

Wednesday 14 February [1776].

. . . In the evening . . . I went to [Johann von] Geÿer’s residence, where I was awaited by the company who were presenting a [pantomime depicting a] French recruitment parade at the masked ball. We arrived at half past nine. Herr Meisner went first as drum major, followed by six musicians. Then Master of the Horse [Leopold, Count] Kuenburg as a corporal, and General [Franz Johann Nepomuk Anton Felix] Count Arco, Fortress Commander Count [Johann Gottfried] Lützow, Baron [Polycarp von] Lilien, Herr Schmid, Herr [Ferdinand] von Geÿer Fähndrich, and Count [Anton Willibald von] Wolfegg as commanding officer. Then [Wolf Joseph,] Count Überacker, Captain [Felix Johann von] Freitag, and myself as recruits, Captain Riser as a prisoner and Count Wicka as a sutler. In addition, [Johann Rudolph,] Count Czernin performed a rival recruitment parade for the cavalry, accompanied by Baron [Franz Christoph von] Lehrbach, the pages and others. I went home at three o’clock, by which time it was too crowded for dancing because 410 people were there.³

It is difficult to imagine how a parade of the kind Schidenhofen put on along with his fellow Salzburgers and in front of several hundred ball guests that evening, a week before the beginning of Lent in 1776, could have taken place without suitable music to accompany it. In a context such as this, several of the conspicuous features of the work we have been discussing suddenly become self-explanatory, from the instrumental forces it calls for (a solo ‘serenade quartet’ is juxtaposed with a larger string group that acts as a chorus, commenting on and punctuating the material presented by the quartet, and underpinned by a timpanist who impels the musical action) to the consistently unusual sequence of movements. Marcia: a march-like motif is heard, but only as a signal for the protagonists of our little carnivalesque game to form ranks. As early as the third bar, a charming entrance by the solo quartet belies the apparent seriousness of the scene and is enthusiastically cheered by the assembled orchestral tutti. After all, the ‘recruiting sergeants’ are French, seeking soldiers to take part in the American War of Independence. The whole movement thrives on the interplay of the two groups and their motifs, interspersed on occasion with soft timpani strokes and string pizzicati that disseminate a mysterious nocturnal mood.

As befits the opening of a masked ball, a Menuetto follows. At first it seems a little stiff, but its middle section – which Mozart entitled ‘Menuetto 2do’ after the French model – is characterised by a relaxed triplet movement performed by the serenade quartet alone.

The pretend ‘company’ soon begins its retreat with a compositionally ingenious Rondeau, embellished by several interpolations that produce a thoroughly comical effect, including an Adagio recitative and an accelerated return of the movement’s theme with pizzicato/coll’arco contrasts. At the end, with the final roll of drums, the actors melt into the crowd of maskers.

_{¹ Thomas Schipperges, ‘Mozart und die Tradition gesellschaftsgebundener Unterhaltungsmusik im 18. Jahrhundert’, in Silke Leopold (ed.), Mozart-Handbuch (Stuttgart, Weimar, Kassel: Bärenreiter/Metzler, 2005), pp.562-564, here p.562.
² Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Serie IV Orchesterwerke, Werkgruppe 12: Kassationen, Serenaden und Divertimenti für Orchester, vol.3: Full Score, edited and introduced by Günter Haußwald (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1962); Critical Report by Ernst Hintermaier (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1988).
³ Hannelore und Rudolph Angermüller with Günther G. Bauer (eds.), Joachim Ferdinand von Schidenhofen, ein Freund der Mozarts. Die Tagebücher des Salzburger Hofrats (Bad Honnef: Bock, 2006), p.136.}

VOL. 10 _LES HEURES DU JOUR

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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J. M. HAYDN ET AL. ATTRIB.: SINFONIA IN C «BERCHTOLDSGADNER» („TOY SYMPHONY“) (~1760/1770) HOB. II:47

VOL. 12 _LES JEUX ET LES PLAISIRS

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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SINFONIA D MAJOR (OVERTURE TO "GENOVEFENS VIERTER THEIL"?) HOB. IA:7 (1777)

Presto (used as fourth movement in Hob. I:53, early version B, c.1777/78?)

