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SYMPHONY NO.39 G MINOR HOB. I:39 (1765)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 4 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1770 [may-sept.? 1765]

Allegro assai / Andante / Menuet. Trio / Finale: Allegro di molto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

With Hob I:39, this programme (dedicated to passion, and indeed taking «La Passione» as its title) offers not only another act of creativity – Haydn's first symphonic work from 1757 is followed by the first to be written in a minor key – but also a gem of a very special kind: the composer's sole contribution to the body of G minor symphonies of the Viennese Classical School and its historic predecessors, created according to all the rules of the art. Consequently, this is a suitable opportunity at which to make a brief digression and consider a group of works which originated during the two great waves of 1758–1773 and 1785–1788, the second of which was very probably influenced by the first; works which have established themselves in the collective memory of musicologists, performers and music-lovers as constituting arguably the most dramatic of the symphonies from that period. Professor Emeritus Dr. Klaus Hortschansky, who is inter alia Vice-President of the Joseph Haydn Institute in Cologne, made the following observation:

From the time when Hermann Abert (1871–1927) revised the major biography of Mozart by Otto Jahn (1813–1869) in 1919–1921 – if not before – particular attention has been paid to the G minor symphonies of Mozart as well as Haydn, and they have been ascribed a more profound and meaningful level of sensitivity and expression than many another work. There is an abundance of evidence for this in the academic but also the popular literature. For instance, whilst in 1856 Otto Jahn devoted only a single sentence to Mozart's 'little' Symphony in G minor (KV 183), Abert took almost four pages to describe «that passionate, pessimistic mood […] which has found expression in Mozart's work again and again, ever since 'Lucio Silla'.»
In the wake of Abert's biography, which played a fundamental role in the reappraisal of Mozart after the First World War, attention soon shifted to the symphonies in G minor of other composers, such as Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782), Johann Baptist Vanhal (1739–1813), Leopold Kozeluch (1752-1818) and Franz Beck (1723–1809). Many a composer was valued more highly than before in the literature simply because he had written a symphony in G minor. In Susanne Clercx's 1948 monograph on Pierre van Maldere, for instance, her discussion of his Symphony in G minor [No. 1 from his Op. IV, which appeared in 1764] takes up by far the largest proportion of her review of his symphonic oeuvre. A debate flared up in both the general and the monographic literature devoted to individual composers about the significance of the role played by their symphonies in G minor within their individual oeuvre as well as within the context of the works' general intellectual and historical background. Two different models of thinking emerged again and again, which are described below in very simplified terms […]:

Model I: Each and every symphony in G minor arises per se from a 'romantic crisis' experienced by the composer. As a general principle, his personal emotional input into a work in the minor key ought to be comparatively greater than in the case of other works, i.e. those in a major key, and it is not uncommon for a work in minor mode to reveal something of the composer's inner self.
This method of interpretation is already to be found in the work of Hermann Abert with reference to Mozart's personal temperament, and is taken one stage further by Howard Chandler Robbins Landon in a paper delivered in Paris in 1956 entitled, 'La crise romantique dans la musique autrichienne'. In it, Robbins Landon gathers together a few precursors to Mozart's 'little' Symphony in G minor which were composed in and around Vienna in ca. 1770 and attributes them to a 'school' of composers pursuing compositional reform. This implies that the composer's personal crisis is also a 'crise émotionelle collective'.

Model II: Every Symphony in G minor is a consequence of the 'Sturm und Drang' wave emanating from Herder and the north German poets around Klopstock, as the composers now wished to adopt for themselves its over-abundance of emotion and conventions of rule-breaking aesthetics, which promised to satisfy their need for expression. A starting-point for such an interpretation is Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht's essay on 'The principle of expression in the musical counterpart of Sturm und Drang', which discusses the shift away from the theory of affect to a new aesthetics of expression.

While the adherents of these models, originally employed to distinguish the works from other, less expressive instrumental pieces of the time, have declined in number considerably over the years, nevertheless – at least as far as the 'Sturm und Drang' theory is concerned – despite repeated efforts by musicologists, it has still not proved possible to find enduring substitutes, although these same musicologists have meanwhile succeeded in shedding some light on the past when it comes to clarifying previously problematic questions of dating.

In the case of Joseph Haydn's Symphony in G minor, in addition to the catalogue of works produced by the composer in late 1765, in which the work appears under the addenda to the second surviving page, an examination of the 'Catalogue de M. de Keess à Vienne', the so-called Keess catalogue, has proved particularly helpful. This catalogue of manuscripts of Haydn symphonies once owned by Franz Bernhard Ritter von Keess, from the start of his career until 1789, is in more or less chronological order and lists No. 39 in the Hoboken catalogue between the two symphonies dated 1765 for which autograph scores survive (No. 29 in E major and No. 28 in A major). Sonja Gerlach has cited the use of four instead of the usual two horns as another clue to the period during which they were written – an option available to Haydn from the May of that year (for the first time since 1763) and which he was to take advantage of again before the end of that year in his composition of No. 31. But unlike in the latter D major symphony, Haydn hardly ever allows the two pairs of horns, one in B-flat alto and one in G, to be heard together, but usually only in alternation with one another, in this «work of genius» referred to by Gerlach as a «proper string symphony». So why go to the expense?

In this specific case, the use of a second pair of horns was related to the decision made before he began writing the work that it would be in a minor key, and to the contemporaneous idea of utilising the sound of the horns in the secondary themes of the opening and closing movements, which belonged within the soundscape of the related major key; the horn players would not then have to hurry to adjust the tuning slides of their instruments, whose respective harmonic series restricted their repertoire to certain notes.

So what did someone like Haydn make of the options available to him here in terms of harmony, melody and timbre? The first few bars of the Allegro assai from Hob. I:39 with their «rocking and sighing motion» bring «only the presentation of the minor third and the highlighting of the fifth step of the scale, namely D major. On first impressions, that does not appear to be much», notes Hortschansky, and he appears to have a point, because the coda of the opening theme consists, to a certain extent, merely of a succession of leading-notes demoted to suspended notes which, however, is given the expected «air of drama» by the occasional interpolated seventh. The ingenious nature of the movement becomes apparent only a little later; more precisely, in the middle of the recapitulation of the theme which immediately follows and which begins all too verbatim. For halfway through, there is a sudden shift to B-flat major and, despite this morphing into the other, supposedly brighter mode, the audience suddenly – whether it was prepared for it or not – finds itself completely swept along by the urgent energy and passion of the music, in which not only the repeated descending runs of the violins as they hurtle down the scale, but also a short, powerful exchange between the pairs of horns plays its part. The ambivalence between major and minor is retained, then, throughout all the elements that follow, ensuring that there continues to be conflict between the old and the new/revised motifs and the passages, interpolated by pauses, which are consumed with them.

Even if the following movement with its gentler pace does not maintain the theatricality of its predecessor, this is not «a great disappointment» (H.C. Robbins Landon) by any means; rather, we encounter an Andante danced on tiptoe in 3/8 time, which – very unusually for Haydn – is in the submediant key (i.e. in E-flat major) and can boast many a witty pay-off, including a brief postlude which fades away in a pianissimo.

The minuet conducted by Antonini with strict gestures and performed at a brisk tempo by his fellow musicians with oboe soloes and a trio of horns – first it is the turn of the B-flat alto, then of the G – is followed by an Allegro di molto which is once again bursting with stage effects and which begins with wide interval leaps by the first violins before they give way to the agitated semiquaver repetitions of the second violins and the violas, flashing and sparkling as dynamic contrasts and rhythmic accents surface in this bar or that. Brace yourself for the tumultuous pace of the Lombardy musicians, with only a single passage – which appears all the more curious for that – providing a temporary respite: the intimate violin duet which is taken back to a piano at the beginning of the development.

_{¹The exclusion of Paris Symphony No. 83, also known as 'La Poule' ('The Hen'), is justifiable because almost immediately – or more precisely from when the 'clucking' second subject is first heard, the major mode gains supremacy over the minor; also, the end of the opening movement, the minuet and the whole of the final movement are in the major variant of the initial G minor.
²Otto Jahn, W. A. Mozart, Vol. 1, Leipzig 1856, p. 566; Hermann Abert, W. A. Mozart, 7th edition, Vol. 1, Leipzig 1955, pp. 316-319.
³H. C. Robbins Landon, La crise romantique dans la musique autrichienne vers 1770. Quelques précurseurs inconnus de la symphonie en sol mineur (KV 183) de Mozart, in: Les influences étrangères dans l'œuvre de W.A. Mozart. Colloques internationaux […], Paris 1956, pp. 27-47.
⁴ibid. p. 32.
⁵In: Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 29 (1955), pp. 323-349; also in: Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Musikalisches Denken. Aufsätze zur Theorie und Ästhetik der Musik, Wilhelmshaven 1977, pp. 69-111 (= Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft 46).
⁶Klaus Hortschansky, Die g-Moll-Sinfonie zur Zeit der Wiener Klassik, in: Traditionen - Neuansätze: Für Anna Amalie Abert (1906-1996), edited by Klaus Hortschansky, Tutzing 1997, pp. 329-348, here pp. 330f.
⁷Sonja Gerlach, Neues zur Chronologie von Haydns Sinfonien, in: Das symphonische Werk Joseph Haydns. Referate des internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Symposions Eisenstadt, 13-15 September 1995, edited by Gerhard J. Winkler, Eisenstadt 2000, pp. 15-26, esp. pp. 22ff. (= Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten aus dem Burgenland 103).
⁸ibid. p. 25.
⁹Hortschansky, Die g-Moll-Sinfonie zur Zeit der Wiener Klassik, p. 340.
¹⁰H. C. Robbins Landon, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, London 1955, p. 296.}

VOL. 1 _LA PASSIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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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.
²For more detailed information, cf. B. A. Brown, Gluck and the French Theatre in Vienna, Oxford 1991.
³C. 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.
⁴Staatsbibliothek Berlin (Mus. Ms. 7827).
⁵These are to be found in Brussels (Bibliothèque Royale), Munich (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) and Dresden (Sächsische Landesbibliothek).
⁶For 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).
⁷To 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.
⁸Part 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.
⁹The 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.
¹⁰K. 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.
¹²The 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.
¹³K. Hortschansky, Parodie und Entlehnung im Schaffen Christoph Willibald Glucks (Analecta Musicologica 13), Cologne 1973, p. 298.
¹⁴The 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.
¹⁵The 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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SYMPHONY NO.49 F MINOR «LA PASSIONE» HOB. I:49 (1768)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: 1768

Adagio / Allegro di molto / Menuet. Trio / Finale: Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphony in F minor is the only work to be recorded for the Haydn2032 initial project whose autograph score has survived. This is kept at the Stockholm Music and Theatre Library (formerly the library of the Royal Academy of Music) and was marked with the year (1)768 by Haydn himself. This makes the work one of the first symphonies to be written by Haydn after an interval of about eighteen months, probably on account of the fact that he had been promoted to the post of principal Kapellmeister for the Esterházy family following the death of Georg Joseph Werner, and concentrated in the first instance on the opportunity to compose church music, which he had hitherto been denied.
Although it is commonly known by its nickname 'La Passione', this title has since been categorised as inauthentic, since it can only be found – as far as the surviving musical sources are concerned – in a single score which was far removed from Haydn's original text not only geographically, but also chronologically and stemmatologically; it came to Schwerin in Mecklenburg via a Leipzig music-dealer in 1790. There was a long-standing tradition there of performing Passion oratorios during Holy Week, to the extent that between 1756 and 1785, the playing of secular music in public was prohibited altogether in the run-up to Easter.
The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, in a report – also relating to Leipzig – of a benefit concert held in the spring of 1811 in aid of the local poorhouse, remarks that the first item on the programme was «Haydn's Symphony in F minor (La Passione) », which, «as is well known», had been written «in his early period as the result of a particular family bereavement which had affected him profoundly».

Sadly, as is the case with most of the symphonies written by Joseph Haydn during his early and middle periods as well as with the supposed Passion symphony, we can only make more or less vague suppositions about the actual reasons behind its composition. According to the findings of Elaine Sisman, who teaches at Columbia University in New York, it appears we can be sure of one thing, however.
Albeit many years after it was first performed, the Symphony in F minor was reincarnated in a totally different form: that of musical interludes within a contemporary drama production.
This was probably a consequence of the working relationship which developed between Joseph Haydn and the celebrated company of actors led by Karl Wahr, which we know of from newspaper reports and theatrical journals. Between 1772 and 1776, this troupe gave annual guest performances at Esterháza Palace; there are said to have been a whole series of further collaborations after Der Zerstreute (1774), a German translation of the French stage classic Le Distrait by Jean-François Regnard, whose original music in six movements was later renamed Symphony No. 60 ('Il distratto').
In addition to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen, of which it is said that Haydn's music either did or was supposed to accompany the action, there was also a play by the French author and moralist Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort (1740–1794), a one-act piece entitled La jeune Indienne, which we know to have been performed in Salzburg on 8 January 1776 under the title Die junge Indianerin, and which was almost certainly performed thereafter at the Esterházy court. But that's not all...
In a collection of miscellaneous performance material relating to Hob I:49 which was compiled in 1780 and is stored in the archive of the 'Society of the Friends of Music' in Vienna, is an instrumental bass part whose title page reads: «nel suo antusiasmo [sic] il Quakuo [recte: quaquero] di bel'humore» – «in his enthusiasm, the good-humoured Quaker». The popularity of the French one-act play, which was also performed under the alternative title of 'Der Quäker' ('The Quaker'), spread at a remarkably rapid pace and soon reached Vienna, which suggests that these must have been one and the same work.

Falling into the literary genre of the 'comédie larmoyante' (in English: 'sentimental comedy', and in German 'rührende Komödie' or moving comedy), Die junge Indianerin won the admiration of both Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, not least because it was closely bound up with the theme of the 'noble savage', which enjoyed general popularity during the Enlightenment. After a shipwreck, the life of the voyager Belton is saved by an Indian woman and her aged father, who inhabit the isolated (probably West Indian) island on whose beach he has been washed up by the storm. As time goes by in the company of the young woman – he calls her Betti – the couple fall in love. When the old Indian dies and Belton becomes distressed at the memory of his own father, against whose will he had set out on his journey in the first place, he persuades Betti to travel with him, heedless of all the perils they might encounter, to distant Charlestown, the town from which he had first set out on his journey. Once he arrives there, Belton is immediately afflicted by a much more serious concern – for it had been his father's wish in the past that he marry Arabelle, the daughter of a Quaker called Mowbrai who plies his trade there. Naturally, the latter has never forgotten Belton nor the agreement with his father during the intervening years, and when, accompanied by Belton, he discovers – full of astonishment and curiosity – «the dear child, dressed as a savage, with wild hair», disaster is surely just around the corner.
When Belton fails to explain himself and the situation he has got them both into and Betti finally learns from the Quaker of his plans to marry despite the love she feels for him, the façade of this society based on money and the rule of law into which she has stumbled finally crumbles into dust, whereupon she gives full vent to her feelings. Mowbrai, visibly moved by Betti's impassioned outburst and by the 'moving spectacle' of Belton, who now openly declares his love before all present, summons the notary in an instant and, without further ado, enters the name of the Indian woman in the marriage contract which had been prepared earlier with his own daughter in mind. When the notary enquires what the bride is bringing to the marriage, he is instructed to enter «her virtues».

But how to summarise in a few words the newly forged compatibility between Chamfort's verse and Haydn's music? That is a question which has been marginalised, if not ignored altogether, by scholars of Haydn's work. Even Sisman, who remarks of the Allegro di molto that the «rapid-fire repeated notes and imitations» to be found in its secondary theme express a light-heartedness which belies the tragedy with which we normally associate minor keys, does not appear to have studied her Chamfort properly. She appears to satisfy herself with the idiosyncratic behaviour of the Quaker which, although it is responsible for bringing about the happy ending, is in evidence only shortly before the final curtain, as is customary in the denouement of such dramas.
All of the emotion – from the expression of love and tenderness to the fury and desperation – which had preceded this moment is not merely reflected in the movements of the F minor symphony, but also attains a further-reaching, more profound dimension of poignancy as a result of the music: the way in which the emotions expressed by the actors up to the moment of conflict resolution at the end of the eighth of a total of ten scenes are mirrored by a mood redolent with internal references is also characteristic of the four movements of the symphony and shares the same basic tone. (Despite finding the relationship with the (back)story of Quakuo di bel'humore «inexplicable», Michael Walter writes pertinently of a «representation of subjective variants of the same emotional condition [...], which the audience experiences by immersing itself in the symphony.»)
The same mood, described as «dramatic, not religious» (Ludwig Finscher), «characterised by [...] gravity [and] gloominess» (Walter Lessing) and, «driven by [...] emotional and spiritual force» (H. C. Robbins Landon), is consolidated by the tone sequence C – D-flat – B, with which every movement begins, albeit in a variety of rhythms.

Belton's monologue in Scene 2 of Die Junge Indianerin is also imbued with the profound melancholy of the initial Adagio, from which the melody of the first violins emerges with the appropriate pathos and, after a sighing motif which gradually fades away and a descending bass line, rises in the middle of a second theme in pianissimo to the highest of pitches before plunging in an instant down two octaves to a fortissimo. In an emotional, but ultimately self-pitying speech which echoes the music, he regrets his decision not to remain with Betti in that «awful place» at the «end of the world», as «each found pleasure and contentment in the other's happiness, and our poverty did not make us objects of contempt.»
A much stronger eruption on the scale of emotional responses is occasioned by the second movement, the Allegro di molto, which – according to A. Peter Brown – resembles a «musical earthquake». The violin motif, which leaps more than two octaves at a time, and continues to unfold with more restricted syncopation and a subsequent call-and-response between the high and the low(er) strings, is followed – after first coming to an abrupt halt – by gently meandering suspended notes from the strings which temporarily rein in the enflamed passions, before the tempestuous tempo from the beginning with its agitated, pulsating quavers resumes, and the entire orchestra turns up the volume anew. Even if a brief respite is afforded by a 'light-hearted' theme which plays a secondary role to the primal force which precedes it, the formal sections which follow and which rework or revisit the earlier action, such as the reprise which commences without any prior warning, heighten all the drama of the Allegro di molto to epic proportions once again. It is fair to say that the culmination of the argument between Betti and Belton on the importance of material wealth in Scene 4 can be regarded as the counterpart to this instrumental movement, which positively boils over with emotion; it draws to a conclusion with Belton's bleak vision of their future together («no succour, no property»): «We will hate love, fear old age. Every day we will recognise our selves in the unhappy fruits of our love, and our own hands will repulse them.»
The arrival of another character interrupts the couple's discussion. Betti is dismissed, whereupon Mylford – as the new arrival is called – is able to tell his friend Belton that Arabelle has consented to the marriage contract agreed between the two fathers six years previously. The internal struggle within Belton flares up: in the end, it is only his desire that his beloved should not be devastated by grief which prevents him from succumbing to the fear that remaining with Betti might cost him his prosperity and his status in society, which is escalated by his friend's news. As Belton is still grappling with this internal conflict, he sees his beloved approach.
The events of Scene 6 of the melodrama are reflected in the music, which is so apposite that it might have been written specifically for the purpose: it is a grave, melancholy minuet, rich in harmonics and chromatic turns, with the sighs and melodic leaps of the earlier movements returning to accompany the fundamental concept which was introduced at the outset.
Only the trio provides the single instance of lightness and quasi gaiety in the entire symphony, with a horn solo ascending to the highest heights (or more precisely the F), like a call from Betti as she returns, drawing near to a Belfort who is lost in his own dark thoughts. It proved comparatively more difficult to find the corresponding counterpart in verse form to the final movement of Hob I:49 – not only because in a one-act play, logically enough, there was no room for (as Johann Adolf Scheibe once put it) «symphonies [...] between the acts»; there were instead only scenes (or entrances), some of which were able to advance the dramatic action further than others. Occasionally, however, there must have been a monologue right in the middle of a scene which inspired an artist of the calibre of Haydn to create a dramatic movement (or prompted someone like Karl Wahr to insert a suitable musical number at precisely this point).
Belfort's fears that the Quaker Mowbrai might «pierce the heart» of the child in her wild attire by revealing the marriage plans he has for his daughter, have indeed been realised: in an instant, she learns what has been going on. Naturally enough, her horror and the sharpness of his words which elicit it know no bounds: the Indian woman's struggle for words in the face of the unimaginable things she is forced to hear is reflected in the breathless, halting theme of the Presto finale with its abrupt dynamics and articulation. The almost unrelenting flow of the crotchets in the bass voice is a response to the agitation exhibited both internally and externally by Betti, who quite justifiably feels betrayed. When the momentum increases once again in the secondary theme with its tremulous passages of quavers, and the intervallic leaps of the Allegro di molto – representing here the fighting spirit of the young woman – can be heard once again, it is easy to imagine why it was the Quaker, a secondary character, who was chosen to appear on the title page of the Viennese score of Hob. I:49 at the time, rather than a woman with a personality as strong and passionate as the heroine's.

_{¹Other vocal parts from Haydn symphonies (No. 26 'Lamentatione' and No. 38) as well as a parody of the Stabat mater, Hob. XX:bis, by Johann Adam Hiller were also delivered to Schwerin by the same music-dealer, Christian Gottfried Thomas (as the pre-printed title page identifies him in Italianate lettering).
²Elaine R. Sisman, Haydn's Theater Symphonies, in: Journal of the American Musicological Society 43 (1990), pp. 292-352.
³cf. for example Pressburger Zeitung 54, 6 July 1774, quoted from: Marianne Pandi and Fritz Schmidt, Musik zur Zeit Haydns und Beethovens in der Pressburger Zeitung, The Haydn Yearbook / Das Haydn Jahrbuch 8 (1971), p. 170.
⁴Rudolph Angermüller, Haydns 'Der Zerstreute' in Salzburg (1776), in: Haydn-Studien 4/2 (1978), p. 89.
⁵Following its premiere in Paris on 30 April 1764, it was performed to private gatherings in Vienna for the first time in 1765, thanks to a local printing of the libretto; it was then to be produced at the Theater am Kärntnertor in 1769, with the participation among others of Gottlieb Stephanie the Younger, later to be the librettist of Mozart's Entführung aus dem Serail.
⁶The expression 'rührende Komödie' was used (particularly in the 18th century) to describe moralistic plays which had much in common with bourgeois tragedies, in which the emotions they sought to elicit from the audience or their readership were not to be an end in themselves, and the plots usually had a happy ending. The German term for such plays, whose prevalence in the theatre was due to their popularity with audiences, is 'Rührstück' ('melodrama'). These melodramas may no longer contain any elements of comedy, as in the case of Die junge Indianerin, but merely continue to be classified as comedies in the terminology of the 18th century because of the social make-up of their characters and their audiences.
⁷This is a reference to present-day Charleston in South Carolina, where the Comédie-Française performed La jeune Indienne in 1794 at the location where it was set, whilst in exile there.
⁸Sisman, Haydn's Theater Symphonies, p. 336.
⁹Michael Walter, Haydns Sinfonien. Ein musikalischer Werkführer, Munich 2007, pp. 47f.
¹⁰Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, Laaber 2000, p. 267.
¹¹Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, Vol. II, Baden-Baden, 1987-89, p. 19.
¹²H. C. Robbins Landon, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, London 1955, p. 297.
¹³A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, Bloomington 2002, p. 114.
¹⁴Quoted from: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Vol. 1, Hamburg and elsewhere, 1767, Play 26, p. 202.}

VOL. 1 _LA PASSIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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NO.2 _IL FILOSOFO

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SYMPHONY NO.47 G MAJOR HOB. I:47 (1772)

Orchestration: 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1772

Allegro – Un poco adagio, cantabile – Menuetto e Trio al roverso – Presto assai

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

A completely different yet no less impressive dance movement is central to the Symphony in G major Hob. I:47, and earned it the occasionally applied nickname of ‘Palindrome’. Perhaps it was the ten minuet and twelve trio bars, which the composer then brings in al roverso, i.e. in mirror-inverted form, that appealed so much to W. A. Mozart that he wanted to perform the work at a musical academy in Vienna. This can be read in a hand-written note now owned by the Historical Society of Philadelphia.

The first movement, however, which survives in Haydn’s hand without a tempo indication, has its own special charm. Terrace-like overlapping fanfares give it the air of a ‘big c-major symphony’, and its dissonant tension-filled opening chords are contrasted by finely pointed violin interjections and sequences of ‘relaxed Schubertian’ triplets with a gentle oboe cantilene above them.
So the effect is indeed intense when the recapitulation suddenly opens in the opposite sex of G minor. The shock is thankfully brief and moreover lessened by the following variation movement with an extended coda – which may have been modelled on the second movement of no. 4 of the ‘Sun’ Quartets op. 20 – with a double counterpoint in the octave, fagotto sempres col basso, and gentle wind tones in the string-dominated middle sections. The note values decrease from variation to variation, building a bridge to the final presto assai, in which the quietly speeding string theme is contrasted by loud tutti passages, whose oddest ingredient must be the grace-note figure that the great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon, who died in 2009, once called the ‘Balkan snap’.

Although Hob. 1:47 is written in a more ‘normal’ key than the F-sharp minor of the Farewell Symphony or the B major of no. 46, it presents us with ‘a composer who is unwilling to be comfortable with tradition; each movement departs from the conventions of Haydn’s previous and the Viennese symphony in general.’

_{¹Sonja Gerlach considers it not impossible that Haydn was ‘influenced by a fashion’, and quotes a reference, dated 1770, from Johann Adam Hiller’s Musikalischen Nachrichten und Anmerkungen [Musical News and Notes], to ‘an artificial minuet, by Herr Capellmeister [Carl Philipp Emanuel] Bach in Hamburg’, which was presented ‘as a marvel’. See S. Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydn’s Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), p. 178.
²Prince Nikolaus I. Esterházy also seems to have delighted in his kapellmeister’s games. Transposed into A major, it will be revived in a collection of piano sonatas presented to him on his sixtieth birthday.
³Behind these could lie Haydn’s special affection for Johann May, who was promoted to 2nd horn in April 1772. This could certainly accord with Gerlach’s attempted dating of ‘early 1772’.
⁴Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, Laaber 2000, p. 279.
⁵H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle And Works, vol. II, Haydn at Eszterháza 1766–1790, London 1978, p. 305.
⁶A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire, vol. II, The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Bloomington 2002, p. 139.}

VOL. 2 _IL FILOSOFO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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SYMPHONY NO.22 E FLAT MAJOR «THE PHILOSOPHER» HOB. I:22 (1764)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Time of creation: till 1767 [1761/1762]

Adagio – Presto – Menuetto. Trio – Finale: Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

With the Symphony in E-flat major Hob. I:22 we return to the time in which Joseph Haydn still held the office of vice kapellmeister to Prince Esterházy, but in consideration of the advanced age of his superior, Gregor Joseph Werner, was already supplying the court with compositions of his own in all areas except sacred music.
The autograph of this work, dated 1764, stipulates (in contrast to most of its copies) a wind section of cors anglais (instead of the more usual oboes or flutes) and natural horns. The double-reeded cor anglais is a smaller version of the Baroque oboe da caccia, and has a pear-shaped bell. Haydn otherwise uses it, after the divertimenti of the eary 1760s (Hob. II:12, 16 and 24) and the present symphony, only in a few vocal compositions, such as the C-minor aria ‘Non v’è chi mi aiuta’, from La Canterina (1766), the Stabat Mater (1767) or the ‘Organ Solo Mass’ (1768/69).
If the orchestrational singularity of Hob. 1:22 (at least at the Esterházy court) was to go out of fashion within a few years, the symphony was the first – after the ‘times of day’ symphonies, of 1761 – to enjoy a nickname. ‘Le Philosoph[e]’ (The Philosopher/Il Filosofo) derives from a body of instrumental parts held in Modena – to be more exact from the title of some of its string duplicates – which was produced in Vienna in 1780 and probably later extended by musicians of the Dukes of Este (from the House of Habsburg).
Haydn scholars and connoisseurs have always been very divided as to the compositional qualities of Hob. 1:22; A. Peter Brown even ventured the opinion that the fame ‘it has been endowed with’ was only based on its exceptional instrumentation and ‘non-authentic title’, and that the work consequently ‘exceeds its compositional accomplishments’.
Who would not rather follow Robbins Landon, who writes of instrumental sounds of unbelievable beauty that are among some of Haydn’s ‘most original creations’ in his description of the opening adagio’s ‘combination of English and French horns, muted violins, lower strings, perhaps with a bassoon’?
According to Walter Lessing, the opening of the Philosopher, whose ‘continuous … quaver movement is underlined by the chorale-like melody of the winds, even has an ‘air of the antique’. We only have to think of the bars interwoven into the recapitulation, which sound very much like Corelli, with their downwardly gliding suspended dissonances over a sequential bass. But a look at the basso continuo and composition manuals published in Leipzig and Vienna by the now rather disregarded Johann Friedrich Daube (1730–1797) shows us that Haydn wasn’t only composing with an eye to the past here. Daube saw the idea of ‘freye Nachahmung’ (free imitation) as a characteristic of modern composition, and advocated the integration of the old ‘artificial’ style into the new ‘natural’ one.

Nothing seems more natural to Haydn, however, than to be guided during an act of creation by his ‘humour’, which should be understood – entirely according to the sensitivities of the time – as encompassing both his generally described cheerful attitude and certain situational frames of mind which critics were wont to call mere ‘Laune’ (moods).
A particular characteristic of Haydn’s humour – here of course quickened by the first and last appearance of the colour of the cors anglais – is shown in the presto second movement, which recalls the Salzburg works of his younger brother Johann Michael in its continual quavers and wealth of motifs in the string writing.
The leading position in this cheerful sound world is naturally taken by the first violins, who are not too proud to take on a supporting role, however, if their double-reeded colleagues, after laboriously gaining height, are to make the final triumphant semitone ascent to b flat''.
All the more astounding – after a momentary recovery in the divertimento-like minuet with its attendent rurally relaxed trio – is the spirited interplay between both pairs of horns in the 6/8 presto finale.

Although it was our composer’s habit to date his works imprecisely by the year only, extensive research has now made it possible to order the symphonies of 1764 in the following sequence: 23, 22, 21 and 24. So two works with a ‘normal’ structure (fast – slow – minuet – fast) frame two oriented to the sonata da chiesa.

In the same year of the Philosopher’s composition, more specifically in December 1764, there was a performance in the Kärntertortheater in Vienna – a predecessor of today’s Staatsoper – of a German-language adaptation of Il filosof inglese, by Carlo Goldoni, as Die Philosophinnen, oder Hanswurst der Cavalier in London zu seinem Unglück [The Lady Philosophers, or Pantaloon the Cavalier in London to His Misfortune].
Whether this included music from Hob. 1:22 – as suggested by Elaine Sisman – seems questionable, but certainly not impossible. An argument in favour could be the illuminating connection made by Nicolas Chamfort between Haydn’s later Symphony in F major Hob. 1:49 (‘La Passione’) and the ‘touching comedy’ La jeune Indienne, performed by Karl Wahr’s troupe of actors.

_{¹The name English horn probably derives from the instrument’s originally curved form, which recalled the angels’ horns in ecclesiastical illustrations.
²Biblioteca Estense, sig. D.145 3 A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire, vol. II – The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Bloomington 2002, p. 89.
⁴H. C. Robbins Landon, The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn, London 1955, p. 257f.
⁵Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, vol I, Baden-Baden, 1987, p. 82.
⁶Generalbaß in drey Accorden, gegründet in den Regeln der alt- und neuern Autoren, Leipzig 1756; Der musikalische Dilettant, Vienna 1773; Anleitung zur Erfindung der Melodie und ihrer Fortsetzung, Vienna 1798.
⁷See Felix Diergarten, ‘Anleitung zur Erfindung. Die Kompositionslehre Johann Friedrich Daubes’, in Musiktheorie 23 (2008), particularly pp. 312–313.
⁸In the case of Symphony no. 22, Sonja Gerlach assumes that it was written down early than no. 21, but she also considers it to have been completed later. See Sonja Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1-2 (1996), p. 110f. This ‘fact’ matches a payment order, dated ‘Eisenstadt, the 9th of July 764’, made out to a certain Mathias Rockobauer for the manufacture of reeds for oboes, bassoons and English horns.
⁹Further symphonies by Haydn in the da chiesa form are numbers 4, 18, 34, 42 and 49.
¹⁰Elaine R. Sisman, ‘Haydn's Theater Symphonies’, in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, 43}

VOL. 2 _IL FILOSOFO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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SYMPHONY NO.46 B MAJOR HOB. I:46 (1772)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [2nd half?] 1772

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphonies no. 46 and 47, which Joseph Haydn committed to paper in the year of his fortieth birthday while kapellmeister to Nicholas I, Prince Esterházy, are seen as a first pinnacle of his output, together with the ‘Farewell’ Symphony, the ‘Sun’ Quartets, later published as op. 30, and the ‘Mourning’ Symphony (written in 1770/71 and offered in the Breitkopf catalogue of 1772). They unite everything that a year and a half of systematic exploration of the ‘many different possibilities of … symphonic form and symphonic expression’ had brought to fruition and – as can be read in Griesinger’s Biographische Notizen – had met with the lasting approval of the prince.

Vivace / Poco adagio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale: Presto e scherzando

Along with Hob. I:45 – according to the famous anecdote a musical request to Prince Nicholas to allow his musicians to return home to their families in Eisenstadt after too long at Eszterháza , the Symphony in B major Hob. 1:46, considered its sister work – James Webster, for example, calls them ‘a pair of programmatic works and refers to various modal and harmonic relationships – boasts, aside from its unusual accumulation of accidentals, a final movement that is not only equally as original but also increasingly takes on strange, even grotesque characteristics, inspiring some connoisseurs to compare it with its counterpart in Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5.
A quiet but boisterous theme, announced as a duet between the first and second violins, repeatedly comes to a standstill, despite several particularly striking tutti pedals and sequences. So, in the middle of the recapitulation, a part of the preceeding minuet movement can slip in and regularly get the upper hand – a ‘formal temerity’, in the opinion of Sonja Gerlach. At this point the dissolution of the ensemble brought about in the ‘Farewell’ Symphony seems almost a foregone conclusion. But then the horns ring out, calling for general order, to which the first violins strike up a relaxed variation of the theme, which is finally brought to a proper conclusion.
The presto e scherzando movement doesn’t stand alone in the irregularities of its motivic and thematic processes. The opening vivace is characterised by fast-paced musical thought, as with its first four-note motif, which is announced in unison and then combined in many different ways – with a contrapuntal countermelody, for example, or in canon with itself. And a dynamically exposed subsidiary idea, derived from a transition in the exposition section, which hijacks us into the ‘Farewell’ Symhony’s F-sharp minor and belies one or two listening habits …
The subsequent poco adagio, which moves between a rocking siciliano melody and softly scurrying semiquaver staccati, elicits mixed emotions. The tone of the allegretto minuet, by contrast, is comparatively ‘concrete’; its characteristic flights of quavers, which have often been thought of as (Baroque) sighing figures, but are basically nothing other than strings of appogiaturas (that is, a kind of gallant figuration), set the framework for a sombrely atmospheric trio section.

But how can the special sound world of Hob. 1:65 be expressed in words, and how can its creation be explained?

To a much greater degree than with ‘modern’ orchestras, with so-called old or original instruments the use of various keys not only affects the sounds they produce but also the feelings evoked in the audience. Although listeners can of course differ according to temperament, biography and living conditions, composers and theoreticians have endeavoured over the generations to describe generally valid characteristics associated with the respective ‘tones’. For example, in Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s famous Ideen zu Ästhetik der Tonkunst [Ideas on the Aesthetics of the Musical Art], written around 1784, the five-sharped B major is portrayed as ‘strongly hued, announcing wild passions, composed of the most garish colours’.

A particular quality of the symphonies Haydn composed between 1768 and 1772, which are traditionally described with the literary term ‘Sturm und Drang’, lies in the intensification of expression they achieve (not least through the use of numerous minor und rarely used keys), the result of compositional and instrumental experimentation. With two ‘semitone crooks’, tubing inserted into the still valveless horns to lower them from G or C alto to F sharp or B, invoiced on 22 October 1772, the store of natural tones was able to be extended. It is almost self-evident that this purchase must have a direct connection to the composition of the Symphonies no. 45 and 46.
In tonal terms, the sections in which the horns play in B major – the opening and closing movments and the minuet of the third movement – seem distinctly sharper (especially as the strings often play in only two parts or octaves) than the B-minor adagio and trio, for which the hornists apply D-crooks, which bring about mellower tones. According to Sonja Gerlach, ‘the fact that Haydn’s manuscript shows an anomalous, rarely found watermark could support the hypothesis of a [previous] change of location’, i.e. that the Symphony in B major was written down immediately after the completion of the ‘Farewell’ Symphony in autumn 1772.

_{¹‘The [Farewell] Symphony was perhaps also intended to help against the prince’s plans [in the end abandoned] to reduce the size of the orchestra and cut salaries.’ Translated from Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, p. 34.
²‘The [Farewell] Symphony was perhaps also intended to help against the prince’s plans [in the end abandoned] to reduce the size of the orchestra and cut salaries.’ Translated from Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, p. 34.
³‘The [Farewell] Symphony was perhaps also intended to help against the prince’s plans [in the end abandoned] to reduce the size of the orchestra and cut salaries.’ Translated from Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit, p. 34. 4 James Webster, Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style, Cambridge 1991, p. 287.
⁵Haydn, who theoretically could have attended the performance of a symphony in B major by Georg Matthias Monn during his time as a choirboy at St Steven’s in Vienna, wrote no other works in this remote key apart from a now lost piano sonata.
⁶Sonja Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), p. 180.
⁷Ludwig Finscher attributes to it a close relationship to the main them of the first movement of the Symphony in E-flat minor no. 44, which resembles its inversion.
⁸Sonja Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), p. 159.}

VOL. 2 _IL FILOSOFO

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.

_{¹Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Collected Works, vol. 6, Orchestral Music III: Symphonies, ed. Peter Wollny, Stuttgart 2010, p. VI.
²The resulting sequence of movements corresponds almost exactly to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 1, also in F major.
³Translated from Johann Friedrich Daube, Der musikalische Diletantt: eine Abhandlung der Komposition, Vienna 1773, p. 162.
⁴Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Collected Works,op cit., p. VI.
⁵See 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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VOL.3 __SOLO E PENSOSO

Symphonies

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.’

_{¹Haydn 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.
²Haydn to the publisher Artaria, Vienna, 29 September 1782, translated from ibid., p. 119.
³Haydn to the publisher Artaria, Vienna, translated from ibid. p. 97.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY 42 IN D MAJOR, HOB. I:42 (1771)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str (with solo for 2 bn or 2 Vc)
Time of creation: [sept.-dec.?] 1771

Moderato e maestoso / Andantino e cantabile / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Scherzando e presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

While mention has already been made in reference to the overture to L’isola disabitata of the idiom of ‘Sturm und Drang’, in the sense of an exaggeratedly emotional form of musical expression which came into fashion around 1770, it is easily overlooked that Haydn’s compositional thinking at this time also contains a number of other peculiarities whose continuance was to be comparatively more sustained. Musicologists speak among other things of a ‘popular style’, or make the observation that Haydn’s symphonic works – on the one hand because of the involvement with music-theatre prescribed by his employer, on the other through fruitful contacts to contemporary spoken drama – became increasingly ‘theatrical’. The first movement of the Symphony in D major, Hob. I:42, composed in 1771, with its litany of dramatic set phrases, pounding chords, singing violin melodies, unison passages of ascending scales and descending broken triads, culminating in a crescendo for the whole orchestra, has even been portrayed as ‘satirising an Italian opera sinfonia’.¹ It does in fact seem to be ‘a little too much’, and the number of bars alone (up to 448 in performances at the given tempo observing all the repeats) make it one of Haydn’s longest instrumental movements – a fact that demands a small evaluation. The main thematic idea is not only followed by a second subject but also, shortly before the end of the first section (exposition), by a third quite jaunty one, complete with a dynamically contrasting transition. The second section (development) is impressive in its deceptive main cadence and equally misleading secondary one – two ‘phoney’ reprises – while the third part (the actual ‘reprise’) comes to a standstill and prematurely fades away in a surprising and dreamlike full stop.

Haydn’s contemporary, the important music theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch, identifies ‘Five different melodic parts, which additionally use no other means of melodic extension than repetition up to the first cadence’,² in the symphony’s thoughtful, at times inspired andantino second movement. One such passage, in which the first violin was originally supposed to execute a short sighing solo, was marked by Haydn himself with the famous words, ‘This went before too learned ears’. In the middle section of this A-major movement, which Koch memorialised in his composition manual Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition, the harmonic events are determined by minor keys, and it increasingly appears as if the composer himself were desperately seeking a way out of the gloom in F sharp, until even the last glimmer of hope is extinguished. Then – affirmed by soothing wind tones – the sudden return of the quiescent opening theme hurries to his aid. The allegretto minuet, with its circling quaver triplets, is also filled with floating lightness, while the trio, left to the strings alone, sounds like an acoustic excursion to the delightful ornithological world of nearby Lake Neusiedler. The subsequent scherzando finale has always been held in higher regard. According to Sonja Gerlach it is Haydn’s first ‘variation rondo’, that is a ‘firmly established five-part rondo, with the […] distinction that the refrains are varied’.³ It is of course particularly thrilling – as so often in rondo movements – in the intervening couplets, in which we primarily have to do with sprightly interludes featuring two oboes, two horns and two bassoons, secondarily with a contrasting journey through sombre minor keys, whose erratic outbursts might recall The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Is.

_{¹A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II – The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Bloomington 2002, p. 130.
²Translated from Heinrich Christoph Koch, Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition, part 3, Leipzig 1793, p. 382.
³Translated from Sonja Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), p. 192.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

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

_{¹Translated 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.
²See Tatiana Yakushkina, ‘Was there petrarchism in Russia?’, in Forum Italicum 47 (1), pp. 15–37.
³See 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.
⁴Haydn 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.
⁵See 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

SYMPHONY NO.4 D MAJOR HOB. I:4 (1757-1760)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1762 [1757/1760]

Presto / Andante / Finale. Tempo di Menuet

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphony in D major, Hob. 1:4, is one of the compositions ascribed to Joseph Haydn’s time as kapellmeister to Count Karl Joseph Franz von Morzin at Dolní Lukavice (Unter-Lukawitz, south of Pilsen), West Bohemia, which must have lasted from 1757 to shortly before Haydn’s appointment at Eisenstadt in early 1761. It was previously dated to 1762, in connection with a (probably lost) copy, but the Haydn scholar Sonja Gerlach, as a result of her chronological investigations, was able to place it directly after the four so-called ‘firstlings’ – meaning the Symphonies no. 1, 37, 18 and 2.¹ (The traditional numbering goes back to an index published in 1908 by Eusebius Mandyczewki for the collected edition of Haydn’s symphonies begun by Breitkopf and Härtel. Its sequencing is in many cases inadequate, but it succeeded in distinguishing all original compositions from attributions.)

The main source of the works not surviving in the composer’s handwriting is a collection of orchestral parts from the Fürnberg Collection in Keszthely, Hungary. The name refers to Karl Joseph Edler von Fürnberg, whose family seat was once Weinzierl Palace in Wieselbug, Lower Austria. The baron not only recommended the young composer Haydn to his friend Morzin but in the following years acquired a series of musical manuscripts of particular importance in the documentation of Haydn’s early symphonic works.

Haydn’s first symphonies, usually in only three movements, often have a finale in 3/8, which in the case of Hob. 1:4 would be played in minuet tempo, but above all ‘lean textures, impeccable formal logic [...] and a surprisingly contrapuntal approach to part-writing concealed beneath a facade of gallant gestures’. These gallant gestures² – paired with a dance-like ‘drive’ and incisive horn calls – pervade the opening presto. Noteworthy too are the contrasting secondary themes in the dominant minor, and very much so – according to James Webster³ – ‘the impressive twofold modulating crescendo sequence and the long, suspenseful transition’.

The following andante, with a restlessly suspended basic rhythm over which a ‘lonely’ first violin cantilena rises, its muted sound-world creating an atmosphere sometimes described as ‘ghostly’, carries us off into an almost disconcertingly different world, perhaps already familiar to us from the solitary scenario of the L’isola disabitata overture and Haydn’s setting of the Petrarch sonnet ‘Solo e pensoso’. While the middle movement certainly leaves a lasting impression, a faint trace of melancholy threads its way through the amusing finale, breaking out unmistakeably at one point, when ‘the dynamics recede from forte to piano and pianissimo, the sudden change from D major to D minor, the faltering melodies of the violins and finally the appearance of the two horns with a sustained octave’ contribute to the ‘intensification of the pedal point’. (Walter Lessing refers here to the evenly beating quaver movement of the low string at the beginning of the second section.)⁴

_{¹Sonja Gerlach, ‘Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie’, in Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), p. 70ff.
²Neal Zaslaw, review ‘Joseph Haydn, The Morzin Symphonies 1758–1760, […] L’Estro Armonico, directed by Derek Solomons’, in Early Music, January 1983, p. 125.
³James Webster, Joseph Haydn. Sinfonien für Graf Morzin, ca. 1757-60, in: Haydn Symphonies c. 1757-60 […] The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood, volume 1, London 1993, S. 49f.
⁴Translated from Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, vol. I, Baden-Baden 1987, p. 16.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.64 A MAJOR HOB. I:64 (1773)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1778 [Herbst 1773]

Allegro con spirito / Largo / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphony in A major, Hob.I:64, has always provoked discussion about the origin and meaning of its epithet ‘Tempora mutantur’. The usually retrospective naming of Haydn’s works is an issue – not only in relation to the symphonies but also to the string quartets and wherever the composer left a complex and varied oeuvre to his surroundings or posterity.
The quality of an epithet was ‘officially’ evaluated – without thinking of the often positive ‘side effects’ – according to the criteria of authenticity and authorisation, that is according to the question of whether it came from the composer himself or his immediate environment, or was acknowledged as applicable by one or the other. In the case of Hob. 1:64 at least – the relatively high sequence number within the symphonies does not quite correspond to the presumed composition of the work in autumn 1773 – there is still disagreement about the acceptance of the title, based on a famous Latin saying (Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis: quomodo? Fit semper tempore peior homo / Times change, and we change with them: how so? Mankind gets worse with time’) and found on the portfolio of a copy of orchestral parts dated to 1775 and obviously of Esterházy provenance.¹
This would be unequivocal, were it not for the fact that the (later?) portfolio consists of a different kind of paper and the caption on it is in a different handwriting from that of the manuscripts it contains. My own recent inspection of these copies (now the main source for Hob. 1:64, due to the loss of the autograph) at least led to the conclusion that the epithet – brought up for renewed discussion by H. C. Robbins Landon, by the way – was certainly applied at some time to this work and not – as the author of the article ‘Tempora mutantur’ in the Haydn-Lexikon presumes² – to a Sinfonia in G [...] del Sig. Carlo Ditters. referred to upside down on the inside cover. Furthermore, the consistent and characteristic signing of portfolio and parts indicates a (temporary) origin, or even combination of both elements, from or in the Vienna copyist workshop of Johann Traeg, which was so important for distribution of Haydn’s symphonies throughout Europe.

The slow movement of the Symphony in A major has particularly attracted the attention of connoisseurs, musicians, musicologists and concert-goers – although the reactions of Haydn’s contemporaries were probably stronger than those of today – as the largo permanently contravenes the basic laws of musical grammar and plays with its listeners’ expectations. In short, this concerns the so-called cadences, the ends of musical phrases, which are of decisive importance in the recognition of tonality and musical structure, and how Haydn simply causes them to disappear and then reappear after a delay.
The American scholar Elaine Sisman – convinced she had rediscovered in Hob. 1:64 parts of a lost accompaniment to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, commissioned from Haydn for a production by Karl Wahr’s troupe in Pressburg in 1774 – sees an inner connection between the Latin saying and the cunning compositional procedure, although she justifies this in reference to what Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister declares to be a key dictum of the Prince of Denmark: ‘The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite. That ever I was born to set it right!’³
Sisman’s notion was recently taken up in a study by Danuta Mirka of ‘absent cadences’, and explained by the rhetorical devices of ‘ellipsis’ as ‘aposiopesis’, drawn from 18th-century music theory.⁴ But ultimately her deliberations do not provide a convincing answer to the question of the connection between the largo of Hob, 1:64 and the adage ‘tempora mutantur’. Perhaps – until deeper knowledge is attained – we should simply proceed from Haydn’s music and what it induces in its listeners. Dean Sutcliffe, for example, proposes an ‘affective reading that concerns nostalgia and melancholy’⁵ for the play of interrupted cadences and incomplete phrases, which would bring us back – not quite imperceptibly – to the idea of the sonnet ‘Solo e pensoso’. A few stirring passages, which bring forth the composer’s ‘theatrical’ vocabulary, can be found here too, as in the dramatic modulation to D minor when the horns first join the muted strings, ‘an abrupt crescendo from pianissimo to fortissimo and an equally abrupt sinking back into quiet, gloomy persistence.’⁶ The final, eerily beautiful return to the gloom is accompanied by a surprising tone colour: a pedal point of contrabasses and second horn on a low D, while the first horn replaces the violins as the melodic lead.
But the obscure musical logic of the Symphony in A major brings about yet more idiosyncrasies. In the spirited allegro we encounter dynamic brusqueness, syncopated rhythms and unusual harmonic sequences, which contain yet more ‘ellipsis’ for those with knowledge of classical musical composition. The presto, in contrast, at first appears to be in sonata form, although the ritornello form of the rondo increasingly emerges. Not to mention the frequently occurring dramatic ‘Sturm und Drang’-like outbursts … And finally there is a fortissimo flourish – but only, as is right and proper, at the very end.

_{¹See for example Joseph Haydn Werke, series I, vol. 5a, Sinfonien um 1770–1774, ed. Andreas Friesenhagen and Ulrich Wilker, Munich 2013, pp. VII & 250.
²Horst Walter, ‘Tempora mutantur’, in Das Haydn-Lexikon, ed. Armin Raab, Christine Siegert and Wolfram Steinbeck, Laaber 2010, p. 780.
³Elaine R. Sisman, ‘Haydn's Theater Symphonies’, in Journal of the American Musicological Society, 43 (1990), p. 320ff.
⁴Danuta Mirka, ‘Absent Cadences’, in Eighteenth Century Music, vol. 9, no. 2, September 2012, pp. 213–235.
⁵W. Dean Sutcliffe, ‘Expressive Ambivalence in Haydn’s Symphonic Slow Movements of the 1770s’, in The Journal of Musicology, vol. 27, no. 1 (2010), p. 110f.
⁶Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, vol. II, Baden-Baden 1988, p. 88.}

VOL. 3 _SOLO E PENSOSO

Giovanni Antonini, Francesca Aspromonte, Il Giardino Armonico

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Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.12 IN E MAJOR HOB. I:12 (1763)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [spring?] 1763

Allegro / Adagio / Finale. Presto

Christian Moritz-Bauer

Although at first glance the oldest piece of music in the fourth project of Haydn2032 is only a simple three-movement symphony, it may possibly conceal a ‘second nature’. The person responsible for this discovery, the Austrian conductor and pianist Manfred Huss, was enticed onto the trail by his research into Haydn’s ‘very first opera’.

Connoisseurs will already know that we are talking about the festa teatrale Acide, which enjoyed an appropriately festive premiere in Eisenstadt on 11 January 1763 at the wedding feast of Count Anton Esterházy and Countess Maria Theresia Erdődy. At two points in the action of this one-act piece, which unfortunately has survived only in fragmentary form, a sinfonia – an instrumental interlude – is required, first to depict the ‘lamentation of the Nereids’ over the death of Acide (Acis), who has been slain by the Cyclops Polifemo (Polyphemus), and then to announce an unexpected turn for the better when the blood of the nymph’s son is transformed into a bubbling fountain and he himself into a river god, so that henceforth he can always be close to his beloved Galatea.

At any rate, an opportunity for the transformation of the intermezzi from Acide into parts of the Symphony in E major Hob. I:12 (of which the autograph survives) may have been provided by the dinner held on 19 February 1763 at the Palais Esterházy in Vienna, followed by a ‘grand Concert’, which is reported in the famous diaries of Count Carl Johann Christian von Zinzendorf. The symphony was not played until after the guests had been fed, which may well have been conducive to the pleasure of listening; it is noteworthy that the opening Allegro begins unusually softly and with a lilting string melody in unison. The same basic mood, which will soon lead into a powerful tutti, definitely seems to open up a perspective on a happy future illuminated by the warming fire of love, as the theorist Georg Joseph Vogler – who had substantial theatrical experience – confirms in his treatise on the characteristics of the different keys (1779).

The fact that, according to James Webster, the ensuing Adagio transports us into an ‘“operatic” world full of unison forte outbursts, dissonances, chromaticism and deceptive cadences’ does indeed seem ‘strange’, and his conjecture that the movement, oscillating between a tenderly lamenting E minor and a darkly louring B minor, ‘carried extramusical associations’ is perfectly comprehensible, now that we are aware of the circumstances of composition. A Presto that could easily have been a theatrical finale concludes what Carl Ferdinand Pohl, the great Haydn biographer of the nineteenth century, called ‘a little symphony, but written in a felicitous moment’.

Symphony No.12

VOL. 4 _IL DISTRATTO

Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Novaro, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.60 IN C MAJOR «IL DISTRATTO» HOB. I:60 (1774)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Time of creation: before 30.6.1774 [1rst half 1774]

Adagio – Presto / Andante / Menuetto non troppo Presto – Trio / Presto / Adagio – Allegro / Finale. Prestissimo

Christian Moritz-Bauer

The city of Pressburg – once the capital and coronation city of Habsburg Upper Hungary (and now Bratislava in Slovakia) – was in the late eighteenth century a musical centre of international standing. No fewer than four permanent orchestras were active there more or less independently. Moreover, these cultural riches were not viewed as the sole privilege of the nobility: venues like the summer concerts of Count Batthyáni or the court theatre of Count Erdödy, with their broadly based public, offered an ideal platform that local composers such as Anton Zimmermann, Johannes Matthias Untersperger and Georg Druschetzky were not the only ones to avail themselves of. Dittersdorf, Vanhal, Mozart, Salieri and later even Beethoven – a whole host of artists of European stature performed here, as did the leading lights of contemporary theatrical life: Mingotti, Zamperini, Wahr, Schikaneder. Coverage of these events was in the hands of the Pressburger Zeitung. But this twice-weekly newspaper, printed by the firm of Johann Michael Landerer for a readership that extended far beyond the local sphere, also reported news from home and abroad, such as the following article by a correspondent published on 6 July 1774:

Eszterház, 30 June. High-ranking dignitaries from abroad are expected today, namely the Ambassador of Modena along with one of the most distinguished gentlemen of Italy. They will spend two days here and inspect everything worth seeing. Although His Princely Highness is absent, the most pleasant arrangements have been made to entertain the visitors. This evening there is a German comedy, Der Triumph der Freundschaft, followed by a serenade and dinner. Tomorrow they will view the magnificent castle and garden, the grand new ballroom and the new marionette theatre. That evening there will be the Italian opera L’infedeltà delusa. The music is by Herr Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn. This admirable composer also recently wrote, for Herr Wahr’s company’s production of the comedy Der Zerstreute, original music which connoisseurs consider to be a masterpiece. One observes, here in a vein of musical comedy, the same spirit that enlivens all Haydn’s works. To the admiration of connoisseurs and the sheer delight of listeners, he displays masterly variety, switching from the most affected pomposity to low humour, so that H[aydn] and Regnard vie with one another as to who is the more capriciously absent-minded.

Joseph Haydn’s visits to Pressburg – which took place primarily in the 1770s and were mostly of a business, but sometimes also of a private nature – brought in their wake a series of feted musical performances, as on 22 November 1774, when Der Zerstreute (The absent-minded gentleman), a comedy ‘freely imitated from the French of M. Regnard’ [Le Distrait, 1697], was presented with the music of the Esterházy Kapellmeister. And it was again the Pressburger Zeitung that reported the event:

On Tuesday, St Cecilia’s Day, Der Zerstreute was played. Herr von Haydn has written singular music for it, with which our readers have already been acquainted by articles from Eszterház published in earlier numbers. Here we will only remind them that it is excellent, quite excellent, and that the finale had to be repeated, since the audience would not stop clapping. In that same movement, the allusion to the absent-minded gentleman who had forgotten on his wedding day that he was the groom, and therefore had to tie a knot in his handkerchief, is extremely well done. The musicians begin the piece most pompously and remember only after a while that their instruments have not been tuned.

The music Haydn contributed to the play performed by Carl Wahr’s theatre company, which was resident at Eszterháza during the summer and in Pressburg during the winter, consists of the overture, four entr’actes, and a finale to be played at the end of the performance. Almost thirty years later, the composer was once again involved with his work. An unexpected request prompted him to address the following lines to Joseph Elssler jun., an oboist in Eisenstadt and brother of his copyist and factotum Johann Elssler:

Vienna, 5 June 1803.
Dearest Elsler!
Please be so kind as to send up to me, at the very first opportunity, the old symphony called DIE ZERSTREUTE, for Her Majesty the Empress has expressed a desire to hear the old pancake. I therefore ask Herr Messner to lend it to me for a few days; I will not damage it in any way... With my compliments,
Jos. Haydn mpria

And the Esterházy archives in the Hungarian National Library do indeed contain a ‘Sinfonia in C... per la commedia intitolata Il Distratto’ in Elssler’s handwriting, which Anthony van Hoboken later classified as no.60 among Haydn’s symphonies.

There have been repeated discussions of the programmatic content of Il distratto, but no one knows whether they tally with the composer’s intentions. Here we will quote Robert A. Green’s summary of just a few of the most important plot threads of the comedy for which the music was written:

Most of the characters... are associated with the commedia dell’arte and as stock types were immediately intelligible as such to Haydn and the audiences of his day. Clarice and Isabelle are two well-bred young ladies. The Chevalier, Clarice’s brother, is that member of the soldier-nobility who carouses, chases women, and who is well-schooled in the arts of the galant. Mme Grognac is the authoritarian mother searching for a wealthy mate for Isabelle irrespective of her daughter's wishes. The avarice of Mme Grognac is thoroughly exploited... Lisette and Carlin are the servants whose strengths help them to counterbalance the weaknesses of their masters...

For the absent-minded Leander, who is supposed to marry Isabelle but loves Clarice, Jean-François Regnard, the author of the French original, drew on the portrait of a character that Jean de La Bruyère had thought up for the second edition of Les Caractères de Théophraste, traduits du grec, avec les caractères ou les mœurs de ce siècle, published in 1688:

Ménalque goes down his stairs, opens the door to go out and closes it behind him. Then he realises that he is wearing his nightcap, and on closer inspection he finds that he is only half shaved; he sees that he has strapped his sword to his right side, that his stockings hang over his heels, and that his shirt is hanging out over his breeches... On another occasion he calls on a lady, and, having soon become persuaded that it is he who is receiving her, he makes himself comfortable in her armchair and does not even think of taking his leave. He then finds that the lady’s visits are exceedingly long, and constantly expects her to rise and leave him at liberty; but as the visit continues to drag on, since he is hungry and the evening is already far advanced, he invites her to dinner. She laughs so loudly that she awakens him from his absent-mindedness. He gets married in the morning, but forgets the fact in the evening and sleeps away from home on his wedding night...

Whether Haydn actually depicts, movement by movement, the atmosphere of the act to follow or, more likely, of the preceding act, the characters who appear in it, or only a few of the amusing occurrences on stage, is a subject that would undoubtedly exceed the scope of the present programme note. Nevertheless, it does seem worthwhile to attempt a modest effort in that direction.

We can be certain that the forceful chords at the beginning of the Adagio introduction were intended to warn the audience to sit still. Another pleasing notion is that the passage in repeated crotchets and quavers in the ensuing Presto in which the strings get lost (the performance marking is ‘perdendosi’, which means exactly that) portrays a kind of absent-mindedness. The thematic contrasts in the Andante can also be associated with certain protagonists or their character traits. A fanfare breaks into the ethereal main theme before it can be completed (the Chevalier chasing after young Isabelle?). The second, comparatively cumbersome theme follows in parallel octaves (the watchful mother?). Finally, the development with its abundance of sforzati and trills: a parody of a French dance, which again seems to single out the Chevalier’s behaviour for satirical treatment. The appearance of Leander in Act Two may be equated with the Trio of the Menuetto, in which a disoriented quaver scale on oboes and first violins is prominent.

The third act, with its multitude of intrigues and disguises, is echoed in a rushing Presto, in the course of which Hungarian dance melodies and rhythms also get a look-in. The fifth movement of the symphony, which bears the epithet ‘di Lamentatione’ in a set of parts held in Melk Abbey in Lower Austria, may represent Leander’s struggle to control himself and the amorous confusion he has involuntarily caused (Act Four). On the other hand, it might also suggest the ruse of the servant Johann, who bursts into Mme Grognac’s presence to tell her Leander has been disinherited, so that she loses her interest in her potential son-in-law and he gets to marry his Clarice instead. Which brings us to the fifth and final act: everything seems about to be settled to general satisfaction, were it not for the fact that good Leander has almost forgotten his wedding day at the end, just like the violins in the orchestra, which after sixteen bars of the Prestissimo need to retune their instruments in a hurry.

Symphony No.60

VOL. 4 _IL DISTRATTO

Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Novaro, Il Giardino Armonico

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.

D. Cimarosa: Il maestro di cappella

VOL. 4 _IL DISTRATTO

Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Novaro, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.70 IN D MAJOR HOB. I:70 (1779)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, (2 tpt, timp), str
Time of creation: before 18.12.1779 [1779]

Vivace con brio / Andante. Specie d'un canone in contrapunto doppio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio – Menuet da capo – Coda / Finale. Allegro con brio

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

On 18 November 1779, only three years after the beginning of a regular theatrical season at Eszterháza Palace, which was to provide Haydn with so much experience in the field of operatic production, came an event that had a drastic impact on musical life at the court. When someone lit two Chinese stoves intended for ornamental rather than functional purposes, a fire broke out and spread from the palace ballroom (Redoutensaal). As a result, so it was reported in the Pressburger Zeitung of 24 November, large parts of the library, but also much else including the opera house and the ‘magnificent theatrical costumes and all the music, which was collected over a long period and at great expense; the musical instruments, including the fine harpsichord of the famous Kapellmeister Haydn and the concert violin of the virtuoso Luigi [Tomasini]... fell victim to the flames...’.

Now, theatre fires were not uncommon in those days, and so the loss was probably perceived – at least on the Prince’s part – as primarily financial, especially since he was used to being presented with something new by his ‘house officer’ Haydn and his musicians. And such seems to have been the case when Nicolaus I heard a magnificent symphony in D exactly one month after the devastating conflagration, to celebrate the laying of the foundation stone for the new opera house and at the same time his sixty-fifth birthday. It proved to be a work of marked intellectual depth that straddled the galant and learned styles. For its Finale, Haydn – how could one have expected it otherwise? – had kept a well-timed joke in reserve. Although recent Haydn research has shown that the compositional process of Hob. I:70 can largely be dated to the period before 18 November 1779, this may well be, among other reasons, because the aforementioned birthday celebration had probably been planned for some time.

A fiery Vivace con brio in triple time opens the festive music. Its prevailing motif turns out to be no more than a leap of a fourth, albeit appearing at surprisingly irregularly positions in the bar. Haydn develops the entire material of the monothematic movement from this material, showing his skill in creating musical tension with zestful dynamic contrasts and small contrapuntal refinements. In the ensuing second and fourth and final movements, that same contrapuntal dexterity gives rise to many a polyphonic masterpiece, which the composer was certainly proud to be able to present on this occasion.

The structural design of the whole work, which shifts from ‘galant’ and ‘learned’, from major and minor, is also reflected on a smaller scale in the Andante variations, whose serious D minor ‘first subject’ enters into a rondo-like dialogue with a gentle, lyrical D major ‘second subject’. The austere beauty of the opening, which is nourished on the sound of muted violins and striding staccato dotted semiquavers – and, complying with all the rules of learned composition, sets what Haydn calls the ‘canto fermo’ in the bass against a ‘contrapunto’ in the violins and violas – takes on an almost uncanny character when the flute enters at the upper octave. The playful theme in the major, on the other hand, seems to come from a completely different world; but, at the conclusion, it is robbed of the chance of a reprise once its counterpart has bidden farewell with a chromatically intensified melodic line and whispered tutti chords.

After so much formal erudition, but ‘perhaps’, as Walter Lessing puts it, ‘also as relaxation before the tour de force of the finale’, Haydn follows this with ‘an emphatically festive, resolute minuet’ which, with great originality, offers a contrasting Trio, reduced to a duo between oboes and strings, and is crowned by a surprise coda complete with insert for wind sextet. Then, with a ‘whiff of the theatre’ – in the mind’s eye of the Haydn scholar Robbins Landon, Harlequin tripping onto the stage and ‘softly opening the drawn curtain’ – the Finale launches into a fugue ‘a 3 soggetti in contrapunto doppio’ (triple fugue in double counterpoint), in order to present itself as a work of great creative power to the ‘fastidious connoisseur’ for whom it was written. But since the composer is well aware of his Prince’s sense of humour, he allows the jester in his ‘motley coat’ to reappear at the last moment and bring down the curtain again with a noisy gesture.

Symphony No.70

VOL. 4 _IL DISTRATTO

Giovanni Antonini, Riccardo Novaro, Il Giardino Armonico

2015

2016

2017

NO.4

No.5

NO.6

NO.5 __L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.81 IN G MAJOR HOB. I:81 (1763)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [till 8.11.1784]

Vivace / Andante / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Allegro ma non troppo

Christian Moritz-Bauer

«Haydn does not always succeed in combining the uncomplicated, the popular and the artificial.»
(Michael Walter, Haydns Sinfonien. Ein musikalischer Werkführer. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2007, p.84)

«[T]here are no surprising or dramatic gestures, little use of the minor mode, no overt displays of a learned style, and all of it is accessible upon first hearing . . . This work would be easily received by the elite group . . . who could concern themselves with going to concerts or private entertainments»
(A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002, p.207)

«A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p.207»
(H.C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Vol. 2: Haydn at Eszterháza, 1766-1790. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p.567)

«It is now rare when the odd and the eccentric (still as frequent as ever in his work) are not transfigured by poetry [as in the] little-appreciated Symphony no.81.»
(Charles Rosen, The Classical Style. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. Second edition. London: Faber and Faber, 1976, p.157)

As may be seen from the quotations above, opinions have always diverged widely concerning the Symphony in G major Hob. I:81, with respect not only to its compositional qualities, but also to its significance within the output of Joseph Haydn.

Standing at the threshold between the so-called «Sturm und Drang» or «theatre symphonies» of the late 1760s and 1770s and the period of the «Paris» and «London» symphonies, it originally formed the opening work in the composer’s second group of symphonies aimed at an international audience, and was first published as such by the Viennese firm of Artaria in March 1785.

What was intended to comply with the demands of the market for entertainment and to be playable without particular difficulties by performing musicians from far and wide had to be reconciled with the demands the composer had imposed on himself, which had grown ever more stringent over the years: what a challenge! And it is precisely that challenge that Haydn attempts to meet here with surprisingly innovative compositional elements, which are even utilised in transgressive fashion at times.
Naturally, a favourite place of the composer’s for showing his paces was the opening of the work, for which he came up, in the present case, with a gambit of well-nigh inspired simplicity. From a powerful tutti chord, of which soon nothing is left but the residue of a sound wave, a drum bass emerges in the cellos, mysterious in its fragility. Its softly throbbing repeated Gs are accompanied by a superimposed F in the second violins and an appoggiatura motif in the firsts that further obscures the harmonic centre. When the first violins do finally play the leading note that clarifies the key, and then regain ground contact by means of a gently undulating quaver motion, the whole body of strings quite unexpectedly slips into the dominant, D major. A classic false start? All right then: as you were! Try again!
Is it the early entry of the violas that gives the loosely attached kaleidoscope of motifs the necessary stability in the restatement that follows? What counts is success – and this is exactly what is promised by a forte section, emphasised by powerful rhythmic contours, which appears towards the end of the next period on a harmonic framework underpinned by tutti chords. A further thematic idea, characterised by quaver rests and chromatic melodic progression, also makes good use of that harmonic scheme.
Here, if no earlier, our master moves into the zone where his target audience of the time could still – just – follow him; and so he can risk playing his well-tried game of sowing deliberate confusion once more. Right at the end of the movement, though, the listeners’ prayers for something straightforward are finally heard, and they are propitiated with a full reprise of the opening theme, which ends in a simple closing cadence.
The friendly, relaxed mood that has finally made its appearance here is prolonged for the audience’s enjoyment in the ensuing Andante, a siciliana theme followed by three variations, outstanding among them a contrasting, centrally placed interlude in Dorian D minor.
After a Menuetto of rustic cast and a solo bassoon-led Trio with an exotic-sounding sideslip into the minor, the Finale enters with the most varied rhythmic impulses imaginable. This Allegro frustrates listeners’ expectations, not only in its tone, which seems more appropriate to a first movement than to a finale, but also because of the deceleratory postscript to the tempo marking (‘ma non troppo’). However, there is one good thing about Haydn’s teasing: the danger of losing sight of the trajectory of the monothematic melodic line, with all its part-crossings, motivic variations and changing accentuations, or of not being able to follow it with ear and mind alike, is clearly diminished!

Symphony No.81

VOL. 5 _L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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...