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Haydns Sinfonie Nr. 53 stellt in seiner (handschriftlichen) Überlieferung ein alles andere als unproblematisches Werk dar, was sich etwa dadurch zeigt, dass Antony van Hoboken einst in sein Haydn-Werkverzeichnis nicht weniger als sieben verschiedene Fassungen der selbigen aufgenommen hatte. Von diesen blieben nach eingehenden wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen allerdings schlussendlich nur zwei ‚authentische‘ Fassungen über: eine Frühfassung (Hobokens „Fassung B“) sowie die in No. 14 L’Impériale wiedergegebene, für „endgültig“ befundene „Fassung A“¹.  Der Unterschied zwischen den beiden besteht v. a. darin, dass „Fassung B“, die in handschriftlicher Form eine nicht unerhebliche Verbreitung erfuhr, noch über keine langsame Einleitung und dazu einen anderen, wohl provisorisch angefügten Schlusssatz verfügte, als jenes Capriccio Moderato, mit dem Haydn schließlich sein Werk zu beenden gedachte. Es war dies ein Satz in D-Dur und Tempo Presto, der im Gegensatz zu den Sätzen 1-3 von Hob. I:53 als Autograph überliefert und mit der Jahreszahl 1777 datiert ist, somit also in seiner Niederschrift der Wandlung von Sinfonie Nr. 53 in ihre „Fassung A“ um etwa ein Jahr vorausgegangen war. Auffällig an jenem Prestosatz ist, dass dieser ursprünglich mit Überleitung und Halbschluss auf der Dominante G-Dur endete, also recht offensichtlich als Ouvertüre zu einem Bühnenwerk verfasst worden war – ein Umstand dem Haydn zunächst dadurch Abhilfe zu schaffen versuchte, dass er die Überleitung strich und direkt davor ein „Fine“ mit anschließenden, doppelten Taktstrichen setzte. Später, nachdem Hob. I:53 zwischenzeitlich seine endgültige Form gefunden hatte und vermutlich bei einer der auf Schloss Eszterház gegebenen Akademien zu Anfang des Jahres 1778 zur Aufführung gebracht worden war, sollte Haydn abermals eine Verwendung für den ‚verwaisten‘ Ouvertürensatz finden und zwar im Zuge einer weiteren, wiederum in scheinbarer Eile erstellten Komposition in D-Dur, der Sinfonie Nr. 62 von 1780², bei der er ihn diesmal allerdings als Kopfsatz verwendete und dahingehend einer vergleichsweise umfangreicheren Bearbeitung unterzog.
Auf der Suche nach jenem Bühnenwerk, dem die Ouvertüre, die im Hobokenverzeichnis die Nummer Ia:7 trägt, einst zugedacht war, geriet dem Haydn-Forscher Stephen C. Fisher ein Werk des auf Schloss Esterház seit 1773 betriebenen Marionettentheaters in die Hände, besser gesagt ein Libretto zu dem selbigen, das infolge seines Titelzusatzes „im Sommer 1777 zum ersten Male aufgeführet“ wurde. Der Sommer 1777 wiederum, genauer gesagt die Tage zwischen dem 3. und 6. August, standen unter dem Zeichen der Feierlichkeiten zur Hochzeit des zweitältesten Sohnes von Fürst Nikolaus I. Joseph, dem Grafen Nikolaus Laurenz mit Maria Anna Franziska geb. Reichsgräfin Ungnadin von Weissenwolff, einer Nichte seiner Frau Maria Elisabeth, die mit der Uraufführung von Haydns Oper „Il mondo della luna“ begannen und mit einer Aufführung des Marionettensingspiels „Genovefens vierter Theil“ endeten. Letzteres stellte den abschließenden Teil einer Tetralogie aus der Feder des damaligen Direktors der esterházyschen Marionettenbühne, Carl Michael von Pauerspach, dar und muss – im Gegensatz zu den ihm einst vorangestellten Teilen 1-3 – auch mit einem gewissen, von Haydn persönlich stammenden kompositorischen Anteil über die Bühne gegangen sein. Schließlich wird es in der „Biographischen Skizze“ von Albert Christoph Dies als eines seiner eigenen Werke, im zwischen ca. 1799 und 1804 erstellten Verzeichnis von „275 Verschiedene[n] Opern, Oratorien, Marionetten, und Cantatten Büchel“, welche sich einst im Besitz des esterházyschen Kapellmeisters befanden, allerdings als „von verschieden Meistern“ stammend ausgewiesen³.  Fisher stellte jedenfalls fest, dass jene sechs Bifolianten (Doppelblätter), die das Autograph der Ouvertüre Hob. Ia:7 bilden, aus denselben Papiersorten besteht, wie diejenigen der Partitur von „Il mondo della luna“. Außerdem beweisen an dem selbigen seitlich angebrachte Löcher, dass es einst Teil einer größeren, zusammengenähten Partiturhandschrift gewesen sein muss. Insgesamt hält Fisher – und folglich auch ein nicht geringer Teil der Haydn-Forschung – die Übereinstimmung von Hob. Ia:7 mit der Ouvertüre des (verlorengegangenen) Marionettensingspiels „Genovefens vierter Theil“ weiterhin für „eine Hypothese, wenngleich eine sehr attraktive“⁴. 