_{¹Letter from Kraus to his parents in Amorbach (Odenwald), dated »Wien den 28t Junius 1783«.
²Ingrid 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.
³Draft letter to the Stockholm theatre director Christoffer Bogislaus Zibeth, dated »[Vienna,] 15 [April 1783]«.
⁴Cf. note 1 1.
⁵Gabriela 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.
⁶Letter 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.
⁷Justin 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.
⁸Fuchs, op. cit., p.73..}

J. M. Kraus: Symphony in c-Minor VB 142

VOL. 5 _L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.19 IN D MAJOR HOB. I:19 (c. 1760/61)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1766 [1760/1761]

Allegro molto / Andante / Finale. Presto

Christian Moritz-Bauer

«One day the old Prince Antonio Esterházy went to the house of Count [Morzin] to listen to music. He was a passionate music lover who had in his service a large and handpicked orchestra, directed by Maestro Werner. After hearing a symphony by Haydn (it was the one in D major and in three-four time), the Prince took a liking to the composer’s style and urged the Count to let him have the man. The Count, who had recently been thinking of dismissing his orchestra for financial reasons, was happy to comply with the Prince’s wishes.»¹

What Giuseppe Carpani, one of the first biographers of Joseph Haydn, so eagerly reports here seems – despite minor historical inaccuracies – to reflect a quite conceivable scenario from our composer’s artistic career. For he is describing here the possibly decisive moment when a first hearing of Haydn’s music persuaded the then head of the Hungarian princely family of Esterházy to poach the almost thirty-year-old Kapellmeister from his former employment in a post alternating between Unter-Lukawitz near Pilsen² and the Habsburg metropolis of Vienna.
We now know that Carpani’s text, whose truthfulness has often been called into question, is here verifiably close to reality. This has been shown by the chronological studies of the Haydn scholar Sonja Gerlach, according to which the composition assigned to no.19 in Eusebius Mandyszewski’s traditional numbering of Haydn’s symphonies is not only stylistically a transitional work between the early Morzin symphonies and the first ones he subsequently wrote for the Esterházy family, but also stands out as the only D major work in a group of three symphonies beginning with a 3/4 time signature, which, on stylistic grounds, could be dated to the time around Haydn’s first change of employer, that is, around the turn of the years 1760 and 1761.³
It has frequently been emphasised that one of the great merits of Hob. I:19, which does not seem particularly striking in terms of instrumentation and formal layout, is the ‘compositional unity’ of its opening Allegro molto. What is meant by this is that its structure, which the formal theory of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries labels with terms such as ‘exposition, ‘development’ and ‘recapitulation’, may be described not only as a mere stringing together of small musical components called ‘motifs’, but far more aptly – thanks to a complex system of mutual references among those components – as an overall trajectory divided into periodic sections by cadences. For all its inherent compositional learning, however, the first movement of this D major symphony also holds in store some striking moments that make one sit up and take notice, such as the wild tremolo passages accompanied by sudden tutti effects that even temporarily jolt the harmonic progression into the dark key of B minor at one point.
In several respects, though, the ensuing Andante is astonishing too: despite its brevity, it offers unusual rhythmic variety. There is, for example, the consistent use of anacrusis in the successive phrases of the melodic line, which, with its staccato quaver motion, takes on an almost march-like character, or the syncopated passage immediately following this, which seems positively redolentof the later Haydn, when the second violin – following the string bass at a distance of a semiquaver – suddenly turns out to be the leading voice. The tonal scheme of this central movement also leaves a lasting impression: most of it is in D minor, but it does not baulk at occasional excursions into G minor, F major and A major.
The work’s range of thematic references is rounded off by a Presto finale in a dancing 3/8 – a metre often encountered at the time, for example in the output of Georg Christoph Wagenseil – with catchy motifs reminiscent of hunting calls and ostinato-type galloping figures driven forward by the lower strings. Is the underlying message here an allusion by the composer to a certain ‘princely pleasure’ that was also very popular in the Esterházy family? Here, too, a prominent tremolo passage is extremely effective. Extending over several bars, in a descending sequence characterised by leaps of a sixth, an octave and even a tenth, it seems like a precursor to a certain ‘Sturm und Drang’ idiom that was to become such an enduring feature of Haydn’s compositional vocabulary in a few years’ time.

_{¹Giuseppe Carpani, Le Haydine, ovvero Lettere su la vita e le opere del celebre maestro Giuseppe Haydn (Milan: Buccinelli, 1812), p.87.
²Now Dolní Lukavice (usually called Lukavec in English) near Plzeň in the Czech Republic. (Translator’s note)
³Sonja Gerlach, «Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie», in Haydn-Studien 7/1-2 (1996), pp.1-288, especially pp.71-75.}

Symphony No.19

VOL. 5 _L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO. 80 IN D MINOR HOB. I:80 (c. 1783/84)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [till 8.11.1784]

Allegro spiritoso / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Presto

Christian Moritz-Bauer

A whole decade had passed since Haydn had composed his last major orchestral work in a minor key, the so-called »Farewell« Symphony. But during that time he had been anything but idle in the field of symphonic music and had enriched his musical language with many a new idiom. In discussing this period, specialists usually assert that Haydn (by and large) abandoned the extreme compositional style, traditionally described by the term »Sturm und Drang« (Storm and stress, borrowed from literary scholarship), which had come to the fore in a whole series of his works from the late 1760s onwards.
Nevertheless, it is now hardly tenable for anyone speaking from a well-informed perspective to state that Haydn’s symphonic œuvre subsequently became less »experimental« but markedly more »popular«. Nor can it be disputed that »musical Sturm und Drang« was a widely favoured stylistic device in its heyday.
The extreme, rugged, unbridled element in the composer’s vocabulary was henceforth relegated to the background, yet never entirely disappeared. One of the reasons for this is probably to be found in the fact that, after a new contract of employment dated 1779 allowed him actively to purvey his own musical creations to the international music market, Haydn made it a rule to round off each of his subsequent projects for publication with a work in the minor key. This decision was to have its impact, first of all, on the trilogy of symphonies Hob I:76-78, composed around 1782 and promoted shortly afterwards (by its composer) as ‘beautiful, resplendent and by no means over-long’, which features a work »ex C minore« in final position. And the following symphonic cycle includes the »Sinfonia in D la Sol re minore / Di me Giuseppe Haydn« – as it is designated in the autograph title of a set of parts sent as engraver’s copy for the London first edition, published by William Forster – that is discussed here.

The genuinely stormy beginning of Hob. I:80 has been variously described as »turbulent and unstable«,¹ »serious« and »vehement«,² and as a »violent complex, sombre in tone, but only sketchily outlined in thematic terms and harmonically restless«.³ And indeed the audience feels it has entered the symphony in medias res, on a »powerfully emphatic melody accompanied by flickering string tremolos«⁴ dominating the first bars that gives the impression that it has been shorn of its opening or torn from a broader context.
From a compositional standpoint, however, a three-note motif with a variable interval structure also clamours for mention in this context; it will have a decisive influence on the atmosphere of the first thematic period. The same motif then leads into a supposed »subsidiary theme«, which, however, is in its turn interrupted by a diminished seventh chord before it can form a proper closing cadence and, seemingly against its will, driven further on into F minor. Up to this point, as A. Peter Brown aptly observed, everything has been »almost one big Sturm und Drang gesture«.⁵ Then, however, something outrageously Haydnesque happens: following an appoggiatura figure suggesting a snap of the fingers, in waltzes a flute- and violin-led ländler theme with pizzicato accompaniment – and when, after another seven bars, the sign for skipping back to the start of the movement appears, one wonders what will come next, especially since (after the double bar following the expected exposition repeat) the ensuing formal section begins like a moment of reflection, with a two-bar general pause. What could have happened in the composer’s hothouse of ideas? By way of incisive seventh chords and many a harmonic terra incognita (initially D flat major!) the storm then sweeps along in G minor until the ländler once again stops it in its tracks and demands a switch to F major. When the string basses subsequently agree on a pedal point on A, the composer’s plan becomes crystal clear: the goal is D major, and the preceding battle of major and minor modes is finally over when the ‘subsidiary theme’ celebrates its triumphant return with the appropriate change of key signature.

The second movement of the symphony leads us into a related sphere that is nevertheless different again. It is an Adagio in B flat major, the subdominant of D minor. Although, in terms of key, this therefore establishes a relationship with the work’s sombre beginning, the mood now takes a cheerful and affable turn, open to the world and love. The conjecture that Haydn intended to forge a link with the opera house here, with his extravagant melodic arcs enriched with all manner of ornamentation, may well be found thoroughly convincing, since he had been working almost simultaneously on Armida, the last stage work he wrote for the theatre at Eszterháza Palace.
However that may be, the musical respiration is impressive in length and indeed runs right through all the sections of the classical sonata form, to which a subsidiary theme accompanied by sextolet arpeggios, a transition in dotted rhythms and a dance-like closing idea are added in the course of the exposition. It almost goes without saying that, in the midst of this idyll, there are bound to be momentary darkenings, diverse dramatic breaks and melodic standstills.
Reverting to the initial D minor, the symphony continues with the expected minuet, which opens by quoting the three-note motif of the Allegro spiritoso. A tense, energetic three-four time? Would the earlier ländler not have fitted in much better here? Haydn may well have had this hypothetical listener’s question in mind when he conceived his work. At any rate, the conflict between the modes seems to play a certain role here too, for after a few ambiguous bars the Trio section with its simplistic theme for unison oboe, horn and violin reverts decisively to the major.
By contrast, the beginning of the Presto finale, which Walter Lessing once described as »a masterstroke of bizarre humour and rhythmic delicacy, coupled with surprising instrumental and harmonic effects«,⁶ seems utterly »obscure«. How right Lessing was: to wait until almost the end of its twelve-bar introductory phase to »out&rlquo; a theme that appears to be in straightforward two-four time in all the string parts and reveal that it is in fact syncopated on the offbeat – that borders on temerity!
The syncopated motif quickly takes possession of the other orchestral parts, while the violins are able to gain a brief breathing space for a few bars with impetuous semiquavers. Of course the fugitives are immediately recaptured and watched with eagle eye by a chromatic motif surrounding them in all the other parts – until they break free again and throw the gates open to a modest but finely made melody in thirds on the oboes. Lively rising staccato motifs lead into the exposition repeat and then into the second half of the movement, which, in Ludwig Finscher’s view, is a »real tour de force of [motivic and] thematic working«.⁷ With its accentuated chromaticism and its combination of syncopated and staccato motifs, the conclusion of the last movement proves to be as eventful as it is adventurous in its harmonic forays, which range from D minor or F major, through G minor, F sharp minor and C sharp minor, all the way to B major and ultimately D major – an extraordinary ending to an extraordinary symphony!

_{¹Matthew Riley, The Viennese Minor-Key Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Mozart (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 210.
²Andreas Friesenhagen, booklet note to the CD ‘Haydn. The Harmonia Mundi Edition: Violin Concerto no.1, Symphonies no.49 »La Passione« & no.80. Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz’ (Arles: Harmonia Mundi, HMX 2962029, 2009), p.13..
³Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber 2000, p. 318.
⁴Friesenhagen, ibid.
⁵A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II – The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p.203.
⁶Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, dazu: sämtliche Messen, vol. II (Baden-Baden: Südwestfunk,1988), p.233.
⁷Finscher, op. cit., p.318 f.}

Symphony No.80

VOL. 5 _L'HOMME DE GÉNIE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

2017

2016

2017

2018

NO.5

No.6

NO.7

NO.6 __LAMENTATIONE

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.30 IN C MAJOR HOB. I:30 ‘Alleluja’ (1765)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [spring] 1765

Allegro / Andante / Finale. Tempo di Menuet più tosto Allegretto

Christian Moritz-Bauer

Although we have only a few written testimonies to Haydn’s attitude towards the church and religious observance – after all, except for those years in which he was active as a choirboy in Hainburg and at St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, he was to serve only secular princes throughout his life – his musical manuscripts, which are always headed ‘In nomine Domini’ and/or concluded by ‘Laus Deo’, betray a faithful Catholic, albeit one marked by the spirit of the Enlightenment and the reform measures of Joseph II. The fact that hardly any sacred works from Haydn’s pen have survived before 1766 is probably due primarily to the strict division of responsibilities between the first and second Kapellmeisters at the court of the Esterházy princes. Haydn’s contract of employment dated 1 May 1761, for example, stipulated that he ‘shall depend upon and be subordinated to Gregorius Werner, in [the latter’s] capacity as First Kapellmeister, in respect of choral music . . . But in all other matters, whenever music is to be performed, everything related to that music, in general and in particular, shall be under the responsibility of the said Vice-Kapellmeister’, that is, of Haydn.
No wonder, then, that the newly appointed ‘Vice-Kapellmeister’ and ‘House Officer’ soon roused the envy of the already long-serving Gregor Joseph Werner on account of the prominent position accorded to the newcomer, a feeling that eventually came to a head in an official reprimand to Haydn on the part of his employer, the Regulatio Chori Kiss-Martonensis (Regulation for the Kapelle of Eisenstadt) dated 3 November 1765. The ‘inventory of all the instruments and music to be found in the choir-loft’ ordered therein, coupled with the injunction to ‘apply himself to composition more diligently than heretofore’, led Haydn, among other things, to draw up the first catalogue of his works, the so-called Entwurf-Katalog, which he initially wrote in his own hand. A mere glance at the forty symphonies he had composed to date – including the eight or nine early works from his first post with Count Morzin – must have produced a well-nigh overwhelming impression. In any case, the relevant pages of the catalogue were soon to disappear mysteriously.

The series of symphonies from the year 1765 begins with a work of special quality which, moreover, is filled with religious allusions. The fact that the exposition of the Symphony in C major Hob. I:30 quotes the Gregorian Alleluia from the liturgy for Holy Saturday (in the sequence of notes G - C - D - E - C - D - C), but initially conceals it in barely perceptible fashion among the middle voices, may be regarded as a gesture of respect for Kapellmeister Werner’s only remaining sphere of influence. As the work progresses, however, the gesture seems increasingly to be forgotten. For, at the beginning of the recapitulation, the plainchant melody suddenly stands starkly revealed in the wind tutti with an all too sparse string accompaniment. A further, far less profane thought suggests itself – that of the miracle of the Easter Vigil . . .
Further proof of the composer’s skill is provided by the Andante, in which a flute renders itself conspicuous as a soloist. Although it begins by playing its part in a well-behaved manner, the instrument subsequently dares to break away from the movement’s dotted rhythms and short-breathed phrases and demonstrate its virtuosity with glittering semiquaver figuration.
Given that the ‘Alleluja’ Symphony ends with a dancelike Tempo di Menuet, it is a moot point whether the conjecture that it was once used in an ecclesiastical or liturgical setting is a plausible one. Yet, in spite or perhaps because of the temporary darkness that shrouds the second of the two Trio sections, we feel the notion should be treated generously.

Symphony No.30 'Alleluja'

VOL. 6 _LAMENTATIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.3 IN G MAJOR HOB. I:3 (1761)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1762 [1761]

Allegro / Andante moderato / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Alla breve

Christian Moritz-Bauer

In the wake of his appointment as vice-Kapellmeister to the Esterházy princes – more precisely, between June and December 1761 – Haydn wrote his famous ‘Times of Day’ symphonies (Le Matin, Le Midi, Le Soir, nos. 6-8), with their concerto grosso-like solos for his orchestra’s first-desk players, but also, probably just before that, two more works in the genre, one in D major and one in G major. A defining moment of the latter, Hob. I:3, is its unusual concentration of contrapuntal techniques – a phenomenon that is prominent not only in the Alla breve fugue of the work’s Finale, but also in the opening Allegro, with its soggetto-like theme, and the two middle movements. One reason for this may well have been Haydn’s efforts to demonstrate his abilities in the field of polyphonic part-writing, on which Gregor Werner for one, then his hierarchical superior, saw himself as a certain authority.

When Haydn wrote contrapuntally, it was generally in ‘free counterpoint’, in which – unlike the so-called stile antico – it was permissible to observe the rules of dissonance and consonance in a more relaxed manner according to the tastes of the composer and his audience. For example, the steady stride of the violins and oboes, one note to a bar, at the beginning of the first movement resembles a cantus firmus, while the Menuet in canon between high and lower strings does full justice to its French name – in terms of melodic writing and timbral combinations, it is very reminiscent of the style of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764). So far, so good. However, the twenty-nine-year-old Haydn rises to top form and thoroughgoing independence in the finale, which James Webster considers to be an early masterpiece, since it ‘trumps’ all that has gone before ‘with a remarkable synthesis of fugue and sonata style’.¹ But equally worthy of mention is the dynamic structure of the fugal writing: the entire exposition is held down to pianissimo until the first orchestral tutti, before it moves towards the extremely effective conclusion of the work in an alternation of forte and piano blocks and with the aid of a short pedal point.

_{¹James Webster, ‘From Vienna to Eszterháza, c.1760-63’, booklet note to the three-CD set ‘Haydn Symphonies, volume 2’ (London: Decca-L’Oiseau-Lyre, 436 592-2, 1993), p.20.}

Symphony No.3

VOL. 6 _LAMENTATIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.26 IN D MINOR HOB. I:26 «Lamentatione» (1768)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1770 [1768]

Allegro assai con spirito / Adagio / Menuet – Trio

Christian Moritz-Bauer

Whereas in the symphony that opened our programme it was an Alleluia belonging to the Holy Saturday liturgy that was interwoven into the orchestral texture, Haydn quotes not one but two plainchant melodies in the work under discussion here. In the Symphony Hob. I:26 – written about three years after that work, despite its numbering ten places earlier in the chronology of Haydn’s oeuvre – the melodies in question appear in both of the first two of the three movements. One of these reciting tones is linked with a performance of the Passion narrative in which the ‘roles’ are shared among several readers, while the other is associated with the Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, the Lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah, sung at the Nocturns of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Because of its motivic references to the Passion of Christ, it has often been suggested that individual movements of Hob. I:26 (or even the whole work) were originally employed in an ecclesiastical setting, for example in the liturgy or in the context of devotional exercises. However, such conjectures have not yet been proven – at least not with regard to the situation in Eisenstadt. Elsewhere, surviving performance material strongly argues in favour of such a use. The source preserved at the Augustinian monastery of Herzogenburg, for example, is entitled ‘Passio et Lamentatio’. In the course of the second theme of the Allegro assai con spirito we meet several inscriptions in the second violin part (which carries the plainchant melody) redolent of the protagonists of a Passion play: ‘Evang:[elista]’ (bar 17, with a declamatory character), ‘Christ:[us]’ (bars 26-31, piano with striding minims) and ‘Jud:[aei]’, the Jews (bars 35-37, with hammering quaver figuration and a sudden first violin motif that rushes up the scale).

The nickname conventionally applied to the symphony today also occurs in several contemporary copies of Haydn’s now lost autograph, either in the Italian nominative form ‘La Lamentazione’ or in the Latin ablative singular form ‘Lamentatione’.

In terms of character, Hob: I:26 has been assigned to the canon of Haydn’s supposedly ‘Sturm und Drang’ works on the basis of its minor key, the intensity of the emotions expressed therein and, last but not least, the fact that its date of composition is (relatively) close to those of the ‘Trauer’ and ‘Farewell’ Symphonies (Hob. I:44 and 45), the Symphony in B major Hob. I:46 and ‘La Passione’ Hob. I:49.

The musical grieving process initiated by the Passion (semiquaver triplets in the first violins as an instrumental counterpart to the Lamentation tone in the solo oboe and violino secondo parts) continues in the ensuing Adagio, whose ‘special tone colour’ (with the woodwind tutti taking over the melodic line at the start of the recapitulation, further enriched harmonically by well-placed Neapolitan sixth chords), according to Ludwig Finscher, already seems to portend ‘the impending miracle of Easter’.¹

Even without plainchant quotations, the minuet finale has a special intensity. From the very beginning, its austere mood alternating between minor and major, its Neapolitan harmonies and its rhythmic ambiguities generate a mood that is still sombre yet also restores optimism.

_{¹Vgl. Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber Verlag, Laaber, 2000, S. 267.}

Symphony No.26 "La Lamentatione"

VOL. 6 _LAMENTATIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.79 IN F MAJOR HOB. I:79 (1784)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [end of 1784]

Allegro con spirito / Adagio cantabile – Un poco allegro / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Vivace

Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphony in F major, the last of the trilogy written in 1784 along with nos. 81 and 80, has repeatedly had to endure more or less harsh criticisms in its reception history, especially with regard to the design of the two outer movements. For example, Ludwig Finscher speaks of ‘nothing but conventional, barely individualised formulas’¹ in the Allegro con spirito, while A. Peter Brown mentions ‘a touch of gypsy music’ and ‘something of a grinding organ’² in the inner sections of the rondo finale. Everything is ‘enjoyable, but no more than that’.³

By contrast, the British music journalist Anthony Hodgson penned a very eloquent defence speech for Hob I:79:

The most unusual feature of the first movement is a single downward phrase of pure Mozart; this apart, glowing melody is underpinned by a firm staccato bass. The Adagio Cantabile which follows is simple, touching and quietly optimistic. At length the gentle forward motion rests, and suddenly a delightful, quietly hastening section marked un poco allegro bustles in. Isolated from this movement it would be difficult to guess where else it might be used in a symphony – a Finale would perhaps be the place but even that would not quite be suited to such tension. One of those fine Menuetti follows, of the style in which the double bars leave a question mark in the air. The Trio is a country dance plain and simple, with inverted use of the main material and solo flute and oboe adding delicate touches of pastel colour. The Finale, in Haydn’s ‘homecoming’ style (it could never be mistaken for anything else), spins happily along to conclude a work typical of its composer, brightly entertaining in concept yet without a single shallow moment.⁴

One need only add to this description that probably not a single one of Haydn’s previous symphonic movements so clearly anticipates the tone of the future ‘London’ Symphonies as the Adagio cantabile, with its lucid combination of flute and violin timbres, and the Kehraus (‘last dance of the evening’) allegro that emerges from it, which awakens in its listeners the fleeting fear that the work and hence also the lovely concert might already be coming to an end.

_{¹Ludwig Finscher, Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit (Lilienthal: Laaber, 2000), p.318.
²A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II – The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p.203.
³Finscher, ibid.
⁴Anthony Hodgson: The Music of Joseph Haydn: The Symphonies. Tantivy Press: London, 1976, p. 106f.}

Symphony No.79

VOL. 6 _LAMENTATIONE

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

2016

2017

2018

NO.6

No.7

NO.8

NO.7 __GLI IMPRESARI

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN C MAJOR HOB. I:9 (1762)

Orchestration: 2 ob/2 fl, bn, 2hn, str
Time of creation: [spring?] 1762

Allegro molto / Andante / Menuetto. Allegretto – Trio

[Impresario: Girolamo Bon]

With the first and earliest of the three theatrical symphonies by Joseph Haydn assembled here under the title ‘Gli Impresari’, we take a look back – back to the time when Prince Nicolaus had just succeeded his older brother Paul Anton as head of the magnate family of Esterházy de Galántha. On 12 May 1762, just five days before his solemn induction, a group of ‘Welsche Komödianten’ (Italian actors) had taken up quarters at the Wirt zum Greifen (Griffin Inn) in Eisenstadt (in Hungarian, ‘Kismarton’), where they were to remain until June of the same year and perform the comedies La marchesa Nespola, La vedova, Il dottore and Il sganarello, all listed in Haydn’s Entwurfkatalog. Haydn scholars conjecture that the troupe of players was probably headed by a certain Girolamo Bon, pittore Architetto e Direttore dell’Opera ([stage] painter and designer and opera director). The same multi-talented artist, who had already found his way from his native city of Venice to assorted theatrical functions in St Petersburg, Berlin, Dresden, Potsdam, Antwerp, Frankfurt and Regensburg, among other places, was taken into Prince Esterházy’s service at the beginning of July, along with his wife and daughter. In addition to the vocal qualities of Rosa Ruvinetti-Bon and the instrumental and compositional skills of Anna (Lucia) Bon, who was born in Bologna and had trained at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, another decisive factor in their engagement was probably Bon’s teaching activity of the head of the family at the Akademie der Schönen Künste (Academy of fine arts) in Bayreuth from 1756 to 1761. He combined his work as painter and set designer with writing for the theatre, for example as the (conjectural) arranger of the libretti for Haydn’s early Italian operas La canterina, Lo speziale, Le pescatrici and L’infedeltà delusa or of the homage cantatas for Nicolaus I and his son Anton written between 1763 and 1767.

The Symphony in C major Hob. I:9, composed in 1762, seems to have a specific connection with another such cantata, which was rediscovered by Irmgard Becker-Glauch in the form of a Latin motet.¹The three-movement work may once have served – with different instrumentation – as an orchestral prelude to the putative cantata. This would also explain the strange corrections in the indications of the orchestral forces, which suggest it was originally played with timpani, clarino trumpets and/or horns and strings, but without oboes (!). In the symphony’s autograph, which only came to light again in 2000 and is held at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, this scoring was finally changed to oboes/flutes, horns, bassoon and strings.²

Whether the C major Symphony was once intended as the prelude to a cantata or a comedy, or rather for the princely chamber, in terms of character and dramaturgical structure it would be well suited to the atmosphere and period when Nicolaus I Esterházy assumed his position as head of the family. It consists of an Allegro molto that ‘eschews strongly profiled themes in favour of three-chord hammer strokes, wind fanfares, constant bustle and rhythmic surprise’ (James Webster),³ a pastoral Andante, and an Allegretto minuet with waltz-like string accompaniment to the blissful solo oboe melody in the first strain of the Trio and the wind quintet interlude, reminiscent of Feldmusik for military band, in the second.

_{¹‘Quis stellae radius’, Hob. XXIIIa:4 [sometimes referred to as ‘Motetto de Sancta Thecla’ – translator’s note]. See Irmgard Becker-Glauch, ‘Neue Forschungen zu Haydns Kirchenmusik’, Haydn-Studien II/3 (May 1970), pp.167 – 241, especially pp.177 – 83.
²See Sonja Gerlach, ‘Das Autograph von Haydns Sinfonie Hob. I:9 aus dem Jahr 1762’, Haydn-Studien VIII/3 (September 2003), pp.217– 36.
³James Webster, ‘Early Esterházy Symphonies, 1761-1763’, booklet note to the three-CD set ‘Haydn Symphonies, volume 3’ (London: Decca-L’Oiseau-Lyre, 433 661-2, 1992), p.24.}

Symphony No.9

VOL. 7 _GLI IMPRESARI

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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.

¹On 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.

W. A. Mozart: Thamos, King of Egypt KV 345/336a

VOL. 7 _GLI IMPRESARI

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO. 67 IN F MAJOR HOB. I:67 (1775/1776)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: till 1779 [1775/1776]

= Music for the comedy Die Jagdlust Heinrich des Vierten (Eszterháza, June/July 1772?)

Presto / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro di molto – Adagio e cantabile – Allegro di molto

[Impresario: Carl Wahr]

The years from 1772 onwards, when Carl Wahr (1745-1811) was responsible for the summer theatre programme, seem to have marked a highpoint in the ‘interdisciplinary’ collaboration between Prince Nicolaus I Esterházy’s court musical establishment, directed by Haydn, and troupes of actors engaged from elsewhere.¹ This was precisely the period of the genesis and early performance history of the music for Der Zerstreute, a German translation of Jean-François Regnard’s comedy Le Distrait (The absent-minded gentleman, 1697), which has already formed the focus of an earlier Haydn2032 project (no.4, IL DISTRATTO). But there was also a similar festive event in the very first months after Wahr’s troupe embarked on their season, on the occasion of a visit from the French ambassador Louis René Édouard de Rohan. György Bessenyei, a grenadier officer who doubled as a court chronicler writing in Hungarian, began his account of the festivities with the following verses:

So the Prince de Rohan comes into the palace building; / His escort accompanies him into a large chamber.

A stage has been erected there, / Where the heart is turned towards tender sentiment.

The French King Henry the Fourth was shown hunting / For Prince Rohan’s pleasure.

These lines demonstrate that the play performed by Carl Wahr and his twelve-member ensemble – among them his habitual stage partner Sophie Körner – was, exceptionally, performed not in the separate theatre building but in the Sala Terrena or in the Prunksaal (state room) located on the first floor of the palace. They also inform us that the piece must have been Die Jagdlust Heinrich des Vierten (Henry IV’s passion for the chase), a translation by Christian Friedrich Schwan of La Partie de chasse de Henri IV, the comedy of character and manners by the French dramatist Charles Collé. This relates a story of a monarch and a nation that had just emerged from one of the most violent confessional and political conflicts in the history of Europe – the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots. Here is a summary of the plot:

Henry IV, King of France, has grown weary of the web of intrigues spun around his minister, the Duc de Sully, at the court of Fontainebleau, and calls on friend and foe alike to join in a deer hunt for the sake of mutual reconciliation. Thanks to the cunning of the game it is pursuing, the outbreak of a thunderstorm and the onset of darkness, the hunting party gets lost and its members lose touch with each other, until they are spotted and rescued by the inhabitants of the nearby village of Lieursain. Henry ends up in the care of the miller Michau, from whom and whose family he hides his identity, in order to convince himself of their loyalty to the crown but also to be able once again to follow his natural tendencies towards both magnanimity and libertinage. When he learns that the Marquis de Conchiny has abducted Agathe, the fiancée of the miller’s son Richard, he punishes the nobleman, who is also Sully’s greatest enemy. He thereupon decides to gratify the double wedding arranged for the following day between Agathe and Richard, and his sister Catau and Lucas, a poor young farmer, with a gift of 10,000 florins to each couple, and to serve as best man for both into the bargain.

This festive occasion in the summer of 1772 was of course to be followed by further performances of Die Jagdlust, including one per season just in Pressburg and Salzburg, where Wahr’s company set up winter quarters in 1773/74, 1774/75 and 1775/76. Moreover, the successful play was probably given again at Eszterháza at least once a year between May and October of the years between 1773 and 1776. (In the summer of 1777 the engagement of Carl Wahr and his troupe was prematurely terminated, after they had fallen out of favour with Prince Nicolaus on account of a serious offence committed by two of the members, further details of which are unknown.)

The correspondents of the Preßburger Zeitung and the Theaterwochenblatt für Salzburg tell us nothing about the music for the performances mentioned above. And yet connections can be discerned between Collé’s comedy and the multi-movement incidental music rediscovered by the author of this article in one of Haydn’s symphonies of the 1770s – connections of various kinds which theatregoers could perceive, decipher and, by means of their individual imaginations, translate into new contents that interpret, anticipate or even retell the action on stage.

The fact that this process may have been much easier for Haydn’s contemporaries than it is for a modern audience (however well-educated) is due not least to their respective experience as listeners, which has been modified by subsequent socio-cultural and technical developments in such a way that we first have to relearn or re-impart numerous ‘markers of the past’ in order to understand or make accessible the music of another era and its ability to communicate non-musical elements.

Seen from this intellectual standpoint, the opening Presto, which has hitherto been considered ‘only’ as the first movement of the Symphony no.67 in F major, which in that form is dated around 1775/76, may now appear – thanks to its rediscovered theatrical context – as an overture that reviews the whole of the stage action to come. Take, for example, the hunting motif oddly introduced pianissimo by the first violins, which is a quite deliberately distorted variant of the bugle signal ‘Retraite de soir’ (the Retreat or Tattoo, sounded in the evening to call soldiers back to camp) and probably looks forward to a later highpoint of the plot, the moment when family of the miller Michau offer their hospitality to the King, who tries in vain to preserve his incognito; or the ephemeral cloud cast over the boisterous ‘hunt’s up’ mood by a minor-key passage imbued with tragic undertones. There is also a foretaste of the evening song of the ‘simple people’, underpinned by the drone of the unison horns, at the start of the second half of the movement.

In the Adagio – which would correspond to the music for the second act – short, rhythmically concise motifs, which taken together generate a melodic texture interspersed with quaver and semiquaver rests, play an imaginary game of hide and seek of the kind the play’s protagonists more or less voluntarily take part in when, after the royal hunting party has lost its way in the woods, its members try to find each other again in the ever denser undergrowth as night falls. How does that sound in music? It rustles and crackles, exactly as when muted gut strings are maltreated with the wood of the bow – and, naturally, staccato and pianissimo! The King who, having been run to ground not by the feared poachers, but by the decent village miller, is then regaled in his honest parlour – completely incognito, of course – by (apple) wine, women (the miller’s wife and daughter) and, it goes without saying, song – this delicious spectacle of two colliding worlds, which takes up no fewer than twelve of a total of fourteen scenes in the third and last act of Collé’s comedy, finds its compositional counterpart in the minuet. The ingredients used here are a soloist from the ranks of the second violins, who retunes his or her G string to F before the start of the movement; an eight-bar strain followed by a second of six bars plus eight-bar reprise, which could hardly sound more courtly; and a ‘trio’ of two solo violins, the first playing a folk melody on one string with a good many ‘squeaky’ notes, the other playing a two-part drone bass.

The revelation that the seemingly sudden recognition of their ‘good King’ was in fact a clever plan of the miller’s family, aimed at freeing their future daughter-in-law Agathe from the clutches of the wicked, parasitical courtier Conchiny, is saved for the very end. This (along with many other things) suggests that the music of the concluding Allegro di molto portrays the wedding celebrations announced in the last lines of the play. Because we are dealing with a double wedding, uniting Agathe (who has freed herself from her unwelcome abductor) with her miller’s son Richard, and the latter’s wily sister Catau with her poor young farmer Lucas, and since Henry IV declares himself willing to act as best man and financial benefactor, there is also an inserted Adagio e cantabile middle section with solo sections for two violins and cello, later two oboes and bassoon, and, to crown it all, three rousing ‘cheers’ from the orchestral tutti.

Haydn was to use the beginning of the oboe and bassoon trio again only a few months after what one must still call the hypothetical first performance of his Jagdlust music, in the Kyrie of the Missa Sancti Nicolai Hob. XXII:6, composed for Prince Esterházy’s name day on 6 December 1772. This might be seen as an act of special reverence: a musical comparison of Nicolaus I Esterházy de Galántha with Henry IV, King of France and Navarre, and grandfather of the Sun King Louis XIV.

_{¹See James Webster, Hob.I:67 Symphonie in F-Dur: http://www.haydn107.com/index.php?id=2&sym=67&lng=1 (consulted 10 September 2017)}

Symphony No.67

VOL. 7 _GLI IMPRESARI

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.65 IN A MAJOR HOB. I:65 (1769)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1778 [1769]

Music for Der Postzug oder die edlen Passionen, comedy by Cornelius von Ayrenhoff

Vivace con spirito / Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Presto

[Impresari: Joseph Hellmann & Friedrich Koberwein]

Times can change so fast! In October 2017 the Symphony in A major Hob. I:65 was still being performed in Haydn2032 concerts as ‘Music for an unknown play’. As one of the chief suspects among those Haydn orchestral works whose conjectural origins might lie in incidental music for spoken theatre productions, it was given pride of place in the concert programme no.9, GLI IMPRESARI. But then, only a few weeks after the final Haydn Night in Rome, the author of these lines suddenly had before his eyes the decisive clue to the origin and intention of all those compositional idiosyncrasies which seem to adhere to the work like a ‘whiff of greasepaint’:¹ an entry in the diary of Carl Johann Christian von Zinzendorf.

Count Zinzendorf, whose journal offers ‘a rich insight into the network of European elites and mentalities, into the world of books, theatres and opera houses’,² had travelled to the heart of the ‘Esterházy Fairy Kingdom’ on 28 May 1772. The programme that awaited him there consisted of a festive reception followed by a concert under the direction of Joseph Haydn, who ‘played the violin’, and a tour of the park and palace. The entertainments were to culminate in a theatrical performance in the princely ‘Salle des Spectacles’,³ at which a certain ‘Postzug’ was given. The author of this play was Cornelius Hermann von Ayrenhoff (1733-1819), an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army. Pursuing his passion for the stage, he became one of the most successful playwrights in late eighteenth-century Vienna.⁴ Following its premiere on 30 September 1769 at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, Der Postzug oder die edlen Passionen (The post horses or the noble passions) soon delighted audiences in the many theatres that took it into their repertory, including that of the Esterházy princes.

The satirical tone of Der Postzug, with its focus on the conversation of a stereotyped cast of landed noblemen and women, held such exceptional appeal that, slightly less than a decade later, no less a personage than Frederick the Great declared it was the only ‘true comedy’ in German theatre,⁵ and indeed that its author appears to us today as having blazed the trail for Nestroy’s farces.⁶ To understand why this was so, it will be useful here briefly to summarise (in the words of the Ayrenhoff specialist Matthias Mansky) the plot of the play, whose title refers to the term used at the time for a team of four coach horses.

The engagement of the young Leonore to Count Reitbahn is to be celebrated at Forstheim Castle. While Baron von Forstheim pursues his passion for hunting, his wife is busy with the preparations. Everything is topsy-turvy in the house, especially because the visit is announced of Count von Blumenkranz, a friend of the groom, who since his return from Paris has ‘set the tone everywhere that gallantry is practised’. Meanwhile, the future bride, who in fact loves not Reitbahn but Major von Rheinberg, deplores her fate. But in the end nothing turns out as expected. While the Major manages to secure Forstheim’s favour with the gift of two greyhounds, Reitbahn is much taken with his (Rheinberg’s) post horses. Since the Major does not want to sell his pintos, however, they negotiate a barter deal: in return for the horses, Reitbahn renounces his marriage with Leonore. After Forstheim gladly consents to the union between his daughter and the Major, the deeply disappointed Baroness finally has to resign herself to the match.

But why should our Symphony in A major in particular, with its unusually high Hoboken number for the date of composition, have any particularly close connection with Ayrenhoff’s comedy? A perfectly justifiable question, which can be answered in two different ways – one invoking our limited knowledge of the genesis of Hob. I:65 and the theatrical programme presented at Eszterháza Palace at the same time; the other attempting an interpretation of superordinate narrative structures. Let us start with the latter approach.

Since one can expect incidental music for the stage to serve the theatrical production with which it is associated, the question arises of whether selected passages in the text can be used to show how Haydn’s music might comment on, interpret, supplement or even continue the content of the drama. So let us try the idea out in practice . . .

At the beginning of the second act of Ayrenhoff’s Der Postzug,the following conversation takes place between the chambermaid Lisette and the Forstheim family steward:⁷

LISETTE. [...] But tell me, Mr Steward or Interim Major Domo: how are things going at table?
STEWARD. Rather at sixes and sevens, my dear Lisette. Our young lady, it seems to me, did not really behave as the Baroness would have wished.
LISETTE. What do you mean?
STEWARD. She sits between the Major and her fiancé; and the Major is more likely to hear a hundred words from her than the fiancé to hear one.
LISETTE. Oh dear! And how does he react to that?
STEWARD. Fortunately, he didn’t always have time to worry about it, since the Captain, who was sitting on the other side of him, gave him an opportunity to talk about horses from time to time; and then he forgot about his future bride. But the Baroness sometimes made sour faces.

Here, then, we are told of a comic scene that has not been shown in the stage action and that has just taken place, i.e. ‘between the acts’. And it is precisely this situation that the music of the Andante of Hob. I:65 seeks to express in almost pantomimic fashion. It opens with a cantabile opening melody in the first violins (Fräulein Leonore?), interrupted by a military fanfare. The violin melody begins with an anacrusis, on a’’ – a note that Haydn initially repeats twenty-two times, and later even thirty-two times (Leonore explains her love in ‘one hundred words’ to her Major Rheinberg, whom the preceding interjection in dotted notes on oboes and horns is probably intended to evoke). It is no wonder that a low-pitched three-bar unison phrase in the string tutti (the ‘sour faces’ of the Baroness?) objects to this, while the horse-mad Count Reitbahn is unaware of all around him because he is too busy ‘talking shop’ with Captain Edelsee (conjunct double appoggiaturas in the first violins suggesting braying donkeys).

Seen in this light, a symphonic movement that hitherto appeared to resemble an ‘incoherent stringing together of quirkily shaped motifs’⁸ suddenly turns into a genuine entr’acte. But there is better to come, because now Lisette learns the result of the performance by the jobbing musicians ‘who played in His Lordship’s tavern at the last church consecration festival’, where they offered ‘the most beautiful minuets’ and ‘Styrian dances’:⁹

LISETTE. . . . the cooking was certainly not bad today.
STEWARD. Did you know that, on account of the stinking stable boys who had to wait at table, I fumigated the room before dinner?
LISETTE. You don’t say!
STEWARD. But Count Blumenkranz can’t stand incense. With a phial of eau de lavande under his nose, he assured the company that he had never have been more convinced of the strength of his nature than he is today, because he didn’t faint at the disgusting smell.
LISETTE. Oh heavens! And did the Baroness not faint herself when he said that?
STEWARD. I don’t know if she rightly understood him. She was busy giving the order for the musicians to start playing. And – you’ll die laughing! – she had to stop the music halfway through the first minuet.
LISETTE. That’s why I didn’t hear it.
STEWARD. Count Blumenkranz begged her, for the life of him, at least to spare his ears, as his nose would be tainted for weeks to come.¹⁰

A Menuetto that mutates into a ‘Steyrischer’ (Styrian folk dance) through gradual shifts in the placing of the strong beats, which are marked by trills and forte accents, only to go astray in the ensuing Trio section in an alternation of ornamented ostinato and hemiolic rising sequences¹¹ – the tragicomedy of the situation just described could scarcely have been translated into music more vividly.

Now that we have seen how the middle movements of Symphony no.65 could ‘demonstrably’ constitute a two-part (or two-movement) suite of ‘entr’acte music’, the question remains as to how the opening Vivace con spirito and the concluding Presto could be related to Der Postzug and its not-so-noble passions. Viewed from the perspective of both form and character, they certainly fulfil their respective functions – namely those of overture and finale music – to the best of their ability. Thus the beginning of the first movement, with its tutti chords intended to kill off audience noise, its contrast between ‘delicate violin melody’ and ‘impassioned unison rhythms in the low strings’¹² – one recalls the motivic diversity of the Andante discussed above – immediately explores one of the essential conflicts of the stage action to come: a noble young lady from the country who opposes her social climbing mother’s marriage plans for her.

The last word in Der Postzug goes to Baron Forstheim, the happy recipient of a pair of Hungarian greyhounds presented by his future son-in-law:

Ah, my dear, it has all turned out well. The wedding is tomorrow. Tell little Leonore today what she has to expect from that. Invite all the neighbours to come, everyone except that stupid Lembrand! He shall never eat a bite of my venison in his life! - And you, Major, come with me to the [hunting] stand.

And what does a Haydn have to add to that on the musical level? A finale in 12/8 time which is nourished by the (mainly rhythmic) preoccupation of the horn and various other sections of the orchestra with a French hunting signal called ‘Ton pour la quête’! Why was that signal sounded at the time? To unleash the dogs that are to flush the stag from its lair!¹³

Since the comedy by our talented Vienna-born dramatist, recently promoted to major, first trod a candlelit stage in 1769 – the same year to which Haydn scholars date Hob. I:65¹⁴ – we should conclude this article by taking a look at conditions in the Eszterháza theatre at that time.

The first troupe that Prince Nicolaus engaged or intended to engage in Eszterháza was that of Simon Friedrich Koberwein, the son of a Viennese wine merchant, who had started his theatrical career in 1753 in Linz (under Anton Jakob Brenner), went into association with his brother-in-law Johann Joseph Felix von Kurz (known as Bernardon) in the early 1760s, and took over Franz Gerwald Wallerotti’s company in Munich in 1763. Around 1766 he entered a partnership with a certain Franz Joseph Hellmann, alongside whom he had already acted in Brno, Pressburg and for some months at the ‘hochfürstlich esterházyches Theater’ by the time the two men signed a three-year contract with the last-named on 31 July 1769, due to come into effect on 1 May 1770. The agreement stipulated, among other things, that the ensemble was to ‘perform a play every day . . . with at least fourteen appropriate and experienced persons, and to acquire the necessary costumes and the plays themselves’; but it was dissolved after only a few months, in October 1769, when the two managers received a request to return the contract and the performing licence to the princely chancellery. This is probably explained by an intrigue on the part of Catharina Rößl. Shortly before this time, ‘die Rößlin’ had left the Hellmann-Koberwein company to join her husband in Franz Passer’s troupe – a rather piquant business, considering that she was rumoured to have had an affair with Kleinrath, the head of the Esterházy Chancellery. Be that as it may, the success of Hellmann and Koberwein’s earlier performances, and their letters of protest, were all in vain: in the spring of 1770 Passer took over the theatre business at Eszterháza Palace.

While there has recently been growing evidence that a hitherto unknown court festival was celebrated at Eszterháza around mid-October 1769, which, in addition to a performance of Giacomo Rust’s opera La contadina in corte, might have featured Der Postzug along with masked balls and fireworks, the search for corresponding musical sources has unfortunately yielded no results so far.

A monogram artfully intertwining the letters ‘FD’, which adorns the title page of a copy of Hob I:65 by an anonymous Austrian scribe that was once purchased by the celebrated Polish princess, patron of the arts and active theatre-goer Elżbieta Izabela Lubomirska for her music library at Łańcut Castle¹⁵ might indicate that the score in question was once in the possession of the actor Franz Diwald(t). He was a member of the Passer company and was later to work as an impresario with his own troupe of actors at Eszterháza between 1778 and 1785.

_{¹H. C. Robbins Landon, ‘Haydn: Symphonies nos. 50, 64 & 65’, booklet note to recording by Tafelmusik conducted by Bruno Weil, Vivarte / Sony Classical 1994, p.8.
²‘Die Tagebücher des Karl Grafen Zinzendorf (1764–1790)’, Umgang mit Quellen heute: Zur Problematik neuzeitlicher Quelleneditionen vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Grete Klingenstein, Fritz Fellner and Hans Peter Hye (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2003. Teil II Editionsprojekte), pp.263-266, here p.264.
³Zinzendorf wrote his diary in (slightly approximate) French. (Translator’s note)
⁴His career is extensively covered in Matthias Mansky, Cornelius von Ayrenhoff. Ein Wiener Theaterdichter (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2013).
⁵‘I will not speak to you of German theatre. Melpomene has been courted only by surly lovers, some walking stiffly on stilts, others wallowing in the mud, and all of whom, refusing her laws, knowing neither how to interest nor how to move her, have been expelled from her altars. Thalia’s lovers have been more fortunate; they have at least furnished one true comedy; I speak of the Postzug. It is our morals, our absurdities that the poet depicts on stage; the play is well done. Had Molière worked on the same subject, he would not have done better’: Frederick II of Prussia, De la littérature allemande, des défauts qu'on peut lui reprocher, quelles en sont les causes, et par quels moyens on peut les corriger (1780) [here newly translated from Frederick’s original French text, available at http://friedrich.uni-trier.de/fr/oeuvres/7/id/004000000/text/ - Translator’s note].
⁶See Matthias Mansky, ‘“Hätte Molière den gleichen Stoff behandelt, es wäre ihm nicht besser gelungen” (Friedrich II.) – Cornelius von Ayrenhoffs Komödien zwischen Lustspiel- und Possendramaturgie’, Nestroyana, 27 (2007), Heft 1–2, pp.8–19, especially 14-16 and 19.
⁷[Cornelius von Ayrenhoff,] Der Postzug oder die noblen Passionen. Ein Lustspiel in zween Aufzügen. Aufgeführt auf dem k. k. privilegirten Theater. Zu finden beym Logenmeister (Vienna: Joseph Kurtzböcken. N. Oe. Landschafts und Universitätsbuchdruckern, 1769), Act Two, Scene 1, pp.50-51.
⁸Christian Moritz-Bauer, ‘Gli Impresari’, programme note for the Haydn Night of the Basel Chamber Orchestra in the Haydn2032 series, Sunday 1 October 2017, 7 p.m., Martinskirche Basel, p.13.
⁹Der Postzug oder die noblen Passionen, 1769, p.12.
¹⁰Ibid., pp.51-52
¹¹See James Webster, ‘Entertainment Symphonies, c.1765-1768’, booklet note to the three-CD set ‘Haydn Symphonies, volume 5’ (London: Decca-L’Oiseau-Lyre, 433 012-2, 1992), pp.25-26.
¹²Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, dazu: sämtliche Messen, vol. II (Baden-Baden: Südwestfunk, 1988), p.77.
¹³Jean de Serre de Rieux, Les Dons des enfans de Latone: La musique et la chasse du Cerf. Poëmes dédiés au Roy (Paris: 1734), p.333 (and 289).
¹⁴Joseph Haydn: Sinfonien um 1766-1769 [Hob. I:26 (Lamentazione), 38, 41, 48 (Maria Theresia), 58, 59, 65], ed. Andreas Friesenhagen and Christin Heitmann (Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 2008 (= Joseph Haydn Werke, Joseph Haydn-Institut, Köln, Reihe I, Bd. 5a), pp.XI-XII.
¹⁵Ibid., p.195.}

Symphony No.65

VOL. 7 _GLI IMPRESARI

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

2018

2017

2018

2019

NO.7

No.8

NO.9

NO.8 __LA ROXOLANA

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.28 A-MAJOR HOB. I:28 (Eisenstadt, 1765)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [end?] 1765

Allegro di molto / Poco adagio / Menuet. Allegro molto – Trio / Presto assai

Christian Moritz-Bauer

One means of tracing certain external influences on the musical art of the Esterházy court Kapellmeister is a comparatively new method called ‘topic theory’. This aims to make narrative elements of a ‘musical language’, as found in the works of Haydn and many of his more gifted contemporaries, decipherable or interpretable against the background of their extra- or inter-musical sources. By bringing various biographical, literary and journalistic documents into the equation, we may gain (sometimes unexpected) insights that can help us to resolve many questions concerning the genesis, the stimulus for composition or the musical content of one of those groups of Haydn symphonies whose outer and inner form have always been a source of puzzlement in both theory and practice.

Our musical journey, which will go on to follow a ‘Balkan route in reverse’, thus begins with a work whose origin – like that of Symphonies nos. 65 and 67 from GLI IMPRESARI – is to be found in the incidental music for a spoken play, Die Insul der gesunden Vernunft (The isle of common sense). The author of this comedy, in which the characters of Hanswurst and Bernardon get up to mischief together in a spirit influenced by Enlightenment ideas, was Joseph Felix von Kurz¹ an influential comic writer and theatre manager for whom Haydn had earlier composed the (unfortunately lost) music for his singspiel Der (neue) krumme Teufel (The (new) crooked Devil), premiered around 1751/52. Although Die Insul received its first performance in October 1764, during the Landtag (Diet) of the Hungarian states of the Empire in Pressburg (now Bratislava), it was most likely for an Eisenstadt revival that Haydn wrote several movements which have come down to us as the Symphony in A major Hob. I:28. The play was probably performed on 9 May 1765, the night before the twenty-fourth birthday of Nicolaus I Esterházy’s younger son Count Nicolaus, by the (so-called ‘Badnerʻ) troupe of Josepha Schulz, who had previously worked with Kurz-Bernardon in Pressburg^. The plot deals with a couple called Fiametta and Bernardon, who come from a desert island and have been sheltered from civilisation of any kind. They are transported to the court of the Counts of Gerstenschleim and, beguiled by the supposed accomplishments of a feudal society, are separated from one other and ushered into the respective arms of the young Count Heinrich and the court lady-in-waiting Lavinia.³

BERNARDON. I’m freezing . . .
FIAMETTA. . . . I’m sweating.
BERNARDON. Now I’m hot.
FIAMETTA. Now I’m freezing too – what torment!
BERNARDON. I can’t get away from this spot.
FIAMETTA. I can’t get out of this place.
BOTH. What the deuce can this be?
Oh, my darling, it is the joy
Of at last finding ourselves
Together again!

The apparent ‘primitiveness’ of the islanders is deliciously depicted in the pieces of incidental music that parallel the stage action. Take the Andante, for example, where muted violins, legato and pianissimo, convey the image of a pair of natives reduced to sweating and freezing by the expression of their mutual love, through a theme characterised by a falling and then rising interval of a fourth and a two-bar staccato interpolation, repeated several times in threefold upward motion. Or the Menuet, where the grotesque bariolage effects in the Allegro molto section and the minimalistic motifs in the Trio underline the savagery and at the same time the noble simplicity of Fiametta and Bernardon in such a way as to prolong the dance interludes from the end of the second act. Similarly, the meandering quaver runs of the Presto assai, whether without printed markings or with the addition of a mixture of legato slurs and staccato wedges, are likely to correspond to the final separation scene, where the situation of mutual infidelity in which the two protagonists have entangled themselves (more or less voluntarily) threatens to be swamped in a general roar of laughter.

_{¹Johann Joseph Felix von Kurz, known as Bernardon (Vienna, 1717- Vienna, 1784), achieved fame for his regular role of Bernardon and for the ‘Bernardoniade’, a form of impromptu comedy that was named after him. Along with Josef Anton Stranitzky and Gottfried Prehauser, he was one of the most important and popular Viennese actors of the eighteenth century. His comedies are regarded as the high point of Viennese improvisatory drama.}

_{²Cf. Otto G. Schindler, ‘Hanswurst in Preßburg/Bratislava. Deutsche Lustigmacher auf den ältesten Theaterzetteln Ungarns und der Slowakei’, in Horst Fassl (ed.), Deutsches Theater im Ausland vom 17. zum 20. Jahrhundert. Interkulturelle Beziehungen in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Berlin: 2007), pp.95-122. Id., ‘Vom Passionsspiel in Perchtoldsdorf zur Goldoni-Komödie am Todestag. Unbekannte Theaterbesuche Franz Stephans von Lothringen’, in Renate Zedinger and Wolfgang Schmale (eds.), Franz Stephan von Lothringen und sein Kreis (Bochum: 2009 = Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, vol.23), pp. 343-369, here pp.361f. H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn: the Early Years 1732-1765 (London: 1980), pp.404f. and 572f.
Evidence for the theatrical performance mounted to celebrate the majority of Prince Nicolaus’s second son, Nicolaus Laurentius (1741-1809) – the Empress Maria Theresia issued the relevant Verordnung wegen der Großjährigkeit (Decree on account of majority) on 12 April 1753 – was found by the present author in the archives of the Esterházy Privatstiftung at Forchtenstein Castle in Burgenland. The document in question is a payment order issued by the Esterházy estates manager Peter Ludwig Rahier and confirmed by the Eisenstadt Castle guardian Franciscus (François) Le Gout(h):
‘Commission
‘By virtue of which the Eisenstadt treasurer is to give the actors four Chremnitz ducats for the comedy they performed on the eve of the birthday of Count Nicolaus Esterházy, and to enter this in his accounts as a monetary payment. Eisenstadt, 10 August 1765, P. L. Rahier mpr [manu propria, in his own hand].}

_{‘I certify that the 16 florins 48 kroner have been paid to the actors by the treasury. Eisenstadt, 11 August 1765. Le[?] Gouth mpr.’}

_{(EPA RA 1765 N 131 Y)}

_{³On the content of Die Insul der gesunden Vernunft and its interpretation in terms of cultural and character history, see Matthias Mansky, ‘Der “edle Wilde” als lustige Figur? Funktionalisierung und Transformation bei Franz von Heufeld und Joseph Felix von Kurz-Bernardon’, in Franz M. Eybl (ed.), Nebenschauplätze. Ränder und Übergänge in Geschichte und Kultur des Aufklärungsjahrhunderts(Bochum: 2014 = Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts, vol. 28), pp.193-207. A freely accessible digitisation of the play text can be found at: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ25997560X(accessed 28 November 2020).}

Symphony No.28

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.43 in E FLAT MAJOR «MERKUR» HOB. I:43 (1770/1771?)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1772 [1770/1771]

Allegro / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro

Christian Moritz-Bauer

Haydn’s experience with folk music stemmed not only from his family past, but also and above all from encounters in and around the residences of his princely masters. The fact that these played a natural part in the courtly life of the Esterházy princes is shown, for example, by the following excerpt from a report on the wedding festivities of Maria Theresia Johanna Countess of Lamberg-Sprinzenstein, a niece of Nicolaus I, held at Eszterháza Palace in September 1770:

. . . soon, however, another spectacle attracted the attention of the onlookers, for a large crowd of local peasants, men and women, came quite unexpectedly into sight and contributed not a little to the amusement of the high society guests with their country dances, their rustic songs, and the great joy that showed on their animated faces; this peasant festival lasted into the greater part of the night, during which care was taken to enliven it still further with abundant servings of wine and many dishes.¹

As befitted the (late) summer court festivals held between 1768 and 1775, the Prince’s ‘Hungarian Versailles’ with its palace and theatre buildings, its park with a coffee house and Chinese pavilion, a hermitage, several temples and an adjacent animal enclosure, was the scene of every imaginable type of amusement: from opera performances and masked balls, by way of concerts by the court orchestra and all sorts of performances by the theatrical troupes currently in residence, to hunting and fireworks.

It can therefore be assumed that in the course of these celebrations in September 1770, the musical element was not limited to the princely Kapellmeister’s new ‘comedy sung in Italian, Le pescatrici or The Fisherwomen, ² but also included one of his most recent symphonies. On both stylistic and chronological grounds, this could easily have been the Symphony in E flat major Hob. I:43. The work, which was awarded the Order of the ‘Austrian chamber symphony par excellence’ by H. C. Robbins Landon and became a repertory piece with the Musique du Roy at the court of Louis XVI, ³ at some point acquired the nickname ‘Merkur’ (Mercury). Whether this could have been a confusion with Symphony no.50, whose opening movements at one stage served as an overture to the puppet opera Philemon und Baucis, ⁴remains questionable. It is more likely that the naming of the symphony corresponds to a certain fashion of the time for giving chamber symphonies the names of classical gods without any concrete programmatic content being discernible behind their use. One example of this would be the symphonies of the violinist and composer Wenzel Pichl, a friend of Haydn’s, who held the position of Konzertmeister at the Kärtnertortheater in Vienna in the early 1770s and later worked from Milan as a musical agent for the Esterházy princes.

From a surprise effect (appropriate to the occasion?), with three forte chords separated by cantabile string interludes, develops one of the longest themes Haydn ever placed at the beginning of a symphony. One might almost think that the composer had fallen too much in love with the ‘relaxed beauty'⁵ of his initial idea, which ‘appears to circle somewhat aimlessly around the first inversion of the tonic triad’.⁶ But this – according to James Webster – was precisely Haydn’s intention. He almost ‘demonstratively refuses to do anything, so that we become increasingly uneasy, more and more needful of hearing something different’.⁷ Like a belated gift, descending semiquaver tremolos marked forte finally announce the end of the theme and, with an energetic passage, lead into the lyrical second group. From here, the path leads us through a region of ferocious scales. Accompanied by the brisk gait of the string basses, we pass under the jagged silhouette of a chain of violin quavers to the first double bar. After this tour de force, which is several times on the verge of breaking off prematurely, the Adagio, with its ‘almost rhapsodically effusive expression of sensibility [Empfindsamkeit]’,⁸ must have resembled a fountain of refreshingly cool water for the audience. The work picks up speed again with a lively Menuet. Once again, the Trio holds a surprise in store, for its motivic outline is at once dance-like and rhythmically unstable. The finale, a singing Allegro with a forty-one-bar coda following the repeat of the second section, is decidedly popular in tone: ‘Time seems to stop, the note values get slower and slower, and finally everything dies away except for the first violin, which goes up to an enigmatic g flat. There follows one of Haydn’s magnificent silences, and then the music plunges into a last tutti and this elegant chamber symphony is at an end.’⁹

_{¹Wienerisches Diarium oder Nachrichten von Staats, vermischten und gelehrten Nachrichten. Verlegt bey den von Ghelischen Erben, no.77, Wednesday 26 September 1770, p.5.
²Ibid.
³H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, vol. 2, Haydn at Eszterháza: 1766-1790 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), p.300.
⁴See A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire. Vol. II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), p.128. [Mercury is one of the spoken roles in the opera – Translator’s note.]
⁵Charles Rosen, The Classical Style (New York: Viking; London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p.150.
⁶James Webster, ‘The early “Sturm und Drang” (1765-1771)’, booklet note to the three-CD set ‘Haydn Symphonies, volume 6’ (London: Decca-L’Oiseau-Lyre, 440 222-2, 1994), p.18.
⁷Ibid.
⁸Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, dazu: sämtliche Messen, vol. II (Baden-Baden: Südwestfunk, 1989), p.39.
⁹Landon, op. cit., p.300.}

Sinfonie Nr. 43 "Mercury"

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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.

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

Anonymus (attributed to H. I. F. Biber): Sonata Jucunda

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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.

_{¹See 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.}

Anonymus (attributed to H. I. F. Biber): Sonata Jucunda

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO. 63 IN C MAJOR ‘LA ROXOLANA’ HOB. I:63 (Eszterháza, 1779)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1781 [end 1779]

Allegro / Die Roxolana. Allegretto / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Presto

von Christian Moritz-Bauer

The Symphony in C major Hob. I:63 has long been counted among those works that testify to Joseph Haydn’s involvement with various forms of contemporary theatre over a period of years. In the version we hear today, this composition was copied out by Leopold Dichtler (a tenor who had been in the service of the Esterházy princes since 1763), Joseph Elßler senior, and a third scribe whose name is unknown to us. As the basis for their work, these gentlemen must have had a number of scores at their disposal, first and foremost the Overture to Il mondo della luna, a dramma giocoso of 1777, which was placed at the beginning of the work after some modifications to the wind scoring.

The second movement seems to represent another case of ‘compositional recycling’. According to reports in the Pressburger Zeitung,¹ it may be connected with Carl Wahr’s theatre company, which had given guest performances of a large number of comedies and tragedies at Eszterháza Palace every year from 1772 onwards. One of their successes was Solimann der Zweyte, oder die drey Sultanninen (Süleyman II, or the three sultanas), a translation of a French play by Charles Simon Favart which had been performed in numerous translations and in many European countries since its Paris premiere in 1761. The leading roles are Elmire, a Spaniard with a penchant for tender flattery as well as courtly intrigue; Delia, a Circassian, wondrously beautiful in appearance and song; and finally Roxelane, a Frenchwoman, combative, emancipated and freedom-loving. They vie with each other for the favour of the ‘Turkish Emperor’ Soliman II. Of course, it is Roxelane who ultimately emerges as the victor, since her character alludes to the historical figure of Hürrem Sultan, favourite and later chief wife of Sultan Süleyman I (1494-1566). She was born in the territory of Polish Ruthenia (also known as Red Ruthenia or Red Russia), the daughter of an Orthodox priest, and is said to have been kidnapped during a raid by Crimean Tatars and sold as a slave to Istanbul, where she ended up in the harem of the Old Seraglio. Hürrem’s action there was marked by unprecedented breaches of tradition. Also known in the West as La Sultana Rossa (the red-haired sultana) or Roxelana (Roxolana, Roxelane = the Ruthenian) because of her origins and appearance, she not only worked her way up to become the Sultan’s adviser, but also actively interfered in political affairs. In Favart’s play, the plot even ends with Roxelane disbanding the harem, thus establishing an order in conformity with the European model.

The ensuing ‘coronation ceremony’ was to end – according to the stage directions in the printed text sold to accompany the production – with a ‘ballet of male and female Turkish dancers’ who ‘present a pantomime according to the custom of their country’.² At the performance by Wahr’s company at its winter quarters in Pressburg on 13 January 1774, this ballet was probably replaced by a dance interlude, which was accompanied by what would later become the Allegretto of Symphony no.63. In the case of this movement, which is entitled ‘Die Roxolana’ or ‘La Roxolana’ in the Esterházy performing parts, it is possible to discern a number of different characters, possibly even an extra-musical stage action.

The following attempt at a so-called topic analysis will show how that might be the case in this variation movement, based on a theme alternating between C minor and C major sections. The conception of the dance-like theme in the minor, featuring both small steps and wide leaps, which proceeds on its way with muted violins and small internal caesuras but (for the moment) without inner conflicts or increase in dynamics, might be identified as a depiction of the character of Elmire, who is extolled for her tenderness. In contrast with this, we then have the proud major-key variant of the theme, with soloistic wind voices reminiscent of the sound of a French ‘band of hautboys’: Roxelane, the combative protagonist. Finally Delia appears, with a section that can be formally described as a variation of the initial minor-key variant. The flute, which now enters for the first time in the movement and plays colla parte an octave above the chromatically enriched violin melody, colourfully portrays the Circassian’s exotic beauty. Towards the end of the section, however, the melody instruments go their separate ways, causing a build-up of tension of which the subsequent second appearance of the thematic variant previously assigned to the character of Roxelane makes good use. With forte jabs from the high wind and strings at the end of the first strain and an ‘introverted’ piano phrase at the beginning of the second, Roxelane shows her pugnacious and emotional sides in equal measure. No wonder that such a demonstration of outer and inner strength makes the female competition increasingly uneasy. Such, at any rate, could be one interpretation of the subsequent second variation on the C minor variant assigned to Elmire and Delia, which is dramatised to the utmost by means of semiquaver figuration and pizzicato accompanying chords, a downward quaver scale with staccato wedges, and a final unison passage (including a forzato accent and a downward leap of a diminished seventh). A trio of oboes and bassoon announces the victory of the Frenchwoman, who is then celebrated by tutti wind and strings – the former in an expressive gesture, the latter now entirely without mutes – in a thirty-two-bar coda: ‘Long live the worthy sultana! Long live Roxelane!’

There remains the question of what could have motivated Haydn, at the turn of the year 1779/80 (the date of the performance material preserved in the Esterházy collection in Budapest), summarily to combine an operatic overture, a ballet pantomime for a Turkish play, a newly composed minuet and a new buffo-stylePresto finale into a new, fully valid concert symphony. One possibility is to read it as a work composed to commemorate the glorious past of the Eszterháza theatre – a tribute to Prince Nicolaus and his immediate decision to have the great opera house, which had fallen victim to the flames on 18 November 1779, rebuilt even more beautifully and magnificently.

_{¹See Pressburger Zeitung, Das 12. Stück, Wednesday 9 February 1774, p.4, and cf. Pressburger Zeitung, Das 5. Stück, Wednesday 18 January 1775, p.7.
²Solimann der Zweyte, oder die Drey Sultaninnen. Ein Lustspiel in drey Handlungen. Aus dem Französischen des Herrn Favart. Uebersetzt von St. Wien, gedruckt bey Johann Thomas Edlen v. Trattnern, k. k. Hofbuchdruckern und Buchhändlern (Suleiman the Second, or The Three Sultanas. A comedy in three acts, translated by St. from the French of Herr Favart. Vienna, Johann Thomas Edel von Trattner, court printer and bookseller, 1770), pp.94-97 [= 84-87]. Universität Wien, Theater-Bibliothek Pálffy (BP 003/02).}

Symphony No.63 "La Roxolana"

VOL. 8 _LA ROXOLANA

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

2017

2018

2019

NO.8

No.9

NO.10

NO.9 __L'ADDIO

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.35 B FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:35

Orchestration: 2 Ob, 2 Hr, Str
Time of creation: 1.12.1767

Allegro di molto / Andante / Menuet. Un poco allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The autograph of the sinfonia which opens the ninth stage on our itinerary to the jubilee year of 2032 is dated to a precise day: ‘den 1^ten 10^bris 767’ (i.e. 1 December 1767 according to modern writing conventions). What is the special significance of this date? Did Haydn, who usually dated the manuscripts of his scores only by year, intend to refer to the beginning or more likely the end of his work of composition? As the famous Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon already suspected, this particular First of December was probably the day on which Nicolaus I Esterházy ought to have returned home from a journey to Paris and Versailles – halfway between a pleasure trip and an educational one – on which he had taken with him, among others, Nicolaus Jacoby, the draughtsman of his palace complex near Süttör, known as ‘Eszterháza’, and his Konzertmeister Luigi Tomasini.¹ (The fact that he ultimately returned more than two months late is explained by an extended visit to Strasbourg, probably to see the illustrious family of the city’s Prince-Bishop Louis César Constantin de Rohan-Guéméné, and a sojourn of several weeks in the Hessian spa town of Bad Schlangenbad, highly fashionable at the time.) But the party did not include Haydn. He was merely assigned the honour of welcoming his Prince home with a musical performance. In view of this external circumstance, and because the B flat major key of the Symphony Hob. I:35 was generally described in those days as ‘splendid and majestic’ and its music seems to be filled with an eloquent, almost theatrical character, we have made an attempt here at a ‘narrative interpretation’:

The days have grown calm since His Serene Highness left for Paris, seeking final inspiration for the design of his ‘Hungarian Versailles’. But is the day of his homecoming not to dawn very soon? [Over the soft drumming of the string basses, joyful excitement begins to take hold of the music (Allegro di molto).]

The call of a horn resounds from afar, and a retinue of carriages and riders races along the dusty country roads with their deep potholes. The four-in-hand teams are going flat out. A group of children set off in barefoot pursuit of the travelling party (leaping semiquaver figuration), while in the fields and meadows the common people amuse themselves with song and dance. But Eisenstadt is still a long way off, and voices are raised in the halls of the princely palace, expressing their concern in sometimes vehement fashion: will the master return home safe and sound? The entrance of the recapitulation brings new confidence and at the same time delivers the hoped-for signal that commands the opening of the gates. The news spreads like wildfire: the theme of the movement is playfully continued in the dialogue between the violins, and brought to a joyful conclusion with the galloping motif heard at the beginning.

Nicolaus, known as ‘the Magnificent’,² is back home and – striding through his chambers – is entertained (Andante) by the sounds of a string divertimento. The mood is good, almost too good. He is within a hair’s breadth of daring to take a few small dance steps . . . In the middle of the second of the two formal sections, the music, which at first seemed so quietly cheerful, suddenly takes on melancholy features, but after a few bars that foreshadow the Symphony no.45, it manages to avert these by means of a unison forte passage.

The celebration of the Prince’s return is of course marked by a masked ball, which opens with a minuet (Un poco allegretto) giving prominence to the horns, the avowed favourite instrument of Nicolaus, an enthusiastic huntsman. The company celebrate, dance and make merry until the early hours of the morning. With its fanfare of three successive ascending chords and the intervening sections, now a soft violin duet, now a powerful orchestral tutti (but invariably maintaining the energetic, bouncy character), the Finale (Presto) long continues to resound in everyone’s ears.

_{¹See H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, vol.2: Haydn at Eszterháza, 1766-1790 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), p.141.
²The traditional English translation of ‘der Prachtliebende’, literally ‘the lover of splendour’. (Translator’s note.)}

Symphony No.35

VOL. 9 _L'ADDIO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.15 IN D MAJOR (1761)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str (with solo-vc)
Time of creation: till 1764 [1761]

Adagio – Presto – Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Andante / Finale. Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

Less than half a year after Prince Nicolaus I Esterhazy began his journey to Paris and Versailles in the autumn of 1767 and granted the leader of his orchestra, Luigi Tomasini, an extension of his stay there,¹ Louis-Balthazard de La Chevardière published in the same city a collection of Haydn’s compositions entitled Six Symphonies ou Quatuor[s] Dialogués. Among them was one of the first works that Haydn had written for the Esterházy court orchestra: the Symphony in D major Hob. I:15. But what links this symphony with the theme of ‘L'ADDIO’? Given its outward appearance and the inherent atmosphere of its movements, it may appear to be the ‘cheerful older sister’ of the ‘Farewell’ Symphony, composed some eleven years later, since it too presents a rousing Presto that segues surprisingly into a melodious Adagio striking a more tender note. A further point of contact, if not indeed a kind of ‘prequel to the official reading’ of Symphony no.45, is provided by the Menuet, unusually placed second. Its initially strict rhythmic bearing gradually grows more relaxed and expands into a ‘love duet’ in five-part string texture: a solo viola and a solo cello enter into an intimate ‘tryst’ with the paired violin parts. Together they create a mood that will subsequently dominate the ‘lovely Andante’, of which C. F. Pohl once wrote that its theme ‘dissolves into its individual motifs like a string of pearls in the most nonchalant manner and repeatedly rises . . . to an effective climax’.2 In addition to these delights, the 3/8 Finale also affords special listening pleasure with its remarkable middle section in the minor.