_{¹ Vgl. Stephen C. Fisher, Sonja Gerlach, „Vorwort“, in: Joseph Haydn-Institut Köln (Hg.): Joseph Haydn. Sinfonien um 1777 – 1779, München 2002 (= Joseph Haydn Werke. Reihe I, Band 9), S. IX-XI.
² Vgl. Haydn2032 No. 15 „La Reine“.
³ Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: The Late Years 18001–1809. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977 (= Haydn: Chronicle and works Bd. 5), S. 320–325.
⁴ Vgl. / zit. nach Stephen Carey Fisher, Haydn’s Overtures and their adaptions as concert orchestral works, Ph. D. Diss., University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), 1985, S. 301–303.}

JOSEPH HAYDN: CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND STRINGS A MAJOR HOB. VIIa:3 (c. 1765–70)

Moderato / Adagio / Finale. Allegro

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Während Haydns Sinfonie Nr. 62 in D-Dur eindeutig auf das Jahr 1780, in ihrer überlieferten Form vielleicht sogar auf die unmittelbar dem 15. Oktober selbigen Jahres vorausgehenden Tage datiert werden kann, lässt sich die Entstehung seines dritten von ursprünglich vier komponierten Violinkonzerten nur recht grob auf den Zeitraum 1765 – 1770 beschränken, der dafür von zwei für die kaiserliche Familie überaus bedeutsamen Jahreszahlen eingegrenzt wird: derjenige der Hochzeit von Erzherzog Leopold mit der spanischen Prinzessin Maria Ludovica in Innsbruck, während deren Feierlichkeiten es zum unvorhersehbaren Tod von Kaiser Franz I. Stephan gekommen war, sowie die der Vermählung von Erzherzogin Maria Antonia mit Louis-Auguste de France, Duc de Berry und Thronerbe des Königs von Frankreich.

Vieles spricht dafür, dass Haydn seine Konzerte mit solistischer Violine – trotz durchaus vorhandenem Vermögen nicht für den Eigengebrauch, sondern für seinen Konzertmeister aus den Reihen der esterházy‘schen Hofkapelle schrieb. Dies war bekannterweise der 1741 in Pesaro geborene (Aloisio) Luigi Tomasini, der noch zu Zeiten von Fürst Paul II. Anton seine Anstellung daselbst gefunden hatte. Jedenfalls trägt eines der im Haydns „Entwurfkatalog“ eingetragenen konzertanten Werke den Zusatz „Concerto per il Violino fatto per il luigi“. Hinzu kommt, dass insbesondere das heute erklingende A-Dur-Konzert durch seine Anweisung zum ersten Satz („Moderato“) sowie in der vom Solisten geforderten virtuos-konzertierenden Spielweise an die Quartettdivertimenti op. 9 von 1769/1770 erinnert, bei denen sich Haydn am besonderen Können Tomasinis orientiert hatte. Hervor sticht unter dieser, seiner mit Abstand umfangreichsten Partitur für Violine mit Begleitung eines Streicherensembles, deren wichtigste allesamt handschriftliche Quellen heute im Musikkonservatorium Benedetto Marcello in Venedig bzw. in der Musikaliensammlung von Stift Melk in Niederösterreich liegen, besonders das Finale, das kein ungestümes Presto, sondern vielmehr ein so subtil wie dicht gearbeitetes Allegro im unüblichen ¾-Takt darstellt, der aber eindeutig nicht dem Charakter eines „Tempo di Menuetto“ folgt.