_{¹See the introduction to Symphony no.35 in B flat major.
²Carl Ferdinand Pohl, Joseph Haydn. Erster Band. Erste Abtheilung (Berlin: 1875), p.303.}

Symphony No.15

VOL. 9 _L'ADDIO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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.

Joseph Haydn: Scena «Berenice, che fai?»

VOL. 9 _L'ADDIO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.45 F SHARP MINOR «FAREWELL» HOB. I:45

Orchestration: 2 b, bn, 2 hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: [2nd half?] 1772

Allegro assai / Adagio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto – Adagio

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

If Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in F sharp minor Hob. I:45, the so-called ‘Farewell Symphony’, has been accorded a prominent position in the history of music, this is due above all (though not exclusively) to the variety and vividness of the anecdotes of its genesis that began to be spun from the early 1780s. Let us jog the reader’s memory by reproducing in extenso one of these, which Haydn later volunteered to his biographer Georg August Griesinger:

Among the members of Prince Esterházy’s orchestra were several lusty young husbands who had to leave their wives behind in Eisenstadt for the summer when the prince was staying at his palace of Eszterháza. On one occasion, contrary to his custom, the Prince wished to extend his stay in Eszterháza by several weeks. The fond husbands, extremely dismayed at this news, turned to Haydn and asked him for advice.

Haydn came up with the idea of writing a symphony . . . in which one instrument after another falls silent. This symphony was performed in the Prince’s presence at the earliest opportunity, and each of the musicians was instructed, as soon as his part was finished, to extinguish his candle, pack up his music, and leave with his instrument under his arm. The Prince and the audience immediately understood the meaning of this pantomime, and the next day the order to leave Eszterháza was given.¹

The reason why the musicians of Prince Esterházy’s Kapelle at one time had to leave their wives and children in Eisenstadt and live a lonely existence for months in the middle of the swampy lowlands that surrounded their master’s summer residence, situated to the south-east of Lake Neusiedl, may be found in another contemporary source: ‘Summon all the musicians and tell them in my name that I do not want to see their wives and children in Eszterháza even for twenty-four hours, except for Mmes Haydn, Friberth, Dichtler, Cellini and Tomasini’,² reads a written instruction sent by Nicolaus I from Vienna to his estates director in Eisenstadt, Peter Ludwig Rahier, on 8 January 1772. Yet this authoritarian, indeed apparently cruel order must have been motivated by entirely practical considerations. There was an acute shortage of living space in the ‘Musikerhaus’ (Musicians’ house), which had been built to accommodate all the personnel employed in the princely musical and theatrical establishments and was still being extended at the time. The situation was further exacerbated by the fact that the company of the actor Carl Wahr, which was expected on 1 May of the same year, had arrived with a roster of seventeen instead of the ‘at least twelve appropriate persons who are skilled actors’³ specified in the contract.

It nevertheless remains questionable whether Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony was actually intended to persuade Prince Nicolaus to adopt a more considerate attitude towards his orchestral musicians who were suffering from conjugal yearning and homesickness – all the more so in view of the many other versions of the tale that once circulated. Whatever the truth of the matter, we are dealing here with a work of art, in which the musical events as a whole lead up to the famous final tableau of a dissolving orchestra, while following a dramatic structure that has been thought out down to the last detail: a monothematic Allegro brimming with unbridled passion is followed by an Adagio ‘filled with tender, sweet melancholy’⁴ and a minuet in a ‘remote’ key. The Trio section of that Menuet (Allegretto) quotes a Gregorian Lamentation tone, which the art and cultural historian Thomas Tolley has linked with the Catholic rite of Tenebrae, at which the lights are gradually extinguished in the course of the evening Offices celebrated from Maundy Thursday to Holy Saturday.⁵

But what was in Haydn’s mind when he set his work down on paper on that cool, windy evening in late October/early November? Was he worried about the reaction of his Prince when he silenced one instrument after another in the Adagio section of the last movement? Did he even feel a touch of moral courage when he thought of the situation of his musicians? ‘Actually,’ says Gerhard J. Winkler, there is ‘no cause to doubt Haydn’s statement’ that ‘the so-called “Farewell Symphony” . . . really was performed in Eszterháza as a pantomime, that is, with the orchestra members making their exit. The somewhat curious anecdote can even serve as an illustration of what was possible in the triangular relationship between Prince, Kapellmeister and orchestra. For, in whichever fashion the Symphony no.45 was really performed in Eszterháza, Prince Nicolaus must have acknowledged and appreciated the demonstration – whether literally pantomimic or merely imaginary – of his orchestra disintegrating before his eyes. Otherwise, he would have had to dismiss Haydn.’⁶

_{¹Georg August Griesinger, Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1810), p.28f.
²Quoted from ‘Dokumente aus dem Esterházy-Archiven in Eisenstadt und Forchtenstein, herausgegeben aus dem Nachlass von Janós Hárich II. Kommentar: Else Radant und H. C. Robbins Landon’, in H. C. Robbins Landon, Otto Biba and David Wyn Jones (eds.), Das Haydn Jahrbuch/The Haydn Yearbook, Vol. XIX, 1994, p.43.
³Ibid., p.44.
⁴Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, vol. II (Baden-Baden: Südwestfunk, 1988), p.65.
⁵Thomas Tolley, Painting the Cannon's Roar. Music, the Visual Arts and the Rise of an Attentive Public in the Age of Haydn, c. 1750 to c. 1810 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), p.86f.
⁶Gerhard J. Winkler: ‘“Orchesterpantomime” in den Esterházy-Sinfonien Joseph Haydns’, in Winkler (ed.), Das symphonische Werk Joseph Haydns. Referate des internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Symposions Eisenstadt, 13.-15. September 1995 (= Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten aus dem Burgenland 103; Eisenstadt: Burgenländisches Landesmuseum, 2000), pp.103-116; quotation from p.113.}

Symphony No.45 "Farewell"

VOL. 9 _L'ADDIO

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

2019

2018

2019

2020

NO.9

No.10

NO.11

NO.10 __LES HEURES DU JOUR

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.6 D MAJOR «LE MATIN» HOB. I:6 (Eisenstadt / Vienna 1761)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, bn, hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: till 1733 [1761]

Adagio – Allegro / Adagio – Andante – Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

The contract of employment ‘concluded for at least three years’, which the newly appointed ‘Vice – Capel – Meister’ Joseph Haydn signed on 1 May 1761 in the apartments of the Palais Esterházy on the Wallnerstraßein Vienna, bound him to a total of fourteen more or less strictly formulated clauses. For a salary of 400 Rhenish florins, he committed himself to take responsibility for the full range of activities of the Esterházy musical establishment in Vienna and the various princely dominions (with the exception of the ‘Chor – Musique’, i.e. the sacred choral music, in Eisenstadt) and to furnish new compositions as required by ‘His Serene Highness’. Furthermore, he should ‘appear daily . . . in the antechamber before and after midday, and inquire whether a high princely order for a musical performance has been given’.

A situation such as this seems to be recalled in the ‘Fifth Visit’ (interview), dated 11 May 1805, of Albert Christoph Dies’s Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph Haydn, which reports how his Prince once gave Haydn ‘the four times of day [Tageszeiten] as the subject of a composition’. Even if the resulting pieces were not four in number and were certainly not ‘in the form of quartets’ (as Dies states), they are without doubt among Haydn’s most frequently performed early works: the symphonies Le Matin, Le Midi and Le Soir.

While Le Midi has survived in an autograph dated 1761 that was preserved like a treasure in the composer’s personal collection throughout his life, only copies of its two sister works have come down to us, although their pertinent titles, mostly indicated in French, and their compositional characteristics leave no doubt that they belong to the same cycle.

Over the years, commentators have attempted to attach many a compositional template to Haydn’s Tageszeiten Symphonies. From the point of view of subject matter, there is, for example, theNeuer und sehr curios-Musicalischer Calender, Parthien-weiß mit 2 Violinen und Basso ò Cembalo in die zwölf Jahrs-Monat eingetheilet (New and very curious musical calendar in the style of suites, with two violins and basso or harpsichord, and divided into the twelve months of the year) written by Gregor Joseph Werner, Haydn’s superior at the time of the trilogy’s composition. Or a series of four ballets – entitled Le Matin, Le Midi, Le Soirand La Nuit – which sought to depict ‘rustic occupations and amusements over the four times of day’. These have been attributed to the composer Joseph Starzer and were performed in Laxenburg in 1755, with choreography by Franz Anton Hilverding. However, the corporation of music writers has declared the absolute favourite among possible models for Haydn’s triptych to be Antonio Vivaldi’s set of four violin concertos Le quattro stagioni, part of his op.8 collection Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (The contest between harmony and invention), which he dedicated to Count Wenzel von Morzin. (The latter, incidentally, was an uncle twice removed of Haydn’s first employer, Carl Joseph Franz von Morzin, and Vivaldi’s set of concertos also figures in the thematic catalogue of the Esterházy musical collections compiled under Prince Paul Anton around 1740.)

An additional area of discussion concerns the possible direct or indirect reasons why the works were composed, the commission that produced them, and precisely when and where they were given their first performance. Here are a few relatively reliable answers to these questions, which earlier Haydn scholars have been able to unearth from the obscurity of the past.

The Tageszeiten Symphonies may indeed have been written close to the time when the contract with Haydn was concluded and other musicians were engaged for the Esterházy court orchestra, among them the flautist and oboist Franz Sigl (contract of 7 May 1761) – according to Sonja Gerlach’s research, however, they came only after Symphonies nos.15 and 3,¹ both of which have already been performed in the Haydn2032 series. A clue as to the date of composition is provided by the diary of Count Carl von Zinzendorf. On the evening of 22 May 1761 he attended a musical evening at the Palais Esterházy, where he heard a currently popular song, ‘Je n’aimais pas le tabac beaucoup’, which is quoted in the opening movement of Le Soir. (The air was written by no less a personage than Christoph Willibald Gluck for an opéra-comique called Le Diable à quatre, produced by the Théâtre Français of Vienna in 1759. It was a box-office hit and was revived on 11 April 1761, only a few weeks before the soirée in question.) Another factor that has been adduced is an astronomical event that caused much discussion in enlightened circles at the time and brought the capital of the Habsburg Empire an illustrious guest in the person of the French astronomer and cartographer César François Cassini de Thury, who seemed to be omnipresent in the Viennese aristocratic salons of the day: the transit of Venus that took place on 6 June 1761. The simultaneous observation and measurement of this phenomenon from various locations all over the globe was to provide scientists with information about the distance of the Earth from the Sun and ultimately – although only in later centuries – led to the exact determination of what we now call the astronomical unit. Since Esterházy family history was also characterised by a well-nigh hereditary interest in studying the heavens, this celestial spectacle may well have played a role in the choice of theme, especially as it was Paul Anton, once a student at the University of Leiden,² who commissioned the composition of the Tageszeiten. And, according to Elaine Sisman, the trilogy evokes not only the motif of simple rural life dependent on the rhythm of nature, a widespread literary and pictural topos at the time, but also the diurnal course of the sun’s orbit, or the respective position of the heavenly body that grants us light and warmth in the morning, at noon and in the evening: ‘Haydn’s sun’, with which the music begins in eminently programmatic vein, ‘casts light on the worlds of science and religion and nature and art.’³

Of the three sunrises featured in Haydn’s compositional œuvre, the one in Le Matin is by far the earliest example. Like the comparable moments in Die Schöpfung (The Creation, premiered on 30 April 1798; instrumental prelude to Uriel’s recitative ‘In vollem Glanze steiget jetzt die Sonne strahlend auf’) and Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons, premiered on 24 April 1801; ‘Sie steigt herauf, die Sonne’, chorus with soloists from ‘Der Sommer’), it is in D major (here, as in Die Schöpfung, it even begins on a single, unaccompanied D), works its way up the scale and cadences on the dominant at the dynamic climax.

The fact that Paul II Anton was not only a passionate lover of music – in both of the leading national styles of the time, Italian and French – but also a flautist of considerable talent was an open secret to his social circle. This also explains the quite untypical beginning of the Allegro that follows the sunrise in Haydn’s early symphonic work: the flute reveille (soon imitated by the oboes) is heard piano, and nature begins to stir in alternating forte and piano sections. When finally, instead of the expected entrance of the recapitulation, the horns rush in two bars ahead of the flute theme with a resounding unison, this is certainly to be understood as an allusion to another great passion which seems to be ‘running through the Prince’s mind’ here: the hunt, of course . . .

Hermann Kretzschmar averred that the brief Adagio which frames the ensuing Andante was intended to be a parody of a morning solmisation lesson, followed by humorous demonstrations of the schoolmaster’s virtuosity.⁴ Elaine Sisman strongly disagrees, seeing in this music the ‘rising of other heavenly bodies’ accompanying the Sun in the morning, such as the Moon or – as we have already mentioned – Venus: ‘Morning entails a banishment of night, a turn from Diana to Aurora, revealing the increasing irrelevance of the Moon – itself still usually present in the sky at dawn.’⁵ In this sense, Sisman suggests, the image of the singing teacher should probably be rectified; we should imagine Helios (or his successor Phoebus Apollo) with the sun-chariot accompanied by the Horae,⁶ a mythological theme that the Esterházy princes repeatedly placed on the ceiling frescoes of their magnificent palaces with a view to iconographical self-aggrandisement.

After the clouds trailing the Moon have been dispersed, a minuet is heard, in which the Sun excels as dancing master. The soloists on the dance floor once again include the flute, along with the oboes, the bassoon and finally, in the Trio, the viola and, for the first time in this cycle, the five-stringed violone, also known as the Wiener Quart-Terz-Violon. The concluding Allegro was described by H. C. Robbins Landon, in an apt metaphor, as ‘a brilliantly original way of pouring new wine into old bottles’, by which he meant that the compositional principle of the concerto grosso – the flute, the cello, even the two horns, but above all the violino principale, the part taken by Haydn himself, are awarded solo tasks to perform – appears filled with new life.⁷

While respectfully noting the objection once raised by Peter Gülke to the manifold attempts to construe the Tageszeiten Symphonies – ‘[Haydn] borrows the semblance of the wholly programmatic and [yet] writes music of such structural autonomy that there is really no need for the clues to concepts provided by the titles’⁸ – our reflections have now reached Le Midi, the only work of the cycle for which the composer’s manuscript has survived.

The opening movement of this C major symphony, with its slow introduction animated by broad gestures, prominent double-dotting borrowed from the ouverture à la française, and expansive twelve-part scoring, is certainly capable of conjuring up the idea of a sumptuous midday meal accompanied by table music. This is ‘confirmed’ to a certain extent in the ensuing Allegro by the concertante solo entrances of two solo violins, a solo cello, the two oboes and the bassoon, framed by rushing semiquaver figuration. But, all of a sudden, the festive mood changes. If the following pair of movements, consisting of a sombre instrumental recitative and a ‘liberating’ transition into a ‘richly figured dialogue between a solo violin and a solo cello’⁹ complete with fully written-out cadenza, is indeed to be understood as a parody of a ‘postprandial’ midday concert,¹⁰ then the audience would probably have had to be given a powerful aid to digestion. At any rate, Lukas Haselböck¹¹ and, once again, Elaine Sisman have an alternative reading to offer: this alludes to the first movement of the ‘Summer’ concerto (L’estate) from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, to which the recitative movement of Haydn’s symphony bears an ‘uncanny resemblance’.¹² Both writers trace it back to a narrative tradition rooted in ancient poetry, according to which noon represents the hour when, ‘with often catastrophic consequences’, gods become visible to humans and the latter seek refuge when ‘light, heat, . . . silence and stasis become too oppressive’. It is precisely that place of refuge, ‘[t]he shady grove, the valley of purling streams and breezes [that] now appear more vividly, in the succeeding Adagio, with murmuring flutes in thirds’,¹³ preparing a pastorale-like backdrop for the protagonists, violin and cello. Thus it seems entirely fitting that the following minuet should be more rustic than courtly, while the Finale once again abandons itself to the skilful combination of symphonic and concertante styles, so that the special tonal charm of this Allegro stems from the contrasting juxtaposition of the violini concertati with the flute part, which is again reduced to a single instrument.

As has been noted above, Le Soir takes its theme from the ‘Tobacco Song’ in Gluck’s from Le Diable à quatre(the title of the eponymous opéra-comique means, in French, a turbulent character who makes a lot of noise and causes disorder). This is quoted in extenso and runs right through the opening movement, finally getting canonic treatment. And here we return to the question of what might originally have been the idea behind the commission to compose the Tageszeiten Symphonies. Daniel Heartz, who identified the Gluck quotation, developed the following thesis – starting out from the assumption that Haydn’s employer had fully informed him of his particular predilection in this regard:

Just as the high nobility around Maria Theresia was generally influenced by French culture, so too was Prince Anton Esterházy, who knew Paris and had built up a library of French books, scores and pictures, which was constantly supplied with the latest Parisian publications, for example with Rousseau’s writings (banned in Austria!) in 1761. It is not far-fetched to assume that he was also familiar with the works of François Boucher, which were in great demand at the time. Boucher painted a series of pictures called ‘The hours of the day of a lady of fashion’ [Les Heures du jour d'une femme élégante] for the Swedish ambassador to Paris in 1745. Another series, Points du Jour [Moments in the day], contains a picture called Le Soir with the subtitle ‘La Dame allant au Bal’[The lady going to the ball], accompanied by a quatrain commenting on it.

Did this fashionable lady perhaps even serve as a model for Margot? Margot, who goes out with the intention of dancing and – instead of the verse in the picture – sings her ‘Tobacco Song’. Finally . . . we recall that Haydn concludes his ‘Evening’ Symphony with La Tempesta. The background seems ambiguous: is it a thunderstorm, as invoked by the wicked Marquise, Margot’s antagonist? Is it the sky that masses in a thunderstorm – as an eventful finale at the end of the day?¹⁴

The notion of a company sitting together of an evening, enjoying singing, the beauty of the sunset, dance, and the comfort of a dwelling sheltered from the capricious weather that follows a hot summer’s day – all of this may very well have corresponded to the thoughts that ran through Haydn’s mind as he composed Hob. I:8. Perhaps it should be noted here how ingeniously he handles the traditional topoi of storm and tempest music in the Finale of Le Soir. Contrary to expectations, he is distinctly circumspect in his use of them, always anxious to give the soloists of his instrumental ensemble every conceivable freedom to present their virtuoso skills.

_{¹In Giuseppe Carpani’s biography Le Haydine we even read of another ‘solemn’ symphony already written for Paul Anton’s birthday on 22 April 1761, which Daniel Heartz surmised was the Symphony in C major Hob. I:25.
²What is thought to have been the world’s first university observatory opened in Leiden (Netherlands) in 1633.
³Elaine Sisman, ‘Haydn’s Solar Poetics: The Tageszeiten Symphonies and Enlightenment Knowledge’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol.66, no.1 (Spring 2013), pp.5-102, here p.91.
⁴Hermann Kretzschmar, ‘Die Jugendsinfonien Joseph Haydns’, Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, vol.15, 1908, pp.69-90, here p.84.
⁵Sisman, p.55.
⁶The Horai in Greek mythology, goddesses of the seasons and the natural divisions of time; their name is often translated as ‘the Hours’. (Translator’s note)
⁷H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, vol. 1, Haydn: The Early Years, 1732-1765 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), p.556.
⁸Peter Gülke, ‘Haydns “Tageszeiten”-Sinfonien’, in id., Die Sprache der Musik. Essays zur Musik von Bach bis Holliger (Stuttgart, Weimar, Kassel: Bärenreiter/Metzler, 2001), pp.170-175, here p.170f.
⁹Walter Lessing, Die Sinfonien von Joseph Haydn, vol. 1 (Baden-Baden: Südwestfunk, 1987), p.36.
¹⁰Jürgen Braun, Sonja Gerlach, Sinfonien 1761 bis 1763. Joseph Haydn-Institut Köln (eds.): Joseph Haydn Werke, Series I, vol.3 (Munich: Henle, 1990), p.VIII.
¹¹Lukas Haselböck, ‘Vivaldi’s Le quattro stagioni und Haydn’s Tageszeiten-Sinfonien’, in Laurine Quetin, Gerold W. Gruber and Albert Gier (eds.), Joseph Haydn und Europa vom Absolutismus zur Aufklärung (= Musicorum 7; Tours: Université François Rabelais, 2009), pp.183-192.
¹²Sisman, p.61.
¹³Sisman, p.66.
¹⁴Daniel Heartz, ‘Haydn und Gluck im Burgtheater um 1760: Der neue krumme Teufel, Le Diable à quatre und die Sinfonie “Le soir”’, in Christoph-Hellmut Mahling and Sigrid Wiesmann (eds.), Gesellschaft für Musikforschung. Bericht über den Internationalen Musikwissenschaftlichen Kongreß Bayreuth 1981 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984), pp.120-135, here pp.132, 135.}

Symphony No.6 "Le Matin"

VOL. 10 _LES HEURES DU JOUR

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.7 C MAJOR «LE MIDI» HOB. I:7 (Eisenstadt / Vienna 1761)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob/2fl, bn, 2 hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: 1761

Adagio – Allegro / Recitativo. Adagio – Allegro – Adagio / [Duetto.] Adagio / [Menuet] – Trio / Finale. Allegro

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

Symphony No.7 "Le Midi"

VOL. 10 _LES HEURES DU JOUR

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

SYMPHONY NO.8 G MAJOR «LE SOIR» HOB. I:8 (Eisenstadt / Vienna 1761)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob/2fl, bn, 2 hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: till 1767 [1761]

Allegro molto / Andante / Menuet – Trio / La Tempesta. Presto

by Christian Moritz-Bauer

Symphony No. 8 "Le Soir"

VOL. 10 _LES HEURES DU JOUR

Giovanni Antonini, Il Giardino Armonico

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.

_{¹Thomas 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.
²Wolfgang 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).
³Hannelore 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

2018

2019

2020

NO.10

No.11

NO.12

NO.11 __AU GOÛT PARISIEN

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.24 D MAJOR HOB. I:24 (1764)

Orchestration: 2 ob/fl, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: [2nd half?] 1764

[Allegro] / Adagio. Cantabile / Menuet – Trio / Finale

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Ob oder inwiefern Haydn seinerzeit über die zu Paris gefeierten Erfolge seiner Kompositionen unterrichtet war, darüber wissen wir heute ebenso wenig Bescheid, wie über die Informationsquellen, welche ihm die Spezifika des dortigen, als besonders ausgefallen geltenden Publikumsgeschmacks näher brachten. Mit großer Sicherheit dürfte ihm jedenfalls ein um fünfzehn Jahre älterer Bericht der oben zitierten, vielgelesenen Monatsschrift entgangen sein, der da lautete: „[A]n diesem Tag [den 9. April 1773] gab es zwei Sinfonien beim Konzert, eine am Anfang (von Toeschi), die andere im zweiten Teil (von Haydn). Beiden wurde viel Applaus gespendet, darunter aber vor allem dem Andante der zweiten, in dem Herr Rault² ein Solo auf der Flöte spielte.“²

Die diesem Zitat traditionell zugeordnete Sinfonie Nr. 24 in D-Dur, wurde lange Zeit als die erste bei einem öffentlichen Konzert in Paris aufgeführte Komposition Joseph Haydns angesehen.³ Heute wissen wir, dass dieses Bild wenigstens dahingehend richtig zu stellen ist, dass es sich dabei allenfalls um die erste nachweislich in der Seine-Metropole zum Erklingen gebrachte Haydn-Sinfonie gehandelt haben dürfte. Einstweilen ungeachtet, dass es auch eine weitere, fast noch wahrscheinlichere Kandidatin für den musikalischen Glanzpunkt jenes Abends im altehrwürdigen Salle des Cent-Suisses des Tuilerienpalastes geben würde,⁴ darf man in dieser Tonschöpfung des Jahres 1764 dennoch getrost ein Werk vermuten, welches dort in gleich mehrfacher Hinsicht großen Zuspruch hätte erzielen können. Diversen zeitgenössischen Quellen, darunter den Briefen W. A. Mozarts aus dem Jahr 1778 folgend, konnte man in Paris etwa hervorragend punkten, wenn Motive, Passagen, ja ganze Formteile in entscheidender Weise vom Spiel und den klangfarblichen (Kombinations)möglichkeiten der Blasinstrumente gestaltet waren. In Hob. I:24 beispielsweise beschränken sich solche Momente nicht nur auf den 2. Satz, ein Adagio, das Haydn in Form eines veritablen Konzertsatzes für Franz Sigl, den Flötisten der esterházyschen Hofkapelle geschrieben hatte. Auch davor sind die Bläser tonangebend. Schon das Thema des Kopfsatzes ist – nicht wenig überraschend – der gleichzeitigen Stimmführung von Oboen und Hörnern anheimgestellt, was sich an vergleichsweise üblicher Stelle dann im ländlerisch angehauchten Menuet wiederholen wird. (Allerdings müssen die Oboen während des darin eingebetteten Trio-Teils ihre blechernen Tanzpartner vorübergehend an die bis dahin geduldig auf ihren Wiedereinsatz wartende Soloflöte abgeben.)
Als weiteres Element der Überraschung darf, nach Wolfgang Marggraf, der Durchführungsteil des im Autograph ohne Tempoangabe versehenen Allegrosgewertet werden:

„Dieser wilde Einbruch leidenschaftlicher Erregung, der die zuvor ausgebreitete eher beschauliche Grundstimmung des Satzes unbarmherzig zerstört, ist in Haydns frühen Sinfonien beispiellos, und es scheint fast selbstverständlich, dass danach nicht zum Anfang des Satzes zurückgeleitet werden könnte, als habe nichts sich ereignet. Die Verstörung ist vielmehr so groß, dass sich das Thema zu Beginn der Reprise in den Streichern ohne allen Bläserglanz nur ganz zaghaft zu Wort meldet, im Piano und nach d-Moll eingetrübt.“⁵

Weniger zaghaft, dafür im Pianissimo hebt der ansonsten meist in lauter bis sehr lauter Dynamik gehaltene Finalsatz an – ein ins Gegenteil verkehrter premier coup d'archet quasi – der in Paris sicher sehr gefallen hätte.

_{¹Félix Rault (*1736 in Bordeaux), Traversflötist, Komponist und Pädagoge. Als Schüler von Michel Blavet wurde Rault bereits 1748(!) unter den Mitgliedern des Orchesters der Pariser Oper geführt. Ab 1765 nahm er an den Aufführungen des Concert spirituel teil. Von 1768–1792 war er zudem Mitglied der Chapelle Royale.
²Mercure de France, April 1773, Bd. 2, S. 170 (Übers.: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
³Vgl. Wolfgang Fuhrmann: Haydn und sein Publikum. Die Veröffentlichung eines Komponisten, ca. 1750–1815. Habilitationsschrift, Bern 2010, S. 103–105.
⁴Gemeint ist die Sinfonie Nr. 41 in C-Dur von 1768. Ihr Vorsprung in der Debatte um die erste nachweislich in Paris aufgeführte Haydn-Sinfonie besteht u.a. darin, dass der langsame Satz hier tatsächlich als [Poco] Andante und nicht, wie bei Sinfonie Nr. 24, mit Adagio überschrieben steht. Außerdem hat sich von Hob. I:41 ein am 12. Dezember 1771 erstmals angezeigter, mehrfach nachgelegter Stimmendruck vom Verlag des Jean-Georges Sieber in der Rue St. Honoré erhalten, während es auf der anderen Seite scheint, als sei Hob. I:24 – zumindest zu Lebzeiten des Komponisten – niemals in Paris im Druck erschienen. Aus Gründen der Abwechslung im Bereich der Tonarten wird in Projekt 11 der Sinfonie 24 der Vortritt gelassen und Sinfonie 41 dann bei späterer Gelegenheit nachgereicht.
⁵Wolfgang Marggraf: Haydns frühes sinfonisches Schaffen am Hofe zu Eisenstadt (1761–1766). Die Sinfonien des italienischen und des Normaltyps}

: www.haydn-sinfonien.de/text/chapter3.1.html, Abruf: 1. Mai 2019.

VOL. 11 _AU GOÛT PARISIEN

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO. 87 A MAJOR HOB. I:87 (1785)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: 1785

Vivace / Adagio / Menuet – [Trio] / Finale. Vivace

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Von 1764, dem Kompositionsjahr Sinfonie Nr. 24 D-Dur, bis 1784, dem Jahr des vermeintlichen Vertragsschlusses zwischen Haydn und den Vertretern der Freimaurerloge « de la Parfaite Estime & Société Olympique » bzw. deren hauseigener Veranstaltungsreihe, dem Concert de la Loge Olympique, waren ungefähr ein halbes Hundert Haydn'scher bzw. Haydn unterschobener Sinfonien bei verschiedenen Pariser Verlegern herausgekommen. Bis zur Veröffentlichung der Six SINFONIES A DIVERS INSTRUMENS DU RÉPERTOIRE DE LA LOGE OLYMPIQUE sollten allerdings noch einige Jahre ins Land ziehen und selbiger Sammlung sogar drei weitere Drucke – wenngleich in voneinander abweichender Reihung der Werke folgen.¹ Beim Verlag Artaria Compagnie in Wien, welcher schließlich der erste war, der Haydns „Pariser Sinfonien“ zum Verkauf anbieten konnte, hatte Haydn sogar versucht, Einfluss auf die Publikationsreihenfolge zu nehmen: „[...] Ich vergasse lezthin die Ordnung der Sinfonien anzuzeigen, und müssen solche folgender arth gestochen werden: Die Sinfonie Ex A. Numero 1, Ex b fa Nro 2, Ex g Nro 3, Ex Es Nro 4, Ex D Nro 5, Ex C Nro 6.“² Dieser (am Ende unerfüllt gebliebenen) brieflichen Anweisung entsprechend, hatte Haydn also geplant, sein jüngstes Oeuvre mit eben jenem Werk beginnen zu lassen, das in der offiziellen Zählung schließlich das Schlusslicht einnehmen sollte: die Sinfonie Nr. 87 in A-Dur.

Der ursprünglich zugedachten Position unter den Sinfonien Hob. I:82–87 entsprechend, zeigt sich der Beginn jenes Werks, das H. C. Robbins Landon einmal als „stepchild of the Paris Symphonies“ bezeichnete,³ den Anfängen seiner früheren, aus dem Bereich der Theatermusik erwachsenen Sinfonien als durchaus nahestehend. Haydn-Forscher Felix Diergarten bringt es auf den Punkt: „Der Fanfaren-Gestus [des anfänglichen, drei Mal hintereinander auftretenden] rhythmischen Motivs, der rauschende Klang, die eher amorphe Melodik und das Unisono ab Takt 6 […]. Welche der verschiedenen motivischen Gestalten […] zum Gegenstand der sinfonischen Entwicklung werden wird, macht erst [die in] Takt 18 [einsetzende Fortspinnung] klar.“⁴ Doch damit nicht genug, was die zahlreichen Überraschungen dieses lebhaften Sinfoniesatzes angeht. Da wäre etwa das hin und her trippelnde Seitenthema der Streicher, mit dessen Einsatz sich der Komponist so viel Zeit lässt, dass er es – um „seine Pointe“ zu verstärken – nach einem eingeschobenen Orchestertutti gleich nochmals wiederholt, um damit den ersten Wiederholungsteil im Pianissimo verklingen zu lassen. (Ganz nebenbei sei auch noch erwähnt, dass eben jenes Seitenthema im weiteren Verlauf des Satzes zu des Komponisten liebstem motivisch-thematischen Spielball avanciert, mit dem er seine Zuhörerschaft auf einen Orbit voller genialischer Stimmungsumschwünge schicken wird.)
Auf soviel ,innere Erregungʻ wirkt das Adagio „mit [seinen] schönen Themen und variierter wiefarbenprächtiger Instrumentierung, als ideales Medium für bläsersolistische Alleingänge, die möglicherweise v. a. dazu entworfen wurden, dem Geschmack der Pariser zu schmeicheln“.⁵ In eben jene Richtung, nämlich seinem entfernt gelegenen Publikum mit einen Höchstmaß an kompositorischer Vielfalt aufzuwarten, dürfte auch das anschließende Menuetkonzipiert worden sein. Landon etwa vermag aus ihm „eingängige Peitschenschnalzer“ und „leichte Balkan-Drehungen“ herauszuhören,⁶ sowie ein überaus anspruchsvolles Oboensolo in dem dazwischen geschalteten Trio-Abschnitt. Und zum finalen Vivace lesen wir bei Ludwig Finscher, dass es „in gewisser Hinsicht einfach, aber zugleich einer der merkwürdigsten Sonatensätze“ sei, die Haydn je geschrieben habe: „[D]ie thematische Substanz ist gering, das einzige Thema wird kein einziges Mal geschlossen präsentiert, sondern bricht ständig in lärmende Tutti-Durchführungsabschnitte um. An die Stelle eines durch ausbalancierte Form gebändigten Satzes […] tritt die permanente Turbulenz, nach deren Festlaufen in Septakkorden das endlich erscheinende Thema nur noch ein witziges apercu ist. Das Publikum, das sich schon über die Witze im Finale von Mozarts Pariser Symphonie so gefreut hatte, wird [solcherlei Spiel gewiss] goutiert haben.“⁷

_{¹Siehe: Hiroshi Nakano (Hg.), Johann Haydn Werke I/12: Pariser Sinfonien, 1. Folge, München 1971, S. VI–VII.
²Joseph Haydn: Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Unter Benutzung der Quellensammlung von H. C. Robbins Landon, hg. von Dénes Bartha, Kassel, Budapest u.a. 1965, S. 175(–176).
³H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn at Eszterháza 1766–1790. London 1978, S. 606.
⁴Felix Diergarten: „Jedem Ohre klingend.“ Formprinzipien in Haydns Sinfonieexpositionen. Laaber 2012, S. 173.
⁵Bernard Harrison: Haydn. The Paris Symphonies. Cambridge 1998, S. 92 (Übers.: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
⁶Landon: Haydn at Eszterháza, S. 607.
⁷Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber 2000, S. 343–344.}

VOL. 11 _AU GOÛT PARISIEN

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.2 C MAJOR HOB. I:2 (1757/59?)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: before 12.3.1764 [1757/1759]

Allegro / Andante / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Jean-Baptiste Venier, einem in der französischen Hauptstadt zwischen 1755 und 1782 aktiven Verleger venezianischer Abstammung, der auch als Violinist und Cembalist (u.a. in den Concerts spirituel) tätig war, darf der Verdienst zugesprochen werden als allererster seiner Zunft eine Sinfonie Joseph Haydns veröffentlicht zu haben – so geschehen im Jahr 1764 mit der Sinfonie C-Dur Hob. I:2. Als Opus 14 in der Pubikationsreihe Sinfonie à più stromente composte da varii autori unter der Rubrik « noms inconnus bons à connoitre » (zu dt. etwa: „unbekannte Namen, die man sich merken sollte“) erschienen, sollte sie den Grundstock einer beispiellosen Erfolgsgeschichte in den Annalen des europäischen Musikverlagswesen legen. Laut Erstanzeige vom 12. März 1764, waren zu den auch im Einzeldruck erhältlichen Werken der Sammlung, die u.a. noch Sinfonien von Pieter van Maldere, Johann Christian Bach und Ignaz Fränzl enthielt, auch in Kopistenschrift verfasste Bläserstimmen erhältlich. Im Fall der Haydn-Sinfonie haben sich selbige allerdings nur in nicht aus Paris stammenden Quellen erhalten.

Zu den hervorstechenden Merkmalen unserer noch auf die Jahre von Haydns erster kapellmeisterlichen Anstellung im böhmischen Lukavec zurückgehenden Komposition gehören: Der generelle Verzicht auf Wiederholungszeichen, der sie unter ihresgleichen und unter Einbezug des fünfteiligen Schlussrondos als ein „formales Unikat“¹ erscheinen lässt. Ferner wurde (von A. Peter Brown) bemerkt, dass hier eine Synthese aus barockem Gruppenkonzert und italienischer Ouvertüre vorläge, die wiederum auf eine alte (Wiener) Tradition von Stücken zurückgreife, die sich stufenförmig aufgebauter Themenkomplexe bediene.² Schließlich gibt es da aber auch noch das bläserlos geführte zentrale Adagio. „Hier“, so wiederum Landon, „haben wir ein anderes Experiment: eine Art Perpetuum mobile, bei dem die Violinen zwischen der ersten und letzten Note – beide von einer Achtel Länge – durchgehend in Sechzehnteln spielen, wobei die daraus entstehende Struktur in einem fort durch die Verwendung von Trillern unterbrochen wird.“ Das Ganze würde „eine grässliche Faszination“ ausüben, etwa so, „wie das gemalte Grinsen eines Harlekins in einer dieser Puppentheateraufführungen, die während des Sommers in den Gärten Roms zu erleben waren.“³

_{¹Sonja Gerlach: „Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie“, in: Haydn-Studien 7/1–2 (1996), S. 62.
²Vgl. A. Peter Brown: The Symphonic Repertoire Volume II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Bloomington & Indianapolis 2002, S. 53 (Übers.: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
^3 .C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn: The Early Years: 1732–1765, London 1980, S. 287.}

VOL. 11 _AU GOÛT PARISIEN

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.82 C MAJOR «L'OURS» HOB. I:82 (1786)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn or tpt, timp, str
Time of creation: 1786

Vivace / Allegretto / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Vivace [assai]

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Die Idee eines Jahrmarktspektakels, wie sie uns H. C. Robins Landon hinsichtlich der Sinfonie Nr. 2 von ca. 1759 näher brachte,¹ lässt sich auch auf den Schluss- und Höhepunkt von Haydn2032-Projekt Nr. 11 „Au goût parisien“ übertragen: die Sinfonie Nr. 82 in C-Dur, bekannt geworden unter dem Beinamen „L'Ours“. ,Schuld daranʻ ist dessen berühmter Finalsatz mit seinem 2/4-taktigen Contredanse-Charakter, bei dem sich „[i]n unaufhörlichem Wirbel“² Bild an Bild einer sich an sich selbst und einem bunten Treiben von Schaustellern erfreuenden Gesellschaft reihen. Ob diese Szenen nun im Park von Schloss Eszterház nahe Süttor, oder vielmehr am Platz um die Kirche Saint-Germain-des-Prés, im gleichnamigen Quartiers des 6. Pariser Arrondissement gelegen, stattgefunden haben, möge ein(e) jede/r ihrer/seiner eigenen Phantasie überlassen. Als besonders bildhaft erweist sich dabei sogleich das dem sprunghaften Hauptthema unterlegte Spiel der Streicherbässe mit brummenden Liegetönen und schrappenden Vorschlagsnoten, das an das Drehleier- und Dudelsackspiel des Fahrenden Volkes erinnert. Jedenfalls sollte schon im Jahr der ersten Stimmendrucke von Hob. I:82 in einer Anthologie des Speyrer Verlegers Philipp Bossler eine Klavierbearbeitung eben jenes Vivace assai erscheinen, das dort den Beinamen „Bären-Tanz“ erhielt. Von hier bis zur späteren Taufe der gesamten Sinfoniekomposition auf „L'Ours. Bärentanz“ im Haydn-Verzeichnis der Zürcher Neujahrsblätter (1831) und in der gleichnamigen Partiturausgabe von 1860/61 beim Offenbacher Verlag André, war es also – zumindest inhaltlich gesehen – alles andere mehr als weit.

Die Wildheit und Energie der Großen „Ex C“ aus Haydns sechsteiligem Sinfonienzyklus von 1785/86 greift weit um sich und bemächtigt sich nicht nur des zweiten, „polkaartig schwingenden“³ Themas des Finalsatzes samt strettaartiger Schlusspassage mit Fortissimo-Paukenwirbel. Schon auf das anfängliche Vivace streckt es seine Fühler aus. So vermutet auch der bereits zitierte A. Peter Brown, wenn – laut eines W. A. Mozart – das französische Publikum für den Anfang einer Sinfonie in der Regel nach einem premier coup d'archet, einer lautstarken, oft tutti geführten Passage verlangte, der Kompositionsbeginn hier bei Haydn auf selbiges wie ein Energieschock gewirkt haben müsste.⁴
Nach einem so glutvollen Werkbeginn, entpuppt sich das Allegretto als ein für den Haydn jener Jahre so typisch wie kunstvoll gestalteten Variationssatz, in dem zwei alternierende Themen von gegenteiligem Tongeschlecht (F-Dur bzw. f-Moll) in wechselnder Folge verarbeitet werden. Bernard Harrison fügt dem hinzu, dass die Natürlichkeit und Einfachheit dieses (gar nicht so) langsamen Satzes der (scheinbaren?) Würde der Gesamtkomposition gegenüber in jeder Hinsicht angemessen gewesen wären.⁵ Ob das auch auf dessen schmissige Coda zutreffend ist? mais oui, bien sûr...
Besaß der Menuet-Satz des vor der Konzertpause erklungenen Schwesternwerks in A-Dur einen eher rustikalen, handfesten Charakter, so zeigt sich selbiger – hier sofort hörbar – dem festlichen Charakter des Kopfsatzes verwandt. Auch Landon bezeugt, dass er in puncto Schreibweise wie innerem Geiste vor allem nach einer Art gestaltet worden sei, nämlich nach der französischen.⁶
Und somit wären wir wieder beim Bärentanz angelangt, dessen eigentlicher Witz, James Websterzufolge, darin bestünde, wie Haydn „dessen starres Thema mit kunstvollen kontrapunktischen Partien […] verschmelze – so, als wäre zuvor nichts gewesen …“⁷

_{¹H.C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn: The Early Years: 1732–1765, London 1980, S. 287.
²Jürgen Mainka: „Joseph Haydn: Sinfonie Nr. 82 C-Dur »L'ours« Hob. I:82 (1786)“ in: Malte Korff (Hg.): Konzertbuch Orchestermusik 1650–1800. Wiesbaden / Leipzig 1991, S. 364.
³Ibid.
⁴Vgl. A. Peter Brown: The Symphonic Repertoire Volume II. The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Bloomington & Indianapolis 2002, S. 221–222.
⁵Vgl. Bernard Harrison: Haydn. The Paris Symphonies. Cambridge 1998, S. 53.
⁶Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn at Eszterháza 1766–1790. London 1978, S. 614.
⁷Zit. nach: Einspielungen und Informationen zur 82. Sinfonie Haydns vom Projekt „Haydn 100&7“ der Haydn-Festspiele Eisenstadt, Abruf: 2. Mai 2019.}

Symphony No. 82 "L'Ours"

VOL. 11 _AU GOÛT PARISIEN

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

2020

2019

2020

2021

NO.11

No.12

NO.13

NO.12 __LES JEUX ET LES PLAISIRS

Symphonies

SYMPHPONY NO.69 C MAJOR «LAUDON» Hob. I:69 (1775?)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Time of creation: till 1779 [1775/1776]

VOL. 12 _LES JEUX ET LES PLAISIRS

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.61 D MAJOR HOB. I:61 (1776)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, tpt, str
Time of creation: [after april?] 1776

VOL. 12 _LES JEUX ET LES PLAISIRS

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

SYMPHONY NO.66 B MAJOR I:66 (1775?)

Orchestration: 2 Ob, 2 Fg, 2 Hr, Str
Time of creation: till 1779 [1775/1776]

VOL. 12 _LES JEUX ET LES PLAISIRS

Giovanni Antonini, Basel Chamber Orchestra

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

2019

2020

2021

NO.12

No.13

NO.14

NO.13 __HORNSIGNAL

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.48 C MAJOR «MARIA THERESIA» HOB. I:48 (1769)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1769? (or till 1773) [1769]

Allegro / Adagio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Allegro

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

«Bei einer neuen Komposition stiegen weitere Raketen in unvorstellbare Höhen. Goldregen verstreuend, fielen sie herunter und verschwanden funkelnd hinter dem Laub der Bäume, wo sie hier und dort noch manches Mal zu sehen waren.»¹

Haydns Orchester besaß zwar zahlreiche Hornisten – insgesamt waren in dieser Position zwischen 1761 und 1790 mindestens 18 Personen in fürstlich-esterházy‘schen Diensten beschäftigt² – dafür aber keine (eigenen) Trompeter. Letzterer Umstand konnte sich für einen Komponisten der Zeit als durchaus ungünstig erweisen, war die von Trompeten und Pauken gefärbte Klangfülle des C-Dur doch ein verbreitetes orchestrales Merkmal, das in Kirchenmusik, Sinfonie und Oper – drei seinerzeit für besonderes repräsentativ befundene Zweige eines mehr oder weniger öffentlichen Musiklebens – gleichermaßen gerne genutzt wurde. Um diesen Mangel zu überwinden, griff Haydn zu einer damals geradezu einzigartigen Lösung: Wann immer er die besagte unverwechselbare C-Dur-Welt evozieren wollte, benutzte er Hörner als ,Ersatztrompetenʻ und wies sie an in ⁄, also eine Oktave höher zu spielen, als dies normalerweise der Fall war. Ein gutes Beispiel für diese Praxis stellt die Sinfonie Nr. 48 dar, die zwar den Auftakt des heutigen musikalischen Geschehens bildet, ursprünglich aber im Zentrum der Feier zum Abschluss der allerersten auf Schloss Eszterház, der prachtvollen, nahe des Weilers Süttör südöstlich des Neusiedlersees gelegenen Sommerresidenz von Nikolaus I. Esterházy veranstalteten Theatersaison gestanden sein dürfte. Wie auch in den folgenden Jahren war es der 15. Oktober 1769, an dem die per Anfang Mai begonnene Spielzeit einer vertraglich gebundenen Theatergesellschaft ihr glanzvolles Ende fand – und das nicht von ungefähr. Es war dies nämlich³
Wenngleich die Monarchin – im Gegensatz zu Ihrem hochoffiziellen Besuch des Jahre 1773 – dem festlichen Treiben aus Konzert und Theater, Feuerwerk und Maskenball im Herbst 1769 nicht persönlich beigewohnt haben dürfte, so brachte man ihr bzw. ihrer Namenspatronin, der hl. Teresa von Avila zu Ehren, doch zumindest ein neues Werk des esterházy‘schen Kapellmeisters zu Gehör. Solches lässt sich allein schon dadurch vermuten, dass eine Reihe von autornahen Stimmabschriften der nicht autograph überlieferten, aber mit Sicherheit auf das Jahr 1769 zurückgehenden Sinfonia in C den Namenszug «Santa Teresia» bzw. «Sinfonia Sanctae Theresiae» tragen – ein Phänomen wie es bisher hauptsächlich aus dem Bereich festtäglicher Kirchenmusik bekannt war. In der Haydn-Forschung, welche letzterem Umstand bislang keine besondere Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt hatte, war dem Werk, dessen «offizieller» Beiname «Maria Theresia» sich bereits im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts zu manifestieren begann, ein direkter bzw. anlassgebundener Bezug zu jener legendären und für die Geschichte der Familie Esterházy so überaus bedeutsamen Fürstin des Hauses Habsburg zuletzt sogar allgemein infrage gestellt worden. Dass die C-Dur-Sinfonie indes nicht nur eine außermusikalische Verbindung zu Werken wie etwa Beethovens Ouvertüre «Zur Namensfeier» Kaiser Franz I. op. 115, sondern gar eine programmatisch anmutende Beziehung zu den beiden anderen, festlichen Programmpunkten jenes 15. Oktober 1769 aufzuweisen hat, klingt aber auch aus der Musik an sich heraus: ein Allegro, das nach einem von Bläserfanfaren gespickten Beginn und dazwischen geschalteter Ruhephase aus den Reihen der hohen und tiefen Streicher wechselseitig Motivraketen in die Höhe schnellen lässt, ein Adagio mit in gedämpften Stimmen redenden Violinen und gelegentlichen, paarweise geführten Oboen- wie Hornsoli; ein bewegtes Menuet das mit seiner reichen Ausstattung von Verzierungszeichen an den Auftakt eines höfischen Maskenspiels erinnert sowie ein heiterer, im Allegro alla breve in die klare Herbstnacht hinaus stürmender Kehraus.

¹Zit. aus Relation des fêtes données a Sa Majesté L'Imperatrice par S A Mgr Le Prince d'Esterházy dans son Château d' Esterhaz le 1er & 2e 7bre 1773. Vienne de l'Imprimerie de Ghelen. S. XI (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
²Vgl. Paul Bryan, „Haydn's Hornists“, in: Haydn-Studien 3, München 1973, S. 52-8.
³Vgl. Christian Moritz-Bauer, Das sinfonische Schaffen Joseph Haydns und seine Verbindung zum zeitgenössischen Theaterwesen. Wien, i. V. (= Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte 13), Kap. 4.5 Bühnenereignisse und Hoffeste zur Zeit Nikolaus I. Esterházy.

SYMPHONY NO.59 A MAJOR «FIRE» HOB. I:59 (1768)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Time of creation: till 1769 [1768]

Presto / Andante o più tosto Allegretto / Menuet – Trio / Allegro assai

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Noch etwas weiter zurück als Hob. I:48, genauer gesagt in etwa die Zeit der Eröffnung des ersten Opern- bzw. «Komödienhauses» auf Schloss Eszterház, also das Jahr 1768, reicht die Entstehung der Sinfonie Nr. 59. Ihre Tonart A-Dur gilt Haydn-Kennern – also gewiss auch manch einer bzw. einem unter Ihnen, werte LesererInnen – schon längere Zeit als äußerer Anzeiger für ein Werk von besonderer theatralischer Qualität. (Denken Sie etwa an die Sinfonie Nr. 64 «Tempora mutantur» aus SOLO E PENSOSO, an Nr. 65 aus GLI IMPRESARI oder zuletzt an Nr. 28 aus LA ROXOLANA.)

Im Fall von Hob. I:59 – die auf Eusebius Mandyczewski zurückgehende, dem Werk im Zuge der alten Gesamtausgabe verliehene Ordinalzahl muss hier wieder einmal als hoffnungslos veraltet angesehen werden – herrschte gar lange der erstmals im späten 19. Jahrhundert geäußerte Verdacht, das Werk hätte der Wahr‘schen Truppe 1774 zu Eszterház als Zwischenaktmusik zu einer Produktion des erst im Jahr zuvor durch Carl Theophil Döbbelin zu Berlin uraufgeführten dreiaktigen Schauspiels Die Feuersbrunst von Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann gedient.

Obwohl nun unsere Nr. 59 bekanntlich unter dem Namen «Feuersinfonie» geführt wird – was u. a. auch damit zu tun haben dürfte, dass Carl Ferdinand Pohl sie einst in Alois Fuchs‘ Thematisches Verzeichniß der sämmtlichen Compositionen von Joseph Haydn (München, 1839 bzw. Wien, 1840) als «Feuer Sinfonie / La Tempesta» vorgefunden hatte – bleibt festzustellen, dass eine inhaltliche Verbindung zu Großmanns Feuersbrunst schon allein zeitlich gesehen auszuschließen ist. Auch der ‹berüchtigte› Brand, bei dem 1779 das erste Opernhaus auf Eszterház in Schutt und Asche gelegt wurde, spielte bei der Entstehung unserer neuen A-Dur-Sinfonie keine Rolle, ging ihre Komposition doch dessen ursprünglicher Eröffnung im September 1768 (mit der Uraufführung von Haydns Dramma giocoso Lo speziale / «Der Apotheker») möglicherweise noch um einige weitere Monate voraus.¹

Eine (wenngleich nicht besonders gut ,getimteʻ und zudem noch teilweise auf einer Anekdote basierende) Verbindung zwischen «Feuersinfonie» und Feuersbrunst gibt es aber doch: Anlässlich einer 1772 in Berlin abgehaltenen Abendgesellschaft des Autors der Letzteren mit Friedrich Nicolai und Gotthold Ephraim Lessing stellte der ehemalige Dramaturg und Berater des Hamburger Nationaltheaters, die Behauptung auf, «… für ein gutes Schauspiel ein Jahr zu brauchen». Großmann hielt dagegen «… gute Laune und gute Ideen vorausgesetzt selbiges in drei Tagen zu vollbringen!» und gewann alsbald die darauf abgeschlossene Wette mit besagtem Schauspiel.²¹ Lessing wiederum brachte im 27. Stück seiner Hamburgischen Dramaturgie – also bereits im Juli 1767 – etwas zu Papier, das ihn, der von der Vorherrschaft der Dicht- über die Tonkunst stets uneingeschränkt überzeugt war (in Bezug auf die Verwendung von Musik im Theater), offenbar besonders erregte: Itzt zerschmelzen wir in Wehmut, und auf einmal sollen wir rasen. Wie? warum? wider wen? Wider eben den, für den unsere Seele ganz mitleidiges Gefühl war? oder wider einen andern? Alles das kann die Musik nicht bestimmen; sie lässt uns in Ungewissheit und Verwirrung; wir empfinden, ohne eine richtige Folge unserer Empfindungen wahrzunehmen; wir empfinden wie im Traume; und alle diese unordentliche [!] Empfindungen sind mehr abmattend als ergötzend. Die Poesie hingegen lässt uns den Faden unserer Empfindungen nie verlieren; hier wissen wir nicht allein, was wir empfinden sollen, sondern auch, warum wir es empfinden sollen; und nur dieses Warum macht die plötzlichsten Übergänge nicht allein erträglich, sondern auch angenehm.³

Genau das, was Lessing hier als ungeordnete, traumhafte Abfolge affektiver Haltungen kritisierte, fand die amerikanische Musikwissenschaftlerin Wye Jamison Allanbrook auf das Genaueste mit dem Anfang eben jener A-Dur-Sinfonie eingelöst, die in einer handschriftlichen Quelle aus Wien den Beginn des ersten Satzes in der Violino Primo-Stimme mit dem Wort ,Feuerʻ charakterisiert («[d]ie Eröffnung ist sukzessive verkündigend, misterioso, zielgerichtet, aufgeregt, kultiviert, ausgelassen, abschiednehmend und dies alles in etwas mehr als einer Minute Musik»⁴) – und dann das Ganze noch im Tempo Presto – also bitteschön!
In besonderer Weise ,theatralischʻ mag auch der zweite Satz der «Feuersinfonie», ein in a-Moll und mit reinem Streicherklang anhebendes Andante o più tosto Allegretto empfunden werden, hinter dessen redender Melodik mit disputartig eingeworfenen Unisono-Passagen, mit «gesanglicher» Rückkehr nach A-Dur und signalartigem Kommentar der Hörner man (in Einklang mit Wolfgang Marggraf)⁵ durchaus ein dahinter stehendes «inneres Programm» vermuten darf.⁶

Ist der darauf folgende Menuet-Satz von auffälliger Aktivität der Hörner und einem wiederum geradezu dramatisch erscheinenden, schemenhaft dahin huschenden Trio-Abschnitt gekennzeichnet, so wirft das finale Allegro assai mit markanten, von den Oboen beantworteten Hornsignalen bereits seinen Schatten voraus bzw. – entstehungszeitlich gesehen – vielmehr zurück auf das ,Hauptwerkʻ unseres Projekts No. 13, die Sinfonie Nr. 31 in D-Dur mit dem tönenden Beinamen «Hornsignal».

¹Vgl. Sonja Gerlach, „Joseph Haydns Sinfonien bis 1774. Studien zur Chronologie“, in: Haydn-Studien 7, S. 1-288, hier: S. 147-9 und 154f.
²Zit. nach / vgl.: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Friedrich_Großmann (Abruf: 18.10.2020).
³Zit. nach: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Minna von Barnhelm. Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Werke 1767–1769. Hg. Von Klaus Bohnen, Berlin, 2010 (= Deutscher Klassiker Verlag im Taschenbuch Bd. 42, entspricht Bd. 6 der Edition Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Werke und Briefe in zwölf Bänden, Frankfurt a. M., 1985), S. 515, Zeilen 6-19.
⁴Zit. nach Wye Jamison Allanbrook, The Secular Commedia: Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music, hg. von Mary Ann Smart und Richard Taruskin, Oakland CA, 2014, S. 25-8, hier S. 26 (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
⁵Wolfgang Marggraf, Die Sinfonien Joseph Haydns. […] Die Sinfonien der Jahre 1766-1772. Die Hauptsätze (http://www.haydn-sinfonien.de/text/chapter4.1.html, Abruf: 18.10.2020).
⁶Eine Ansicht die übrigens insbesondere auch von Sonja Gerlach geteilt wird, die von einer möglichen „programmatische[n] Bedeutung“ des Andante, sowie einem denkbaren Programm für das Themas des Kopfsatzes schreibt (siehe Fußnote 1, S. 147f.).

SMYPHONY NO.31 D MAJOR «HORNSIGNAL» HOB. I:31 (1765)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 4 hn, str (with solo-str)
Time of creation: [May-13.9.?] 1765

Allegro / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Moderato molto con [7] variazioni. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Im dreizehnten, mit „Hornsignal“ betitelten Projekt von Hayn2032, kommt einem Instrument eine herausragende Rolle zu: ein Instrument, dessen Geschichte bis in die Urzeit der Menschheit zurückreicht, das seit jeher als weithin hörbares Kommunikationsmittel genutzt wurde und schließlich gegen Ende des 17. Jahrhundert auch Einzug in die Kunstmusik hielt: das Horn.
Die zu Haydns Zeit gebräuchliche Form eben jenes Instruments war das Naturhorn, wobei der Vorrat von Tönen, die es dem Spieler zur Verfügung stellte, primär derjenige der sogenannten Naturtöne war – im tiefen Register weit auseinander, je mehr es in die Höhe ging hingegen desto näher beieinander liegend. Die Kontrolle, die erforderlich war, um ,den richtigen Tonʻ zu treffen, war beträchtlich, insbesondere bei schnellen Passagen in hoher Lage oder beim Wechsel zwischen tiefem und hohem Register. Damit das Horn aber nicht nur in einer, sondern in mehreren, mitunter sogar satzweise aufeinander folgenden, wechselnden Tonarten zum Erklingen gebracht werden konnte, war man auf die Idee gekommen, Instrumente mit auswechselbaren, unterschiedlich langen Zwischenstücken, sogenannten «Aufsteckbögen» zu bauen, die auch als «Inventionshörner» bezeichnet werden.
Während der ersten beiden Jahre der Dienstzeit Joseph Haydns am Hof der Fürsten Esterházy waren zwei Hornisten beschäftigt, die sich auf das Spiel in hoher bzw. niedrigerer Lage spezialisiert hatten. Von 1763 bis 1790 stieg die Zahl der verfügbaren Hornisten regelmäßig, zunächst auf vier, mitunter auch auf fünf, und im Zeitraum von 1769 bis 1772 sogar auf sechs. Viele dieser Spieler hatten mehrere Aufgaben, traten in der Feldharmonie auf, begleiteten die Jagd und spielten in Haydns Orchester. Einige der Hornisten waren auch kompetente Geiger und Bratschisten in deren Funktion sie ebenso in der fürstlichen Kammer- wie Kirchenmusik aufzutreten pflegten.

«Die Lust zu Jagen ließ er dort, kam er zurück, so schränkte die Nähe des Hofes zu Wien seinen Lieblingshang ein, kam er nach Eisenstadt, so bemeisterte sich seiner die Langeweile. Wollte er im Walde zu Süttör jagen, so fand er diese Ergözung rau, doch gefiel ihm die Einsamkeit dieses Ortes.»¹

Sie hießen Carl Franz, Thaddäus Steinmüller, Joseph Dietzl und Franz Stamitz, die einstigen Protagonisten jener Komposition, die unter den Sinfonien Joseph Haydns als ein die individuellen Künste seines damals ca. 18-köpfigen Ensembles der esterházy‘schen Hofmusik in besonderer Weise hervorhebender ,Showcaseʻ anzusehen ist. Ihre ungewöhnliche Besetzung mit vier Hörnern, deren Spiel mit verschiedenartigen Signalen, auf mehrere Sätze verteilte Solopassagen für Horn, Flöte, Violine, Oboen, Violoncello und Kontrabass und nicht zuletzt ihre für die damaligen Verhältnisse geradezu monumentalen zeitlichen Ausmaße: die Sinfonie, welche u. a. auch mit namentlichen Zusätzen wie «Auf dem Anstand», «Alla posta» oder «Cor de poste de Nuremberg» geführt bzw. (in einer zeitgenössischen Druckfassung aus London) als eine «Concertante Sinfonia» publiziert wurde, hat obendrein noch ein für die Musik der «Wiener Klassik» ausgesprochen merkwürdiges Satzgebilde vorzuweisen: ein Finale in sehr moderatem Tempo mit sieben Variationen und abschließender Presto-Coda!
Der (mehr oder weniger wissenschaftlich geführten) Diskussionen über Hob. I:31, ob die darin erklingenden Signale, ursprünglich einer Gruppe von Jagd- bzw. Parforcehörnern bzw. einem Posthorn zugehörig waren oder vielmehr auf dem «Signalhorn» (auch «Signaltrompete», französisch clairon, englisch bugle) gespielt wurden, hat es viele gegeben² – mitunter auch solche, die darin kompositorische Gemeinsamkeiten mit Beethoven Eroica-Sinfonie erkennen wollten³, dass hier nicht der Platz ist, um diese in einer würdigen Weise wiederzugeben.
Wichtiger scheint, dass der Kopfsatz des Werkes, aber auch die mit ihm verklammerte Coda des Schlussatzes als eine «Konfrontation» zweier verschiedener, subjektiv gesehen möglicherweise «nicht zusammenpassende[r] Haltungen»⁴, verstanden bzw. gehört wird: eine bildliche, die sich aus der Welt von Jagdausritten und Postkutschenfahrten nährt und eine andere, die sich an der Kunstgattung der „Sinfonie“ erfreut – genau wie diese einst von Joseph Haydn auf denkbar außergewöhnliche Weise zur Unterhaltung seines zu Schwermut neigenden, langjährigen Dienstherren Fürst Nikolaus I. Joseph bemüht wurden.

¹Gottfried von Rotenstein über Nikolaus I. Esterházy. Zit. aus: Stefan Körner, „Die Fürsten Esterházy und die ungarische Jagdgeschichte“, in: Ders. (hrsg. für die Esterházy Privatstiftung Eisenstadt), Fürstliches Halali: Jagd am Hofe Esterházy. München, u. a., 2008, S. 58-133, hier S. 95.
²Siehe etwa H. C. Robbins London, Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn: the Early Years 1732-1765. London, 1980, S. 571f., Horst Walter, „Das Posthornsignal bei Haydn und anderen Komponisten des 18. Jahrhunderts“, in: Haydn-Studien 4, München 1980, S. 21-34; Josef Pöschl, Jagdmusik: Kontinuität und Entwicklung in der europäischen Geschichte. Tutzing 1997, hier: Kap. 2.4 [Stilisierung in der Kunstmusik:] Vorklassik und Klassik, S. 78f.; Raymond Monelle, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral, Bloomington & Idianapolis, 2006, hier: S. 88f., 101, 172.
³Vgl. Stephan Wolff, „'Eroica' und 'Hornsignal': Gemeinsamkeiten der Sinfonie Nr. 3 von Ludwig van Beethoven und Nr. 31 von Joseph Haydn“, in: Das Orchester Jg. 38, Heft 6 (Juni 1990), S. 635-41.
⁴So Marianne Danckwardt in „Hornsignale in Joseph Haydns Sinfonien“, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft Jg. 67, Heft 1 (2010), S. 36-44, hier S. 43f.

2021

2020

2021

2022

NO.13

No.14

NO.15

NO.14 __L'IMPÉRIALE

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.33 C MAJOR HOB. I:33 (c. 1761/62?)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Time of creation: till 1767 [1761/1762?]

Vivace / Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Die Hofmusik der Fürsten Esterházy galt vielen Zeitgenossen als eine der besten weit und breit, durfte sie sich – neben eines Ensembles exzellenter Vokalisten – doch wahrer Meister des Instrumentalspiels wie Luigi Tomasini auf der Violine, Joseph Weigl am Violoncello oder Carl Franz als erstem Hornisten erfreuen. Beherrschte manch einer unter diesen gleich mehrere Instrumente (was Haydn als Kapellmeister eine gewisse Flexibilität bei der Instrumentierung seiner diversen Tonschöpfungen erlaubte), so blieb ihm der Einsatz von Trompeten jedoch grundsätzlich verwehrt – es sei denn, dass er sich die dazugehörigen Musiker hin und wieder aus dem Ensemble der städtischen Ratsmusik lieh. Einer der Anlässe, die solcherlei Extravaganz erlaubten, war die Installationsfeier Nikolaus I. zum Majoratsherren und Nachfolger seines kinderlos verstorbenen Bruders Paul II. Anton, die am 18. Mai 1762 begangen wurde². Dieses, oder vielleicht ein anderes, noch etwas früheres Ereignis, mag es demnach gewesen sein, aus dessen Anlass die Sinfonie C-Dur Hob. I:33 zum ersten Mal und mit personeller Unterstützung seitens des Eisenstädter Thurnermeisters Anton Höld d. Ä. erklungen war³; ein Werk, das – vielleicht auch aus Gründen der Pietät – sich seinem Publikum gegenüber weniger glanz- als mehr gefühlvoll gab. Tatsächlich sind es die Nebenschauplätze, die kleinen, feinsinnigen, miteinander kommunizierenden Details, die den besonderen Reiz dieser Festmusik versprühen: etwa der senza Basso ausgeführte Seitensatz im anfänglichen Vivace, der der Viola eine so markante wie tragende Rolle zugesteht, oder das ihm unmittelbar vorausgehende lebhafte Wechselspiel von erster und zweiter Violine, aus dem sich in der Durchführung ein wahrhaft vergnüglicher kleiner ,Ballwechselʻ entwickeln wird. Dann ein von leiser Melancholie wie kontrapunktischen Stilelementen durchwobenes Andante, das vom Trio des Menuettsatzes, welches sich auf subtile Weise mit der humorstiftenden Wirkung synkopisch versetzter Stimmverläufe beschäftigt, beantwortet wird. Damit aber nicht genug, folgt doch darauf noch das finale Allegro, dessen unbekümmert auftanzendes Thema im Verlauf des Satzes eine vorübergehende, dramatische Wendung nach Moll nimmt. Angesichts seiner Entfernung vom leichtgewichtigen Kehraus früherer Werke und seines manipulativen Umgangs auf motivischer Ebene erkennt A. Peter Brown in ihm nicht weniger als einen der bedeutendsten Entwicklungsschritte des großen Sinfonikers⁴.

_{¹Zur Frage der Datierung von Hob. I:33 vgl. Ullrich Scheideler, „Vorwort“, in: Joseph Haydn-Institut Köln (Hg.): Joseph Haydn. Sinfonien um 1761 – 1765, München 2012 (= Joseph Haydn Werke. Reihe I, Band 2), S. VIIIf.
²Laut einem Archivale der Esterházy Privatstiftung Archiv Burg Forchtenstein [23.05.1762, GC 1762 R 5 F 4 N 8] „Eisenstädter Thurnermeister quittiert Bezahlung für Trompeten- und Paukenmusik bei Installationsfeier am 18. Mai“ (http://www.haydnstiftung.at/EHB10/ehb.php, Abruf: 03.03.2021).
³Vgl. Sepp Gmasz, „Die Musik der Bürger“, in: Harald Prickler und Johann Seedoch (Hg.): Eisenstadt: Bausteine zur Geschichte. Eisenstadt 1998, S. 155–166, hier insb. S. 157–161 (Abschnitt „Die Ratsmusikanten dominieren das 18. Jahrhundert“)
⁴A. Peter Brown: The Symphonic Repertoire Vol. II: The First Golden Age of The Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Bloomington & Indianapolis 2002, S. 47.}

SYMPHONY NO.54 G MAJOR HOB. I:54, extended version (1775 – spring 1776)

Orchestration:
a) original version: 2ob, bn, hn, str, without introduction
Time of creation: [1rst half?] 1774
b) extended version: with 2 fl, 2 bn, 2 tpt, timp, with introduction
Time of creation: [1775–spring 1776]

Adagio maestoso – Presto / Adagio assai / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Einen Quintsprung bzw. in Jahrzehnten etwa anderthalb von Haydns früher festlicher C-Dur–Sinfonie entfernt, liegt ein Werk, dessen unterhaltsamer, theatralischer Stil sich ,problemlosʻ in die Zeit der legendären großen Hoffeste auf Schloss Eszterház einfügt – 1772 zum Besuch des französischen Gesandten Prinz Rohan, 1773 für Kaiserin Maria Theresia, 1775 für Erzherzog Ferdinand Karl und seine Gemahlin Maria Beatrice Ricciarda aus dem zu Modena ansässigen Haus Este veranstaltet. Egal, ob es die Urfassung des auf 1774 datierten Autographen, oder die darin später nachgetragene, stimmlich erweiterte Fassung von ca. 1775/76 ist, die auf den Pulten liegt – die ,gute Nachbarschaftʻ, die Hob. I:54 mit Werken wie der Sinfonie Nr. 60 «Il distratto» oder Sinfonie Nr. 67 pflegt, ist unüberhörbar. Angesicht der üblicherweise, so auch durch das Kammerorchester Basel präsentierten Fassung mit hinzugefügten Stimmen für je zwei Flöten und Trompeten, für Pauken und ein zweites Fagott, mag man sich natürlich fragen, was den Ausschlag für die einst vorgenommene beträchtliche Vermehrung innerhalb des Bläserapparats gab. Immerhin ließ sie die G-Dur–Sinfonie, die zuvor ganz gewöhnlich mit zwei Oboen, zwei Hörnern und einem einzelnen, allerdings über weite Strecken bereits vom Streicherbass unabhängig geführten Fagott besetzt war, mit einem Mal auf die Dimension der gattungsgleichen Werke von Haydns späterer, erster Londonreise anwachsen. Der Grund hierfür dürfte in der Neubesetzung etlicher Musikerposten um die seinerzeitige Jahreswende und dem mit April 1776 einsetzenden allabendlichen Theaterbetrieb auf Schloss Eszterház zu finden sein. Drei neue Oboisten – von denen zwei sich auch auf das Spiel der Traversflöte verstanden – sowie einen jüngst eingestellten, aus Wien ,importiertenʻ Fagottisten galt es zu präsentieren – kein geringes Unterfangen, wenn es zu gleicher Zeit noch die feierliche Eröffnung der Opernsaison vorzubereiten gab! Ob sich das auch mit einer bereits aufgeführten, dem Anlass entsprechend mit orchestralen Farben erweiterten Instrumentalkomposition bewerkstelligen ließ? An Zuversicht sollte es offenbar nicht mangeln...