GIOACHINO ROSSINI: OVERTURE TO «LA SCALA DI SETA»

Sinfonia. Allegro vivace – Andantino – Allegro

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Am 29. Februar 1792, also nur 2 Tage vor der Londoner Uraufführung von Haydns Sinfonie Nr. 98 in B-Dur, wurde im seinerzeit noch kirchenstaatlich regierten Adriastädtchen Pesaro in ein musikalisches Elternhaus – der Vater Giuseppe Rossini war Hornist, die Mutter Anna, geb. Guidarini, Sängerin – ein Sohn namens Giovacchino Antonio geboren. Im Laufe seines 76 Jahre währenden Lebens gelang es ihm, der seinen Vornamen später in Gioachino ändern sollte, sich zu einem der bedeutendsten Komponisten der Musikgeschichte, insbesondere auf dem Gebiet der Oper und in so bedeutenden Musikstädten wie Venedig, Mailand, Neapel und Rom, Wien, London und Paris emporzuarbeiten – eine Karriere, die allerdings bereits 1830 ihr frühzeitiges Ende fand, als ihn die revolutionsbedingte Abdankung des französischen Königs Karl X. Philipp sämtlicher Ämter beraubte.
Rossini verehrte die Musik der Wiener Klassik, versetzte das Publikum der Donaumetropole während seines dortigen Aufenthalts 1822 in einen zum Sprichwort gewordenen gleichnamigen Taumel, erregte den Ehrgeiz des jungen Franz Schubert, der nichts lieber als auch im Bereich des Musiktheaters reüssiert hätte und erfreute sich der Hochachtung Beethovens. Von Joseph Haydn ging zudem ein bedeutender Einfluss auf seine Musik, vor allem diejenige seiner Ouvertüren, aus – einer, der sich besonders an den dort so zahlreich anzutreffenden kompositorischen Einfällen, die auf einen ausgeprägten Sinn für Humor schließen lassen, festmachen lässt. Die vielen überraschenden Akkorde in „L’italiana in Algeri“ und „Semirade“ hätte dem älteren Meister jedenfalls sicher gefallen, ebenso wie die scherzhaften Pausen und farbreich-virtuosen Bläsersoli in „La scala di seta“ oder die scharfen Synkopierungen vom Ende des Vorspiels zu „Guillaume Tell“.
Im Mai 1812 im Teatro San Moisé in Venedig uraufgeführt und zur musikalischen Gattung der farsa comica gehörend, basiert „La scala di seta“ (Die seidene Leiter) auf einer gleichnamigen Komödie des französischen Dichters Eugène Planard. Die Sinfonia des einaktigen Bühnenwerks folgt dem von Rossini favorisierten Schema: eine langsame Einleitung – hier durch einen improvisatorisch wirkenden, triolischen und „alla corda“, also mit beständigem Druck auf die Saiten auszuführenden Eingang der ersten und zweiten Violinen vorbereitet – geht in eine Sonatenform ohne Durchführung über, deren Reprise das berühmte „Rossini-Crescendo“ aufzuweisen hat.

JOSEPH HAYDN: CONCERTO VOR VIOLIN AND STRINGS NO.1 "PER IL LUIGI" HOB. VIIa (1761–1765)

Allegro moderato / Adagio (molto) / Finale. Presto

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