Im ersten Moment mag sie tatsächlich etwas ,aufgeputztʻ wirken, die gleichsam nachgereichte, über siebzehn Dreivierteltakte im majestätischen Adagio dahinschreitende Einleitung zur Sinfonie Nr. 54. Was deren erste Niederschrift betrifft, so muss sie sich ursprünglich auf einem gesonderten Blatt befunden haben, denn das in der Budapester Eszterházy Sammlung bewahrte Autograph steigt erst mit dem Presto des Kopfsatzes und seiner kühnen, anfänglichen Mischung aus tief gelegter Bläsermelodie zu getupftem Paukenfell und unisono geführter Streicherbegleitung ein. Wem mag es da schwerfallen, der hierzu von H. C. Robbins Landon kreierten Vorstellung eines der esterházyschen Opernbühne entkommenen Buffone¹ zu folgen? Das Klopfen der Streicher nimmt ostinatohafte Züge an und bemächtigt sich alsbald weiter Teile des musikalischen Geschehens. Dann Schnitt, Generalpause. Wie um zu verhindern, dass allmählich so etwas wie vieltönende Eintönigkeit entsteht, legt unser Spaßmacher mit einem Mal – Verfechter der Sonatensatz-Theorie würden Ort und Stelle des Geschehens als „Durchführung“ deklarieren – ganz andersfärbige, vermutlich gelbe² Kleider an. Noch eine Generalpause und das Spiel beginnt wieder von vorne. Allerdings hat Harlekin oder Hanswurst oder Wen ihr wollt noch einen letzten Spaß auf Lager: einen Trugschluss mit Septnonakkord und Fermate – noch dazu im Pianissimo und nur wenige Takte entfernt vom Doppelstrich.

Nach solcherlei imaginärem Mummenschanz wird es doch höchste Zeit für etwas Ruhe. Und ausruhen dürfen Sie sich, wertes Publikum, nun wirklich und im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes – zu einem der längsten langsamen Sätze, die Haydn jemals geschrieben hat. Aber keine Sorge – aufgrund der „traumähnlichen Schönheit“³ des Adagio assai verbleiben Sie dort sicher überaus gerne für eine Weile ... oder zwei. Die Violinen sind gedämpft, der durch die Stimmen des Orchesters ziehende Gesang mit seinen vielen kleineren, sich auf- und alsbald wieder abbauenden harmonischen Spannungen ist von berückender bis tröstlicher Intensität. Die Hörner steuern tiefenentspannende Pedaltöne bei (bis hin zum Kontra-C) und zu guter Letzt treibt uns eine voll ausgeführte Kadenz von Violino I und II vollends in Morpheus' Arme. Was ist wohl die beste Medizin gegen einen auf solch kunstvolle Weise herbeigeführten wohligen Schlummer? Ein rustikaler Menuet mit schnalzenden Achtelvorschlägen und schwungvollen Drehfiguren – dazwischen ein munteres Liedchen von den Lippen des Solofagottisten! Samt seiner Kollegin wird er auch im an- wie abschließenden zweiten Presto überaus gut beschäftigt sein. Schließlich ist es ihr mit den tiefen Streichern geteilter Walking Bass, der in Verbindung mit der zugleich ausgeführten synkopischen Bewegung der mittleren (bis hohen) Streicher und jeweils abgelöst von einer kurzen, Murky Bass-unterlegten Passage den eigentlichen Motor des hin- und mitreißenden Finalsatzes bildet.

_{¹Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works, Vol. 2, Haydn at Eszterháza: 1766-1790. London 1978, S. 307f.
²Vgl. Justus Johannes Heinrich Ribock: „Über Musik, an Flötenliebhaber insonderheit“, in Carl Friedrich Cramer (Hg.): Magazin der Musik, Jg. 1, Hamburg 1783, S. 686–736, hier S. 708: E dur, wie wenn ein sonst Zanksuechtiger recht froelich, oder lieber lustig ist: eine Haerte bleibt fuehlbar. Gelb ist die Farbe und Macis Geruch.
³H. C. Robbins Landon: The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn. London 1955, S. 329: „dream-like beauty“.}

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.

_{¹Vgl. 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.
²Vgl. Haydn2032 No. 15 „La Reine“.
³Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: The Late Years 18001–1809. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977 (= Haydn: Chronicle and works Bd. 5), S. 320–325.
⁴Vgl. / 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.}

SYMPHONY NO.53 D MAJOR «L'IMPÉRIALE» HOB. I:53, version A

Final version A: with Introdcution, Finale: Capriccio Moderato
Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, timp (only 1rst movement), str
Time of creation: [1778]

Largo maestoso – Vivace / Andante / Menuet (Allegretto) – Trio / (Finale.) Capriccio Moderato

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Der mit April 1776 aufgenommene allabendliche Betrieb der esterházyschen Theaterbühnen mit in der Regel zweimal pro Woche, Donnerstags und Sonntags dargebotenen Opernaufführungen sowie gelegentlicher, zumeist Dienstags veranstalteter Marionettensingspiele, sollte sich für Haydn – vor allem in seiner Anfangsphase – zu einer regelrechten Belastungsprobe entwickeln. So fällt etwa auf, dass er, der sich fortan selbstredend um die Einrichtung und Einstudierung sämtlicher, d. h. vor allem fremder musikdramatischer Werke zu kümmern, die szenischen Proben durchzuführen und obendrein noch die abendlichen Vorstellungen zu leiten hatte, bis Anfang August des folgenden Jahres es nicht zustande bringen sollte auch nur eine einzige größere Neukomposition seiner selbst zu Gehör zu bringen. Dies schloss freilich auch Gattungen wie die der Sinfonie mit ein, innerhalb derer er vormals im Schnitt etwa drei bis vier pro Jahr geschrieben hatte. Mit der (thematisch gesehen) ins Zentrum des heutigen Konzerts gerückten in D-Dur – man beachte den nochmaligen Quintsprung in der Folge der Tonarten – sollte er den Faden jedenfalls wieder aufnehmen¹.

Zur erstmaligen Darbietung dürfte die Sinfonie Nr. 53 im Rahmen jener sechs Konzerte (eigentlich „Academie musiche“) gekommen sein, die in kurzer Folge zwischen Freitag, 30. Januar und Donnerstag, 26. Februar 1778 im Komödienhaus zu Eszterház bzw. in den fürstlichen Gemächern des Hauptgebäudes gegeben wurden. (Möglicherweise verbirgt sie sich sogar hinter jener „Sinf: von Mr. Hayden“, die – so der frischgebackene Theaterdirektor Philipp Georg Bader – des 11. letzteren Monats nebst einer weiteren Sinfonie, diversen Arien, einem Violinkonzert und je einem Divertimento wie Concertino des böhmischen Václav Pichl zum Vortrag kam.²) Hierbei müsste es sich allerdings noch um die – auch als „Fassung B“ bekannte – offenbar in relativer Eile konzipierte Frühfassung gehandelt haben, denn nur sie bedarf der Teilnahme eines zweiten Fagottisten. (Bei diesem drehte es sich nicht zufällig um eben jenen, dessen Anstellung die erweitere Fassung der G-Dur–Sinfonie Nr. 54 einst erst mit ermöglicht hatte: Er hieß Ignaz Drobn(e)y, galt schon 1773 als „der beste in gantz Wienn“³ und verließ die esterházysche Hofkapelle, die ihn Ende Dezember 1775 in ihre Reihen aufgenommen hatte, bereits wieder per 15. April 1778.)

Sie war „die vielleicht berühmteste“⁴ Sinfonie Haydns zu seinen Lebzeiten. Von London ausgehend, wo sie um 1781/82 bei James Blundell als „The favorite / OVERTURE / in all the Parts / As Performed with universal Applause / at / Messrs. Bach and Abel's Concerts“ im Erstdruck erschien, durfte sie sich bald einer beachtlichen Reihe von Titel-, Nach- und Raubdrucken zwischen daselbst und Paris, zwischen Amsterdam und Berlin erfreuen. Hinzu kamen zahlreiche Arrangements, etwa für zwei Violinen, für zwei- bzw. vierhändiges Klavier, für Klaviertrio sowie für Flöte, Streichquartett und Klavier ad libitum, die sich – vor allem auf den zweiten Satz, das Andante, bezogen – ins scheinbar Endlose fortsetzen sollte. Jedenfalls scheint von diesem Werk, seiner exzeptionellen Vermarktung wie dadurch bedingten schnellen Verbreitung ein entscheidender Beitrag zu Haydns Erfolgen und späteren Auftritten in England ausgegangen zu sein.

Was aber hätte die beste, seinerzeit denkbare Verkaufsstrategie bewirken können, wenn nicht die Musik auch ganz für sich sprechen würde? Das machte sie in der Tat, und zwar auf eine leichte, unmittelbar verständliche, sozusagen ,populäreʻ Art. Kein Wunder also, dass ihr aus den Reihen der Verfechter einer Phase des „Sturm und Drang“ im kompositorischen Schaffen Joseph Haydns, oder – etwas allgemeiner ausgedrückt – der romantisch geprägten Ideologie eines Kunstwerks und des dahinter stehenden, autonom denkenden Künstlers, in noch nicht allzu ferner Vergangenheit manch abfälliges Urteil entgegengebracht worden war. Wie gut, dass diese Sichtweise heutzutage kaum mehr Anhänger findet! (Aus Forscherkreisen sind neuerdings etwa Stimmen zu vernehmen, die danach fragen, ob aus Fällen, wie sie hier verhandelt werden, nicht vieleher eine „am Klassizismus orientierte“⁵ neue Weise kompositorischen Denkens herauszulesen bzw. zu hören wäre. Kein Wunder jedenfalls, dass gerade diese in England auf solch fruchtbaren Boden fallen sollte, hatte sich daselbst doch schon im frühen 17. Jahrhundert die durchgehende Tradition einer – von den Werken der griechisch-römischen Antike ausgehenden – in sich harmonischen, „klassischen“ Sprache herausgebildet, die, von der Architektur ausgehend, allmählich auch auf Malerei und Bildhauerkunst, auf Literatur und Musik ausstrahlen sollte.)

Eine (in dieser Hinsicht) geradezu kongeniale ,Lesartʻ des Vivace, also des auf ein wiederum später hinzugefügtes Largo maestoso folgenden lebhaften Hauptteils im Kopfsatz der Sinfonie Nr. 53 findet sich bei Felix Diergarten: „Die Exposition ist einer jener funkensprühenden, brillanten, beim ersten Hören unmittelbar verständlichen, mitreißenden und eingängigen klassischen Allegrosätze, wie etwa auch Mozarts Ouvertüren zu Figaro oder Don Giovanni, um zwei der prominentesten Beispiele zu nennen […]. Permanente Wiederholungen kleiner und großer Versatzstücke ermöglichen eine groß dimensionierte [Vorstellung des thematischen Materials] bei gleichzeitiger Übersichtlichkeit, Fasslichkeit und rhythmischer Schlagkraft. […] Alle Abschnitte sind […] miteinander verbunden, so dass sich […] ein 84-taktiges ,Fortströmenʻ ergibt.“⁶ Sein Thema, in dem sich „melodische Banalität“ und „äußerst sensibel gehandhabte Klanglichkeit und Instrumentierung gegenüber [stehen]“⁷ sowie ein im Pianissimo und tiefer Streicherlage vergleichsweise spät eingeführtes Nebenthema prägen auch den weiteren Satzverlauf auf sehr ,unterhaltsameʻ Weise: etwa in der Durchführung, die mit „gedehnten Dissonanzen, […] melancholischen Vorhalten und chiaroscuro-Effekten“⁸ und „einer herrlichen Passage von ,ausgezeichneter [chromatischer] Lebhaftigkeitʻ zurück in die Reprise [führt]“⁹.

Mit mehr als 30 eigenen, zwischen 1783 und 1820 erschienenen Bearbeitungen (darunter etwa die Hälfte für Gesang und Klavier aber z. B. auch eine für Harfe aus der Feder des vormaligen esterházyschen Hofmusikers Johann Baptist Krumpholtz) als geradezu „sensationell populär“¹⁰beschrieben, sollte sich der zweite Satz, ein in der Form von Doppelvariationen angelegtes, d. h. zwischen Dur- und Moll-Strophen alternierendes Andante erweisen. Gemeinsam mit James Webster¹¹ dürfen wir feststellen, dass sich eine jede zweitaktige Unterphrase aus Haydns volksliedartiger, vermutlich aber selbsterfundener Melodie von allen anderen unterscheidet. Hinzu kommt die simplizistisch-naive und dennoch so kunstvoll dezente Art, wie Haydn sich darauf verstand selbige zu begleiten und bis in den finalen Variationsteil hinein stetig zu verändern. Als besonders angenehm dürfte sein Publikum dabei das allmähliche Hinzutreten der Bläser, zunächst die Flöte samt solistisch geführtem Fagott (mit Verdoppelung der von den Violinen gespielten Melodie erst eine Oktave höher, dann tiefer), schließlich die beiden Oboen mit finalen, überaus wirkungsvollen Stimmkreuzungen, empfunden haben.

Auf ein Menuett mit rustikalen Untertönen, kontrastierendem Pianoabschnitt und jäh unterbrochener Rückkehr zum Hauptthema, (das von einer Pianissimo-Passage mit Orgelpunkt fortgeführt und mittels chromatisch absteigender Linie zu einer lautstarken Reprise des im Unisono angestimmten Themenkopf führt,) folgt dann zuletzt noch ein ausgesprochen gut gelaunter, mit Capriccio überschriebener, formal recht frei behandelter Rondosatz, der in wahrhaftig Haydn'scher Manier auch ein paar Überraschungen ,auf Lagerʻ hat: Hierzu zählen etwa eine in den mollbestimmten, zur Larmoyanz neigenden Mittelteil eingeworfene, ,französischʻ anmutende Melodie, oder jener wunderbar ausgekostete Moment nach der letzten vollständigen Wiedergabe des Ritornells, wo der Kapellmeister die Violinen mit einer im Pianissimo und staccato vorgetragenen Achtelkette förmlich ,auf der Stelle tretenʻ lässt, um den aufgestauten Bewegungdrang der selbigen, wie das bereits ,in den Startlöchernʻ stehende Orchestertutti, schließlich dann doch in eine an Pointen reiche Coda zu entlassen.

Zum bisher nicht thematisierten Beinamen der Sinfonie Nr. 53 noch ein kurzes Nachwort des Kölner Haydn-Forscher Horst Walter († 2016)¹²: „In den musikalischen Quellen ist er nicht greifbar, auch nicht bei Gerber¹³ oder Pohl¹⁴. Mandyczewski¹⁵ könnte ihn bei Deldevez (1873)¹⁶ gefunden haben. In einem früheren Nachweis, in den Zürcher Neujahrsblättern von 1831, wird L’Impériale der Pariser Sinfonie 86 (ebenfalls in D-Dur) zugeschrieben¹⁷. Scheint also der ,kaiserlicheʻ Name eine Erfindung des 19. Jahrhunderts zu sein, so ist wenigstens eine ,königlicheʻ Fußnote auszumachen: Ein Exemplar des französischen Erstdrucks trägt auf dem Umschlag einer Stimme den Zusatz ,1784 Musique du Roiʻ.“

_{¹Dass er sich für den Finalsatz dabei anfangs einer Ouvertüre bediente, die er erst kürzlich – wohl für eines der besagten Marionettenspiele – geschrieben hatte, wird noch an anderer Stelle für Erzählstoff sorgen.
²Fürstlich-Esterházy'sches Familienarchiv im Ungarischen Staatsarchiv (Országos Léveltar) Budapest P 149 d. 9 B g No. 1a: Verzeichniß / der / Opern, Academien, Marionetten / und / Schauspiele / welche von / 23n. Januarii bis Xbris / 1778. / auf den / Hochfürstlichen Bühnen / in Esterhatz / gegeben worden sind. Abgerufen am 21.01.2021 über: Josef Pratl, Herbibert Scheck (Hg.): Esterházysche Musik-Dokumente, Wien 2017 (= Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte 10).
³Zit. nach: 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. VII.
⁴H. C. Robbins Landon, „Vorwort“, in Helmut Schultz (Hg.): Joseph Haydn. Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Symphonien, Band V: Sinfonien 50–57, Wien 1963, S. IX.
⁵Anselm Gerhard: London und der Klassizismus in der Musik. Die Idee der „absoluten“ Musik und Muzio Clementis Klavierwerk, Stuttgart und Weimar 2002, S. 196.
⁶Felix Diergarten: „Jedem Ohre klingend“: Formprinzipien in Haydns Sinfonieexpositionen, Laaber 2012, S. 155.
⁷Ebd., S. 156.
⁸Ebd., S. 160.
⁹James Webster, „Hob.I:53 Symphonie in D-Dur („L'Impériale“)“, zit. nach haydn107.com/Sinfonien/53 (Abruf: 21.01.2021)
¹⁰H.C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works, Vol. 2, Haydn at Eszterháza: 1766-1790. London 1978, S. 561: „sensationally popular“.
¹¹Vgl. Fußnote 9.
¹²Horst Walter, „Über Haydns „charakteristische“ Sinfonien“, in: Gerhard J. Winkler (Hg.): Das symphonische Werk Joseph Haydns. Referate des internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Symposium Eisenstadt, 13.–15. September 1995, Eisenstadt 2000 (=Wissenschaftliche Arbeiten aus dem Burgenland 103), S. 65–78, hier: S. 66.
¹³Ernst Ludwig Gerber: Neues historisch-biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler, 2. Theil, Leipzig 1812..
¹⁴Carl Ferdinand Pohl, deutsch-österreichischer Musikhistoriker, Archivar und Komponist. „Er veröffentlichte mehrere thematische Verzeichnisse: 1867 (Mozart und Haydn in London, 2. Abt., Wien, S. 365f.) Londoner Sinfonien; 1879 (A Dictionary ofMusic and Musicians, In two volumes, hrsg. v. George Grove, Vol. I, London) Londoner und „Symphonies which are known by titles“; 1882 (Joseph Haydn, Bd. II, Leipzig, Anhang, S. 1-3) 63 durchnumerierte Sinfonien aus den Jahren 1766-1790. Auf zahllosen handgeschriebenen Zetteln (Archiv der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien) hat Pohl zudem Vorarbeiten für einen thematischen Werkkatalog geleistet.“
¹⁵Eusebius Mandyczewski (Hg.): Joseph Haydns Werke. Erste kritisch durchgesehene Gesamtausgabe, Serie 1: Symphonien, Band 1, Leipzig [1908]
¹⁶Edouard-Marie-Ernest Deldevez: Curiosités Musicales, Notes, Analyses, Paris 1873. Darin: „Catalogue thematique des Symphonies de J. Haydn“, S. 29–53. Der Eintrag von Sinfonie Nr. 53 – hier also vermutlich zum allerersten Mal mit „L'Impériale“ als Beiname befindet sich auf Seite 32/33.
¹⁷Johann Georg Bürkli: Biographie von Joseph Haydn. Zweyte Abtheilung, Zürich 1831 (=XIX. Neujahrsgeschenk an die Zürcherische Jugend von der allgemeinen Musik-Gesellschaft in Zürich auf das Jahr 1831 / Neunzehntes Neujahrsstück der allgemeinen Musik-Gesellschaft in Zürich). Darin: „Verzeichniß sämmtlicher Werke von Joseph Haydn, aus Gerbers Tonkünstler-Lexikon, aus vielen andern Quellen, und aus den besten bestehenden Musikalien- Catalogen ausgezogen “, S. 24ff., hier S. 25.}

2020

2021

2022

NO.14

No.15

NO.16

NO.15 __LA REINE

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO. 62 D MAJOR HOB. I:62

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, (2) bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: till 1781 [1780]

Allegro / Allegretto / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Allegro

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Am 18. November 1779 war auf Schloss Eszterház in Ungarn das „große Komödienhaus“ bis auf die Grundmauern abgebrannt, nachdem im benachbarten chinesischen Tanzsaal versehentlich ein nur zur Dekoration gedachter Ofen befeuert wurde. Während also nicht nur das 1768 eröffnete Theatergebäude sondern auch einige Instrumente wie wertvolle Partituren des Kapellmeisters Haydn zum Raub der Flammen wurden, zeigte sich Fürst Nikolaus ob des Fortbestehens seines über alle Maßen geliebten Theaterspiels, zu dem er erst wenige Jahre zuvor den Befehl erlassen hatte, es möge nun alle Abend lang im Wechsel von Oper, Komödie, Ballett und Marionettenspiel gegeben werden, offenbar keineswegs entmutigt, sondern voller Tatendrang.

So kam es etwa, dass nicht einmal drei Wochen später, am Vorabend des Namenstags des Fürsten, Haydns Azione teatrale „L’isola disabitata“ ersatzweise im nahestehenden Marionettentheater sowie am darauffolgenden Nikolaustag bereits der Grundstein für einen noch größeren, prachtvollen Neubau gelegt wurde. Überhaupt gehörten Namenstage, besonders wenn sie diejenigen des Fürsten, der Witwe seines verstorbenen älteren Bruders oder auch der Kaiserin und Königin von Ungarn, Maria Theresia, betrafen, stets zu den wichtigsten äußeren Anlässen, um einen neuen Höhepunkt im Theaterleben auf Schloss Eszterház zu setzen. Zu jenen gehörte auch der 15. Oktober 1780, der in diesem Jahr nicht nur – wie vormals üblich – das Ende der dortigen Spielzeit markierte, sondern – u. a. auch wegen des baldigen 40. Jahrestags der Thronbesteigung Maria Theresias, zur Eröffnung des neuen Theaterbaus auf Eszterház bestimmt wurde.

Dass die Monarchin, die seit ihrer Hochzeit mit Franz I. Stephan offiziell nur (mit)regierende Erzherzogin von Österreich war, ihr eigentliches Thronjubiläum, also den 22. November 1780 schließlich um nur mehr genau eine Woche überleben sollte, war außerhalb ihrer engsten Familie wohl kaum vorauszusehen. So bereitete man also ihr zu Ehren mit der großen Wiedereröffnung auf Schloss Eszterház ein Denkmal, das sie zwar nie sehen sollte, ihr aber mit Sicherheit gefallen hätte, wie eine Beschreibung des selbigen aus dem Jahr 1784 erahnen lässt: „Von der Vorhalle aus führte ein doppelter Treppenaufgang, der an beiden Seiten mit schmiedeeisernem Geländer verziert war, zu den Logen im Obergeschoss und zur Galerie. In der Nähe der Logen standen den Gästen Zimmer zur Verfügung, die mit Couches, Spiegeln, Uhren, Porzellan, verschiedenen Gebrauchs- und Ziergegenständen reich eingerichtet waren. Die Fürstenfamilie und die vornehmeren Gäste schauten die Aufführungen von den Logen und der Galerie im Obergeschoss aus an. Im Zuschauerraum befanden sich außer den Ehrenlogen 400 Sitzplätze. Er wurde mit vier großen Kachelöfen erwärmt, die von außen beheizt wurden.”

Da das mit allem Komfort versehene und der modernsten Technik der Zeit ausgestattete Theatergebäude aber im Oktober 1780 noch nicht vollendet, d. h. konkret die Bühnenmaschinerie noch nicht zur Gänze fertiggestellt bzw. funktionstüchtig war, musste im Zuge der diversen Vorbereitungen zur großen Festveranstaltung kurzerhand umgeplant werden. Ein, wenn nicht gerade der Leidtragende dabei war Joseph Haydn, dessen neuestes Bühnenwerk, „La fedeltà premiata“, eigentlich zu diesem Anlass hätte ‚aus der Taufe gehoben‘ werden sollen. Stattdessen war es die Gesellschaft des Franz Diwaldt, die gegenwärtig von Fürst Nikolaus verpflichteten Theatertruppe, der die Aufgabe zufiel, das neue Haus mit „Julius von Tarent“, einem Werk des literarischen „Sturm und Drang“ aus der Feder von Johann Anton Leisewitz zu eröffnen, in dem – basierend auf einer historischen Begebenheit am Hofe der Medici im Florenz des 16. Jahrhunderts – der Zwist der Brüder Julius und Guido von Tarent um die Bürgerliche Blanca zu derer beiden Tode führt. Da es für Nikolaus I. Esterházy aber wahrscheinlich undenkbar war, seinen hochverehrten Kapellmeister zu einem so großen besonderen Anlass ohne zumindest einen ersatzweisen Kompositionsauftrag außenvorzulassen, dürfte er wohl eilends noch eine neue Sinfonie bei Haydn bestellt haben, von der wir vermuten, dass es sich dabei um eben jenes Werk in D-Dur handelte, von dem aus gesehen unser heutiger, unter das Motto „Majestäten“ gestellter Reigen seinen Anfang nimmt. Als Begründung für diese These wären u. a. folgende Argumente vorzubringen:
1. Die Sinfonie Nr. 62 fällt allein schon aufgrund dessen, dass all ihre Sätze ausnahmslos in ein und derselben Tonart – nämlich in D-Dur – stehen, bereits so weit aus dem üblichen Kompositionsschema heraus, dass sie als ein genuin zusammenhängendes viersätziges Orchesterwerk wenigstens grundsätzlich infrage gestellt werden sollte.
2. Die Komposition, die mit der Bearbeitung der bereits um 1777 entstandenen, möglicherweise ursprünglich der verschollenen Marionettenoper „Genovefens vierter Theil“ zugehörigen Ouvertüre Hob. Ia:7 beginnt, trägt zahlreiche Merkmale einer in großer Eile vollbrachten Arbeit. Hierunter ist etwa das ursprüngliche Vergessen der Flötenstimme im ersten Satz der verschollenen Kopiervorlage zum „authentischen“ Stimmsatz des Esterházy-Kopisten und (kurzfristig beschäftigungslos gewordenen) Sänger Leopold Dichtler zu verstehen – ein Versehen, dem Haydn dadurch Abhilfe verschaffte, dass er den von Dichtler stammenden Vermerk „primo all[egr]o: Tacet“ am Beginn der Flötenstimme einfach tilgte. Daneben setzte Haydn die augenzwinkernde Bemerkung „Freund! Suche d[as] erste Allegro“ und trug schließlich das selbige im Anschluss an das zweite Allegro eigenhändig nach – wie auch die ergänzende Satzbezeichnung „Finale“ vor das vorherige.
3. Vom zweiten Satz, einem recht beschwingt daherkommenden Allegretto, schrieb etwa der Haydn-Forscher A. Peter Brown, dass hier der Topos einer Barkarole, ein (venezianisches) Gondel- bzw. Schifferlied anklinge, eine Art Charakterstück also, von dem etwa Charles Burney schrieb, dass es [um die Zeit seines 1771 erschienen „Present State of Music in Italy“] bereits so allgemein zelebriert wurde, dass ein jeder musikalischer Sammler von Geschmack in Europa gut damit ausgestattet sei.
4. Ein theater- wenn nicht gar opernhaftes Cliché, das den Beschluss der Exposition des Finalsatzes sowie die Durchführung des selbigen charakterisiert, korrespondiert zum besagten Barkarole-Topos auf eine seltsam eigensinnige Weise, in dem es ein Motiv, das dem sogenannten lombardischen Rhythmus folgt, bis ins scheinbare Gehtnichtmehr fortzuführen sucht.

Dem allen zufolge wäre es also durchaus möglich, dass die wohl ungewöhnlichste aller D-Dur-Sinfonien Joseph Haydns dereinst nicht nur an dem bereits erwähnten Namenstag von Maria Theresia bzw. der Heiligen Theresia von Avila auf Schloss Eszterház zur Uraufführung gelangte, sondern vielleicht sogar so um die Akte der Tragödie „Julius von Tarent“ herumgruppiert wurde, auf dass sie diese satzweise als Vor- und Zwischenspiele umrahme. Jedenfalls hätte solches Unterfangen ganz bestimmt auch dem gastgebenden Fürsten gefallen, der ja – wo immer nur möglich – der Komödie den Vorzug vor der Tragödie gab. Ein direkter charakterlicher Bezug zwischen Theaterstück und Rahmenmusik, wie Haydn2032-Fans sie von den ursprünglich aus Schauspielmusik bestehenden Sinfonien Nr. 28, 60, 63, 65 und 67 her kennen, wäre demnach bei „Julius von Tarent“ und Hob. I:62 nicht einmal unbedingt im Sinne ihres Erfinders gewesen...

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.

SYMPHONY NO.50 C MAJOR «DER GÖTTERRATH» HOB. I:50

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Period of composition: from 1773 [1773/1774]

Adagio e maestoso – Allegro di molto / Andante moderato / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Es gilt als offenes Geheimnis, dass sich das Theaterwesen am Hof der Fürsten Esterházy, egal ob es sich bei den aufgeführten Werken um solche des Sprech- oder des Musiktheaters handelte, sehr stark an Wien, d. h. an den Spielplänen der beiden k. k. Hoftheater, demjenigen am Kärntnertor wie dem nächst der Burg orientierte, wo sowohl Paul II. Anton als auch Nikolaus I. Joseph eine Loge gemietet hatten. Einer weiteren Mode des späteren 18. Jahrhunderts folgend, entschloss sich der Letztere der beiden im Juli 1772 einem gewissen Karl Michael von Pauerspach, Sekretär der niederösterreichischen Landrechte und passionierter Marionettenspieler, dessen erst kürzlich und mit großem Erfolg am Kärntertortheater zum Einsatz gebrachtes kostbares Figurentheater für sage und schreibe 300 Dukaten abzukaufen. Ein, wenn nicht sogar das vordergründige Ziel dieses Geschäfts wahr wohl, selbiges darauf bei einem bereits von langer Hand geplanten Besuch ihrer kaiserlichen Hoheit Maria Theresia, der Anfang September 1773 zu Eszterház stattfinden sollte, im noch zu errichtenden – vis-à-vis dem Opernhaus situierten Marionettentheater zu präsentieren. Als Begrüßungsstück für Maria Theresia, die ja auch Königin von Ungarn, wegen ihrer rigorosen Steuerpolitik bei dortigem Adel aber alles andere als beliebt war, hatte der ihr stets treu ergebene Fürst Nikolaus Esterházy bei Pauerspach als Direktor und Textdichter sowie bei Haydn als Komponist, ein Werk namens „Philemon und Baucis“ bestellt, das auf einer Metamorphose des Ovid basierend in einer Apotheose des Hauses Habsburg enden sollte. Voraus ging dem halb ernsthaften, halb komischen Geschehen um ein altes Ehepaar, dem die über die jüngsten Entwicklungen der Menschheit zürnenden Götter Jupiter und Merkur einen Besuch abstatten, ein Vorspiel namens „Der Götterrath“, von dem sich im Gegensatz zum darauffolgenden Singspiel allerdings nur die zweisätzige Ouvertüre sowie ein kurzes Instrumentalstück zum Auftritt der Göttin Diana erhalten haben. Diese Ouvertüre wiederum sollte – wie Haydn es des Öfteren in seiner kompositorischen Laufbahn zu tun pflegte – später um ein Menuett sowie einen Schlusssatz erweitert, eine kleine Karriere als eigenständige Konzertsinfonie machen, was, in diesem Falle abzuleiten durch das nunmehrige Vorhandensein von Stimmen für zwei 1773 nicht verfügbare Trompeten, höchstwahrscheinlich im Jahr 1774, spätestens jedoch 1775 geschehen war. Dürften die beiden ersten Sätze der C-Dur-Sinfonie, die, ihrer Abstammung entsprechend, dem Werk in seiner Gesamtheit schließlich den Beinamen „Der Götterrath“ einbringen sollte, eine Reverenz auf den bekanntermaßen etwas konservativen Musikgeschmack der Monarchin zu verstehen sein, so sollte ihnen ihr denkbar hohes Maß an Theatralität allerdings keineswegs aberkannt werden. Hinsichtlich des Prestos, das auf einen pompösen Menuet-Satz folgt und von dem (aus den besagten Besetzungsgründen) traditionellerweise ausgegangen wird, dass es sich dabei um einen nachkomponierten Finalsatz handeln dürfte, entwickelte Manfred Huss die These, dass dieser auch möglicherweise schon als eine überleitende Schlussmusik zwischen dem Marionettenspiel und der einst darauf folgenden Illumination des Schlossparks zu Eszterház gedient haben könnte, als sich – einer Beschreibung der einstigen Festveranstaltung folgend – die Rückwand der Bühne zum beleuchteten Gartenparterre hin öffnete und ein Feuerwerk zur Verherrlichung der Kaiserin, der ungarischen Nation und des Wappens der kaiserlichen Familie abgebrannt wurde.

SYMPHONY NO.85 B FLAT MAJOR «LA REINE» HOB. I:85 (1785)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Year of composition: 1785

Adagio – Vivace / Romance. Allegretto / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Als Maria Theresia im Spätsommer 1773 zu Eszterház weilte, befand sich ihre jüngste Tochter, Erzherzogin Maria Antonia, längst zu Frankreich und mit dem dortigen Thronfolger Louis-Auguste, der als scheu, fromm und sittenstreng galt, verheiratet. Auch nannte man sie, die auf ihrer als bereits als Fünfzehnjährige angetretenen Brautfahrt gen Westen alles an ihre frühere Heimat Erinnernde, ihre Kleidung, ihren Schmuck, ja selbst ihren deutschen Namen ablegen musste, nunmehr Marie Antoinette, als die sie auch heute noch – befördert durch manch filmisches Porträt der letzten Jahre – für ihren individuellen wie extravaganten Lebensstil ein Begriff ist. Die Dauphine, die bald darauf zur vielbeachteten, vielkopierten wie letztlich auf geradezu tragische Weise vom eigenen Volk verachteten Königin der Franzosen wurde, war aber auch eine Musikerin von beachtlicher Begabung, sang und spielte das Cembalo wie die Harfe und galt überhaupt als eine Förderin der schönen Künste. In Paris frequentierte sie die bedeutendsten Orte des öffentlichen Lebens, namentlich die Oper. Der Komponist, dem Marie Antoinette dabei zeitlebens innigste Treue hielt war Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck, der ihr als Mädchen den Gesang und das Spiel diverser Tasten- wie Zupfinstrumente gelehrt hatte und den sie nun nach Versailles und Paris einlud. Mit ausgesprochenem Erfolg unterstützte sie Gluck dabei, das Musiktheater der französischen Hauptstadt mit Übertragungen seiner Wiener Reformopern „Orfeo“ und „Alceste“, sowie einer Serie von neukomponierten Tragédies, allen voran die „Armide“ von 1777, nachhaltig zu verändern.

Ab 1780 bot der Königin ihr Lustschloss Petit Trianon, nordwestlich des Schlosses von Versailles im sogenannten Petit Parc gelegen, die ideale Bühne ihren legendären Geschmack auszuleben, sich mit allerlei illustren Personen aus der Welt der Mode, der Literatur, des Theaters und der Musik zu vergnügen, worunter sich etwa so bekannte Persönlichkeiten wie Grétry, Delayrac und Monsigny, die Italiener Paisiello, Piccinni und Sacchini, der Dichter Beaumarchais, aber auch Antonio Salieri, Glucks Nachfolger im Pariser Opernleben, sowie ein gewisser Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges befanden. Als Geigenvirtuose, Komponist und Dirigent, aber auch als Athlet und Fechter mit karibischen Wurzeln weithin bekannt, soll dieser eine entscheidende, wenngleich nicht wirklich nachweisbare Rolle bei der Bestellung der sogenannten „Pariser Sinfonien“ Hob. I:82-87 von Joseph Haydn in Eszterház gespielt haben. Aus dieser (freilich recht wagen) Verbindung, bzw. den 1788 erschienenen ersten französischen Druckausgaben der bereits drei Jahre zuvor komponierten und von der Pariser Société Olympique, einer Freimaurerloge mit eigenem Orchester samt in der Salle des Gardes des Tuilerien-Palasts gegebener Konzertreihe aufgeführten Sinfonie B-Dur Hob. I:85, die unter dem Kopftitel „La Reine de France“ bzw. der Nennung des Beinamens „La Reine“ publiziert wurde, entstand schließlich die namentlich von Carl Ferdinand Pohl verbreitete These, dass sie ein Lieblingsstück von Marie Antoinette gewesen sein soll.

Wenngleich sich dies sich weder be- noch widerlegen lässt, zudem Pohls weitere Behauptung, Haydn habe für den zweiten Satz der selbigen die französische Romanze „La gentille et jeune Lisette“ verarbeitet wohl „unzutreffend“ ist, so lässt sich der Charakter von Haydns Musik, insbesondere der von den Anklängen an seine eigene Abschiedssinfonie von 1772 im Kopfsatz Vivace hervorgerufene – gemeint sind die dort immer wieder überraschend hereinbrechenden Skalengänge in f-Moll – doch ohne weiteres auch mit jenen düsteren Vorboten in Einklang bringen, die sich (nicht zuletzt ausgelöst durch den verhängnisvollen Betrugsskandal der „Halsbandaffäre“ des Jahres 1785) längst über der tragischen Gestalt der „Reine de France“ zusammenbrauten.

2022

2021

2022

2023

NO.15

No.16

NO.17

NO.16 __THE SURPRISE

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.90 C MAJOR HOB. I:90 (1788)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, (2 tpt, timp), str
Year of composition: 1788

Adagio – Allegro assai / Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro assai

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Haydn liebte es zu lachen. Belegen lässt sich dies etwa durch eine Beschreibung des in London wirkenden Klaviervirtuosen und Komponisten Muzio Clementi, an die sich der Musikhistoriker Charles Burney, ein großer Bewunderer Haydns, erinnerte:

„Clementi, der ihn in Ungarn bei Fürst Esterhazy sah, sagt er sei ein kleiner Mann mit brauner Gesichtsfarbe, um die fünfzig, trägt eine Perücke, und wenn er eines seiner eigenen kapriziösen Werke aufgeführt hört, lacht er wie ein Narr.“ ¹

Wenn also Haydn beim Hören seiner Kompositionen lachen musste, so darf man sich vorstellen, dass er dies auch von anderen daran Teilhabenden erwartete, besonders wenn sie aus den Reihen jenes Publikums stammten, das er direkt vor Augen hatte. Eine besonders einprägsame musikalische Passage, die er zu diesem Zweck auserkoren hatte, findet sich in der Sinfonie Nr. 90 wieder.
Gegen Ende des Finales der Komposition scheint die Musik zu einem vorzeitigen Ende zu gelangen, auf welches schon so manches Konzertpublikum – man hört und erzählt es sich allenthalben – hereingefallen sein soll. Doch nach einer vier Takte langen Generalpause wird – welch feinsinniger, die Komik der Situation noch verstärkender Humor – der (ganz selbstverständlich) in der Grundtonart angesiedelte Satz in Des-Dur, der tiefalterierten zweiten bzw. neapolitanischen Stufe von C, wiederaufgenommen und endet schließlich in einer gewaltigen Coda.
Insgesamt darf Haydns ursprünglich für die Konzerte der Pariser Freimaurerloge Société Olympique verfasste C-Dur-Sinfonie, die laut Datierung des Partiturautographs im Jahr 1788 entstand, als ein ausgesprochen „charmantes, gewinnendes, mit festlichem Blechbläserglanz ausgestattetes Werk“ umschrieben werden – wie geschaffen als musikalischer Auftakt, nicht nur für ein Publikum heutiger Tage, sondern auch das der Mr. Salomon’s Concerts zu London, jener im Jahr 1786 ins Leben gerufenen Veranstaltungsreihe des aus Bonn stammenden Violinisten und Impresario Johann Peter Salomon. Ihm war es bekanntlich gelungen, den nach dem Tod seines jahrzehntelangen Dienstherrn Fürst Nikolaus I. Esterházy mit einem Mal beschäftigungslos gewordenen Joseph Haydn für musikausübende wie neue kompositorische Beiträge zu gewinnen.
Da Haydns erstes sich über die Jahre 1791-92 erstreckendes Londoner Engagement aus nicht weniger als zwölf Konzerten pro Saison zuzüglich eines Benefizkonzerts bestand, zu denen er insgesamt sechs neu komponierte Sinfonien beizusteuern hatte, erscheint es nur allzu logisch, dass dies ohne einen bereits mitgebrachten Vorrat an älteren Kompositionen nicht zu bewerkstelligen war. Zu diesen gehörte u. a. jenes Werk, das nach Beendigung von Haydns erster ‚London Season‘ anlässlich der von Charles Burney initiierten Ernennung des Komponisten zum Ehrendoktor der Universität Oxford aufgeführt wurde und deshalb fortan auf den gleichnamigen Beinamen hören sollte, aber auch die heute eingangs Erklingende. In einer Anzeige der Tageszeitung „The Times“ vom 23. November 1791 wurden jedenfalls Drucke beider Werke als „Haydn’s Grand Symphonies No. 7 and 8, performed at Mr. Salomons Concert, 1791“ annonciert,² erschienen beim Verlag Longman & Broderip, No. 26 Cheapside, Music Sellers to the Royal Family.

_{¹ Zit. nach Alvaro Ribeiro (Hrsg.):The Letters of Dr Charles Burney, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, S. 400 (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).
² Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn in England 1791–1795. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976, S. 54.}

SYMPHONY NO.98 B FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:98 ([1791/1792], WP 2.3.1792)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Year of composition: 1791/92
World premiere: 2.3.1792

Adagio – Allegro/ Adagio / Menuet. Allegro – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

„In 3^tn Concert wurde die neue Sinfonie in bfa gegeben, und wurden das Erste und letzte Allegro encort“¹ – also fasste Joseph Haydn auf trocken-humorvolle, (teil)anglisierte Weise in seinem ersten Londoner Notizbuch die Ereignisse rund um die Uraufführung seiner Sinfonie B-Dur Hob. I:98 zusammen, die am 2. März 1792 in den Hanover Square Rooms im Rahmen der Mr. Salomons Concerts über die Bühne ging.
Wie begeistert das Publikum damals sein neuestes Werk aufgenommen hatte, dürfte den Komponisten gleichermaßen stolz gemacht wie in gewisser Weise auch beruhigt haben. Schließlich war es noch nicht allzu lange her, dass die mit Salomons Konzertreihe in Konkurrenz stehenden Professional Concerts des auch aus Deutschland, genauer gesagt aus Mannheim stammenden und noch dazu gleichfalls am Hanover Square veranstaltenden Violinisten Wilhelm Cramer, seinen früheren Schüler Ignaz Pleyel aus Straßburg an die Themse geholt hatten, um diesen mit fleißiger Unterstützung der Presse als seinen großen künstlerischen Gegenspieler zu installieren.
Wann genau Haydn seine erste Londoner B-Dur-Sinfonie komponierte – mit Hob. I:102 sollte ihr etwa drei Jahre später noch eine weitere folgen –, lässt sich nur vermuten, da die entsprechende Stelle am Titelblatt des Autographs abgerissen und verlorengegangen ist. Angesichts des großen Arbeitspensums, das Haydn im Winter 1791/92 zu bewältigen hatte, ist jedoch anzunehmen, dass er das Werk bereits in Grundzügen während seines auf einem Landgut in Herfordshire verbrachten vorausgehenden Sommers konzipiert hatte. Dies wiederum würde allerdings der u. a. von Donald Francis Tovey vertretenen These widersprechen, dass insbesondere der zweite Satz der Sinfonie von Haydn einst als eine Art sinfonisches Requiem für Wolfgang Amadé Mozart erdacht worden war.² Unstrittig ist jedoch, dass Haydn im langsamen Satz von Hob. I:98 einen besonders tief berührenden Ton anschlug und dadurch, so Ludwig Finscher, „die Sphäre der […] gesellschaftlichen Unterhaltung und Verbindlichkeit radikal transzendier^[te]“.³
Im ersten Takt der ersten Violine mit der ergänzenden Spielanweisung „cantabile“ vorgezeichnet, verfügt das Adagio über eine leicht zu erfassende thematische Verwandtschaft mit der seinerzeit noch auf den Ausruf „God save the King!“ endenden englischen Nationalhymne und darf daher mit Fug und Recht sowie in den Worten A. Peter Browns als „the last of Haydn’s noble hymntype slow movements in triple meter and the most moving of its type“⁴ betrachtet werden.
Kaum hörbar, aber sicherlich nicht zufällig ist das Menuett mit dem vorausgehenden langsamen Satz auf subtile motivische Weise verbunden, allerdings lassen das schnelle Tempo und mittels Forzati hervorgehobene Akkorde inmitten der dunkel getönten B-Teile die ansonsten hier gerne anzutreffende spielerische Leichtigkeit des höfischen Tanzes vermissen. (Eine besondere, in diesem Fall sogar satzimmanente, innere Verbindung hat übrigens auch schon der erste Satz der B- Dur- Sinfonie, nämlich eine solche zwischen der gleichsam im Tempo Adagio gehaltenen Einleitung und dem darauffolgenden Allegro-Hauptteil vorzuweisen, denn beide greifen sie auf eine nahezu gleiche anfängliche Tonfolge zurück. Im ersteren Fall entwickelt sich daraus ein pathetisches instrumentales Rezitativ der Streicher, im zweiten schließlich ein dichtes Geflecht an kontrapunktisch-thematischer Arbeit.)
Wie schon das erste, so wurde – nach des Komponisten eigenen Worten – auch das ‚letzte Allegro‘ der Sinfonie Nr. 98, eigentlich deren abschließendes Presto, auf besonderes Bitten des Publikums seiner Erst- wie Zweitaufführung wiederholt. Dass es sich dabei, laut H. C. Robbins Landon, um das „komplexeste und ambitionierteste Finale in Haydns gesamter Karriere“⁵ handelt, hat mit seiner ausgewöhnlichen Länge aber auch seiner mit denkbar großem Ehrgeiz umgesetzten Sonatenform zu tun. Seine themen- wie motivverarbeitenden Elemente prägen aber nicht nur die Durchführung, bereits im Hauptteil des Satzes nehmen sie einen breiten Raum ein. Umso größer die Überraschung, wenn Haydn gleich nach dem hier angesetzten Doppelstrich und einer an sich schon seltsam anmutenden Generalpause sogleich ein „grotesk-gemütliches“ ursprünglich Salomon höchstpersönlich zugedachtes Violinsolo ‚vom Stapel lässt‘– und das zudem noch in der vollkommen unvorbereiteten Tonart As-Dur – ein Scherz, der sich übrigens vor Satz- und Werkende noch einige weitere Male in veränderter Form wiederholen wird. Das Schlusswort im zunehmend komischen Geschehen des B-Dur-Finale hatte allerdings an jenem Abend im März des Jahres 1792 der frischgebackene Doctor of Music himself – und zwar in Form eines kleinen, aber wohl ungemein wirkungsvoll vorgetragenen Tastensolos! Also umspielte Haydn – nach vorausgegangener Temporeduzierung und mit perlenden Figurationen – das allerletzte Erscheinen des Hauptthemas des Satzes.

_{¹Zit. nach Denes Bartha (Hg.): Joseph Haydn, Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen. Unter Benutzung der Quellensammlung von H. C. Robbins Landon. Kassel, Budapest u.a.: Bärenreiter, 1965, S. 512–13.}
_{²Vgl. Donald Francis Tovey, „Symphony in B Flat (Salomon, No. 8; chronological List, No. 98)“, in: Ders.: Essays in Musical Analysis. Symphonies and other Orchestral Works. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, S. 352–53.}
_{³Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2000, S. 368.}
_{⁴A. Peter Brown, The Symphonic Repertoire, Volume II: The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002, S. 262.}
_{⁵Vgl. H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn in England 1791–1795. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976, S. 534 (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).}

GIOACHINO ROSSINI: OVERTURE TO «LA SCALA DI SETA»

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)

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.

SYMPHONY NO.94 G MAJOR «THE SURPRISE» HOB. I:94 (London 1791, WP 23.3.1792)

Orchestration: 2 fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Year of composition: 1791
World premiere: 23.3.1792

Adagio – Vivace assai / Andante / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro di molto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

„[In Salomons Konzerten wurden …] auch Gesangsstücke, Concertstücke auf verschiedenen Instrumenten und zuweilen Chöre aufgeführt, so dass die Concerte öfters bis nach Mitternacht dauerten, wobei die Damen nicht selten eingeschlummert waren. Dies brachte Haydn auf den Gedanken, etwas zu schreiben, was dieselben aus dem Schlaf wecken sollte, und bei dieser Gelegenheit entstand das beliebte Andante mit dem Paukenschlag, worüber die Damen wirklich aus dem Schlaf zusammen fuhren, und manche sogar einen lauten Schrei hören ließen. Als Haydn eben dieses Andante komponierte, kam Gyrowetz zu ihm auf Besuch. Haydn war über seinen eigenen Gedanken so erfreut und fröhlich, dass er ihm sogleich das Andante auf seinem viereckigen Fortepiano vorspielte, dabei herzlich lächelte, und gleichsam im prophetischen Geiste ausrief: Da werden sie aufspringen!“¹

Der in England enthusiastisch gefeierte Joseph Haydn trug die ihm daselbst verliehenen Ehrentitel – „Doktor der Musik“, „Shakespeare der Musik“, usw. – egal, ob sie nun offizieller oder auch inoffizieller Natur waren, allemal zurecht. Hymnengleiche Adagios, subtile Komödien, ja sogar kleine Rüpelszenen – sie alle finden sich in den Werken, insbesondere Sinfonien, die er dort zur Aufführung brachte, wieder. Dass er mit der Kreation der selbigen aber nicht nur Mühe, sondern gelegentlich auch eine rechte Freude hatte – wie aus dem autobiographischen Bericht seines ihn gerne zu London besuchenden Musikerkollegen Adalbert Gyrowetz hervorgeht – sei ihm natürlich von Herzen gegönnt, auch über all die vergangene Zeit hinweg. Der Paukenschlag-Akkord der G- Dur-Sinfonie Hob. I:94 war also eine nachträgliche kompositorische Zutat – was auch ein Blick in Haydns Autograph der zunächst festgehaltenen Erstfassung des langsamen Satzes bestätigt. Denn jene Stelle, an der er später erschallen sollte, wird hier noch von einem einfachen Wiederholungszeichen eingenommen, das den Vorder- vom Nachsatz in der anfänglichen Präsentation des „semplice“ vorzutragenden Themas dieses wohl berühmtesten aller jemals komponierten Variationensätze trennt.

Einfachheit und Eingängigkeit gepaart mit Expression und solennem Pathos aber sehr gerne auch mit Witz und Ironie stellten seinerzeit eine Art Maxime im ästhetischen Empfinden der gehobenen Gesellschaft Englands dar, die auf literarischer Seite ihre wohl stärkste Ausprägung in den Werken eines Laurence Sterne fand. Die selbige nunmehr auch in der Musik anzutreffen, war hingegen etwas vollkommen Neues und dementsprechend stark wie nachhaltig auch der Eindruck, den insbesondere der langsame Satz aus Haydns Sinfonie Nr. 94, die am 23. März 1792 – also genau drei Wochen nach der im vorigen Konzertteil erklungenen Nr. 98 uraufgeführt wurde – beim damaligen Publikum hinterließ.

„Der große Name Haydns und die allgemeine Vortrefflichkeit der Konzerte unter der Leitung Salomons haben eine entsprechende Wirkung auf die Welt des Geschmacks und der Mode. Der Saal war gestern Abend überfüllt, und zwar von einer sehr eleganten Gesellschaft.
Eine neue Komposition von einem Mann wie Haydn ist ein großes Ereignis in der Geschichte der Musik. Die Neuheit des gestrigen Abends war eine großartige Sinfonie, deren Thema bemerkenswert einfach war, sich aber zu einer enormen Komplikation ausweitete, exquisit moduliert und auffallend in der Wirkung. Der Beifall der Kritiker war inbrünstig und reichhaltig.“²

Waren ‚Nobility and Gentry‘, das sich aus Adel und Bürgertum zusammensetzende Publikum, welches der „Sixth Performance“ der 1792er Serie der Mr. Salomons Concerts einst beiwohnte, schon nach dem Verklingen des „ersten Allegros“ von Hob. I:94 – eigentlich ein Vivace assai, das sich aus der Ruhe der einleitenden Adagio-Takte heraus entwickelt, von all der bis dato erfahrenen „simplicity“ bereits dermaßen angetan, dass es sofort in Applaus und Bravo-Rufe verfiel, so dürfte das, was unmittelbar darauf folgen sollte, einen wahren Sturm an Begeisterung ausgelöst haben:

„Der zweite Satz entsprach den glücklichsten Vorstellungen des großen Meisters. Die Überraschung [‚The surprise‘] ließe sich – auf nicht unpassende Weise – mit der Situation einer schönen Hirtin vergleichen, die, durch das sanfte Rauschen eines fernen Wasserfalls eingeschläfert, von dem plötzlichen Schuss einer Vogelflinte entsetzt hochfährt.“³

Die also mit ‚einem Schlag‘ berühmt gewordene liedhafte Weise des Andante, egal ob nun tatsächlich damit einst eingeschlafene oder anderweitig abgelenkte Zuhörer^*innen geweckt oder vielmehr zum erneuten Geschenk ihrer Aufmerksamkeit angeregt werden sollten, wurde bald so berühmt, dass sie in zahlreichen, zumeist mit Gesangstext unterlegten, anonym angefertigten Arrangements für den musikalischen Hausgebrauch erschien. Schließlich war es sogar Haydn selbst, der das beinah zum Volkslied gewordene Thema aus Hob. I:94 gleich einem ironischen Selbstzitat in sein letztes Oratorium „Die Jahreszeiten“ einbaute, wo es nunmehr wie auf Stichwort („In langen Furchen schreitet er dem Pfluge flötend nach“), zum musikalischen Spiel des Bauern Simon im Orchester erklingt.
Ein volkstümlich-musikantischer Bezug lässt sich aber auch zum Menuett der – bis auf den ‚Paukenschlag‘ – zwar noch in 1791 komponierten aber erst im darauffolgenden Frühjahr aufgeführten G-Dur-Sinfonie herstellen: Stampfende Akzente und stilisierte Juchzer zu ländlerartigen Rhythmen lassen vor dem inneren Auge bäuerlich-einfache Akteure einer in Tönen gegossenen Komödie, deren Gesten, Mienenspiel und Humor generierenden Dialoge erscheinen.
Eine weitere „überaus gesprächige Versammlung“ betrete – so der Eindruck von Wolfgang Stähr – schließlich „[i]m Finale der ‚Surprise‘-Sinfonie […] die unsichtbare Bühne, redet mit-, über- und durcheinander, tauscht Argumente aus, wagt scheue Einwände und polternde Machtworte, stutzt und verstummt, um zuletzt unter knallenden Paukenschlägen Szene, Satz und Symphonie wirkungsvoll zu beschließen.“⁴
Joseph Haydn, dem großen Erzähler der klassischen Sinfonie, gingen sie wohl niemals aus – die in Töne gegossenen Geschichten – erst recht nicht in jener gleichsam spannenden wir bislang erfolgreichsten Zeit seiner großen künstlerischen Karriere, wenige Tage vor Abschluss seines sechzigsten Lebensjahrs.

_{¹Zit. nach: Rita Fischer-Wildhagen (Hg.): Biographie des Adalbert Gyrowetz. Text der Originalausgabe 1848. Stuttgart: Matthaes Verlag, 1993, S. 89.}
_{² The Morning Herald, 24. März 1792. Zit. nach H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn in England 1791–1795. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976, S. 149 (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).}
_{³The Oracle. Bell’s new world, 24. März 1792. Zit. nach H. C. Robbins Landon: Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Haydn in England 1791–1795. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976, S. 150 (Übersetzung: Christian Moritz-Bauer).}

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No.17

NO.18

NO.17 __PER IL LUIGI

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.36 E FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:36 (1761/62)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Year of composition: till 1769 [1761/1762]

Vivace / Adagio* / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro molto
* with violin and violoncello solo

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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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SYMPHONY NO.16 B FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:16 (1763)

Orchestration: 2 ob, 2 hn, str (with solo-vc)
Period of composition: till 1766 [spring 1763]

Allegro / Andante* / Finale. Presto
* with violoncello solo

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SYMPHONY NO.13 D MAJOR HOB. I:13 (1763)

Orchestration: fl, 2 ob, 4 hn, str (with solo-vc)
Period of composition: [Aug.-Dec.?] 1763

Allegro molto / Adagio cantabile* / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Allegro molto
* with violoncello solo

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NO.17

No.18

NO.19

NO.18 __IL MAESTRO DI SCUOLA

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.55 E FLAT MAJOR «THE SCHOOLMASTER» (1774)

Scoring: 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: [1rst half?] 1774

Allegro di molto / Adagio, ma semplicemente / Menuetto – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Unter den vier Sinfonien, die in den erhalten gebliebenen autographen Partituren Joseph Haydns das Kompositionsjahr 1774 nennen – Nr. 54 in G-Dur, Nr. 55 in Es-Dur, Nr. 56 in C-Dur und Nr. 57 in D-Dur – sticht die hier Zweitgereihte schon allein dadurch hervor, dass sie mit einem (möglicherweise durch Verwechslung zustande gekommen Beinamen) ausgestattet ist. Dieser, nämlich «Der Schulmeister», taucht zum ersten Mal im zweiten Band von Ernst Ludwig Gerbers «Neue[m] historisch-biographische[n] Lexikon der Tonkünstler» (Leipzig, 1812) auf, worin der Bezug zur Es-Dur-Sinfonie durch die Beschreibung «Das Violoncell macht zum Menuet-Trio einen obligaten Baß»¹ eindeutig hergestellt erscheint. Tatsächlich geht «Der Schulmeister» als Beiname bereits auf den 1765 begonnen Entwurf-Katalog zurück, wo er sich – laut eines Vermerks von Haydns persönlichem Notenkopisten Joseph Elßler auf ein – später verschollenes – sechsstimmiges Divertimento in G-Dur («Der Schulmeister genant») bezieht, das dann in dem 1805 von Elßlers Sohn Johann angelegten «Haydn-Verzeichnis» als «Der verliebte Schulmeister» wieder auftauchen wird. Ab dem 1840 von Aloys Fuchs zusammengestellten «Thematischen Verzeichniß der sämmtlichen Kompositionen von Joseph Haydn» scheint die Verbindung aus Sinfonie und Beiname dann endgültig konsolidiert, was u. a. dadurch zustande gekommen sein dürfte, dass die originale Partiturhandschrift von Hob. I:55 mittlerweile zum Bestandteil der (heute in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin aufbewahrten) Fuchs’schen Autographensammlung geworden war. Die inhaltliche Erklärung für selbigen Umstand erfolgte schließlich durch Carl Ferdinand Pohl, der in dem erstmals 1882 erschienenen zweiten Band seiner Haydn-Biographie von der Wahrscheinlichkeit schreibt, dass das variierte Thema aus dem mit «Adagio ma semplicemente» überschriebenen langsamen Satz, bzw. «dessen abgemessener Gang» die (vermeintliche) Namensgebung «veranlaßt haben [wird].»²

Der Weg, auf dem die 55. der 107 Sinfonien Joseph Haydns dereinst zu ihrem Beinamen kam, mag zugebenerweise ein wenig verworren klingen. Einem ihr vonseiten der Forschung entgegengebrachten Kommentar, nämlich, dass sie zu den besten Beispielen für «die ‚Hinwendung‘ Haydns zu jenem leichteremStil» gehöre, der für ihn «im Lauf der späten 1770er-Jahre so sehr an Bedeutung gewann»³, darf allerdings bedenkenlos zugestimmt werden. Solcherlei kam – so etwa Ludwig Finscher – nicht zuletzt dadurch zustande, dass das Prinzip der Verarbeitung eines satzübergreifenden Themas in mehreren darauf folgenden, in Besetzung, Charakter und Dynamik voneinander abweichenden Variationen gleich an mehreren Stellen der Partitur von Hob. I:55 durchgespielt wird, nämlich sowohl im Adagio, «mit dessen ostentativ simplen Thema […] von Anfang an höchst subtile Späße getrieben [werden]»⁴, als auch im Variationen-Rondo des Finalsatzes. «Vorher», fügt James Webster dem hinzu, «traten solche Sätze nur selten in einer Sinfonie auf, nun aber verwendet sie Haydn als normale Bauelemente.»⁵

Den beiden Variationensätzen, die – ob der Eingängigkeit ihrer Themen – sehr zur Popularität wie zur Verbildlichung (beispielsweise auch der späteren Sinfonie Nr. 63 in C-Dur «La Roxolana») beitragen sollten, steht in der Es-Dur-Sinfonie Nr. 55 ein mit vier Tutti-Akkorden im Forte eingeleitetes Allegro molto gegenüber. Dessen markantes Hauptthema wiederum lebt von allerlei farblichen wie dynamischen Binnenkontrasten und hat überdies eine von «Haydns besten [und zugleich längsten] Scheinreprisen»⁶ vorzuweisen. Das ihm vorausgehende Menuett zeigt sich hingegen von lombardischen Rhythmen, einer neuartigen Rückführung sowie einem Trio geprägt, das hier tatsächlich aus nur drei Stimmen, dem der beiden Violinen und einem in Achteln dahin schreitenden Walkingbass der Violoncelli und Kontrabässe, besteht.

_{¹Siehe Fussnote 2.
²James Webster, «Joseph Haydn: 1773–1774», S. 48.
³Ernst Ludwig Gerber: Neues historisch-biografisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler. Zweiter Theil. E – I. A. Kühnel, Leipzig 1812, Sp. 573.
⁴Carl Ferdinand Pohl: Joseph Haydn. Zweiter Band. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1882, S. 262.
⁵Zit. nach James Webster, «Joseph Haydn: 1773–1774», in: Haydn Symphonies Vol. 8 (1773–1774). The Decca Record Company Limited, London 1998, Beiheft, S. 47.
⁶Ludwig Finscher: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2000, S. 286.}

SYMPHONY NO.29 E MAJOR HOB. I:29 (1765)

Scoring: 2 Ob, 2 Hr, Str
Period of composition: 1765

Allegro di molto / Andante / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Die Sinfonie Nr. 29 entstand im Jahr 1765, also zu jener Zeit, in der Joseph Haydn hinsichtlich seiner Aufgaben bereits als esterházyscher Kapellmeister fungierte, den Posten aber erst im folgenden Kalenderjahr – nachdem sein Vorgesetzter Gregor Joseph Werner das Zeitliche gesegnet hatte – auch offiziell besetzen durfte. Das viersätzige Werk steht in E-Dur, das sich in Haydns Sinfonien als Grundtonart nur noch ein weiteres Mal findet, nämlich in der um zwei Jahre früheren Nr. 12. Die beiden Sinfonien weisen Ähnlichkeiten auf, die es nahelegen, dass Haydn mit E-Dur einen bestimmten tonartlichen Charakter anstrebte: vor allem im eher undramatischen «singenden Allegro» zu Beginn, aber auch im vergleichsweise gewichtigen Finale.

Im ersten Satz, Allegro di molto, treten also besonders erlesene, kantable Qualitäten zutage, und zwar bereits während der ersten leise angestimmten Takte, deren Melodie in dialogisierender Weise zwischen den Violinen und Oboen ausgehandelt wird. Die Reprise dieses Gebildes in Sonatenform ist – dem Eindruck des französischen Musikologen Marc Vignal zufolge – «eine der unregelmäßigsten des jungen Haydn. Nach zehn Takten wird mitten in einer Phrase die Eingangsmelodie einer kurzen neuen Entwicklung unterzogen, die ohne Übergang zu einer Art ‚Hilfsthema‘ überleitet. Dem ‚Schlussthema‘ in Triolenform wird darauf ein wichtiger Platz eingeräumt», der den besagten abschliessenden Formabschnitt zum «gefühlsmässigen Höhepunkt des Satzes» macht¹.

Der zweiteSatz, ein Andante in A-Dur, das nur von den Streichern gespielt wird, ist dreiteilig gebaut und mit zwei Themen ausgestattet. Das erste, eine graziöse Melodie über schreitenden Achteln der Unterstimmen, fällt dadurch auf, dass seine Phrasen im relativ schnellen Wechsel auf die ersten und zweiten Violinen verteilt wird. Trotz dieses überaus reizvollen Effekts zeigte sich Johann Adam Hiller, als er die Sinfonie nach ihrer Drucklegung im Pariser Verlagshaus des Antoine Bailleux² in seinen „Musikalischen Nachrichten und Anmerkungen auf das Jahr 1770» rezensierte. So schrieb von einer «lächerlichen Art», in der der «Componist die Melodie […] unter die erste und andere Violin getheilt»³ habe. Tatsächlich wirkt das, was Haydn im Andante der E-Dur-Sinfonie an musikalischem Material zum Einsatz bringt, und auf welche Weise genau dies geschieht, durchaus nicht wenig «lächerlich» – und zwar im (zeitgemässen) Sinne von «zum Lachen reizend»– denn der Melodie ist jedes Mal ein vom Thema abgeleitetes, recht rüde im Forte daher rumpelndes Ritornell der Unterstimmen angefügt. Das kontrastierende zweite Thema ergeht sich darauf – nicht unbedingt «viel gescheiter» – in schier endlosen Synkopenketten über weiterhin schreitenden Bässen. In der Coda des Satzes singen schliesslich beide Violinstimmen noch einmal einträchtig das Hauptthema, bevor ganz zum Abschluss im Unisono des gesamten Streicherapparats das besagte rüde Ritornell noch einmal im Forte erklingt, als ob der Komponist damit nochmals die humoristische Seite dieses durchwegs ungewöhnlichen Satzes betonen wollte.

Das Menuett vereint, wie das eröffnende Allegro molto, Eleganz und Kraft, während sein Trio – für Hörner und Streicher allein gesetzt – jeglicher Melodie entbehrt: Die Hörner beschränken sich auf lang gehaltene Noten, während die Streicher den Rhythmus skandieren: der Bass auf dem ersten, die Violinen und Violen hingegen auf dem zweiten und dritten Taktteil.⁴ Was für ein Gegensatz zum Finale, einem Presto im Alla breve-Takt, das explosiv, gespannt und beinahe durchgehend lautstark vorzutragen ist. Das in grossen Notenwerten gesetzte Hauptthema des Satzes wird zunächst im Unisono der Streicher vorgestellt, dessen Nachsatz aber bereits kontrapunktische Verarbeitung zeigt. Über weite Strecken ist der Satz von pulsierenden Viertelnoten durchzogen, was dem Ganzen eine enorme motorische Energie verleiht.

_{¹Zitate nach Marc Vignal, «Joseph Haydn: Sinfonien Nr. 21-24, 28-31 und 34», in: Haydn Symphonies Vol. 4 (1764–65). The Decca Record Company Limited, London 1990, Beiheft, S. 48.
²Die Ausgabe, die u. a. auch die Sinfonien Nr. 3, 9, 17, 28 sowie eine Haydn zugeschriebene in Es-Dur enthält, wurde am 2. Oktober 1769 im «Avantcoureur» als «Six Symphonies a huit parties, composees par J. Hayden Maître de Chapelle a Vienne, & publiee par M. Bailleux, Œuvre VII» angezeigt.
³Johann Adam Hiller: Musikalischen Nachrichten und Anmerkungen auf das Jahr 1770. Erster Theil […]. Verlag der Zeitungs-Expedition, Leipzig 1770, S. 37f. (Fünftes Stück. Leipzig den 29. Januar 1770: «Nachrichten»).
⁴Mark Ferraguto bringt in «Haydn as ‘Minimalist’: Rethinking Exoticism in the Trios of the 1760s and 1770s», seinem Beitrag zu «Haydn 2009: A Bicentenary Conference. Budapest & Eszterháza, 27.-29. Mai 2009» (= Studia Musicologica 51/1–2, 2010, S. 61-77, hier S. 75) den Eindruck zur Sprache, dass «das Fehlen einer Melodie im engeren Sinne, das ostinatohafte Begleitmuster […], die ansteigende Linie in der Begleitung, die Verwendung des übermäßigen Sekundenintervalls sowie die Wendung zur Moll-Dominante an die karge und heitere Welt der Baryton-Trios» erinnern würden. (Gemeint ist jene Reihe von insgesamt 126 Werken, die Haydn zwischen 1762 und Mitte der 1770er-Jahre für Fürst Nikolaus I. Esterházy und dessen selbstgespieltes Lieblingsinstrument, das Baryton oder Viola di bordone, schrieb.)}

FRANCISZEK (FRANZ) LESSEL: from SYMPHONY NO. 5 G MINOR (1805)

Finale. Molto Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Franciszek (Franz) Lessel, geboren um 1780, vermutlich in Warschau, gestorben am 26. Dezember 1838 in Piotrków Trybunalski, erhielt den ersten Musikunterricht bei seinem Vater Wincenty Ferdynand (Vincenz Ferdinand), einem aus Böhmen stammenden, zunächst in Dresden, später dann in Polen wirkenden Violinisten und Komponisten, der seinerseits in den Genuss einer Ausbildung bei Johann Georg Schürer, Johann Adam Hiller und Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf gekommen war.
Im Frühling 1799 hielt Lessel sich in Lemberg auf und nahm als Violinist sowie als Pianist an mehreren Konzerten teil. Ende 1799, wahrscheinlich dank der Protektion durch die Fürsten Czartoryski von Puławy, ging er nach Wien, wo er ab dem Jahr 1800 ergänzenden Unterricht bei Joseph Haydn erhielt und sich auch von Luigi Cherubini und Antonio Salieri beraten liess.¹ In Wien hörte Lessel Konzerte (u. a. von Beethoven), trat als Pianist auf und komponierte.² Im Laufe der Jahre 1803, 1804, 1806 und 1807 verbrachte er einige Monate auf dem von Elżbieta Izabela Lubomirska (geb. Prinzessin Czartoryska) bewohnten Landsitz der Fürsten Lubomirski auf Schloss Łańcut. Am 4. Januar 1809 konzertierte er in Krakau, am 3. Februar 1810 schliesslich in Warschau, wobei sein pianistisches Können namentlich von Joseph Elsner, dem späteren Lehrer Frédéric Chopins bewundert wurde.³ Über das Leben des Komponisten, nachdem er um 1810 auf Dauer nach Polen zurückgekehrt war, ist vergleichsweise wenig bekannt. Bis etwa 1820 hielt er sich vornehmlich in Warschau auf, wo er als einer der Direktoren der dortigen Gesellschaft der Musikliebhaber wirkte und am 14. Mai 1818 in der St. Johannes-Kathedrale die 22-jährige Franciszka Hiż heiratete, mit der er vier Kinder bekommen sollte. 1818 war er zudem Mitglied derGesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Krakau geworden. Nach 1820 arbeitete er hauptsächlich als Gutsverwalter und widmete sich der Tonkunst nur mehr vergleichsweise selten. Die von ihm gesammelte, zu Teilen vom Vater geerbte Bibliothek (die eine ansehnliche Sammlung an Musikalien umfasste) gibt Aufschluss über Lessels vielseitige intellektuelle Interessen.⁴ Er sprach Latein, Französisch, Italienisch und Deutsch, letztere Sprache benutzte er für die Korrespondenz mit seinem Vater.⁵

Die Werke, mit denen sich Lessel den Ruf eines der wichtigsten polnischen Komponisten vor Frédéric Chopin erarbeiten sollte, wechseln zwischen spätklassischen, brillanten und frühromantischen Stilebenen, wobei ein den Kompositionen Joseph Haydns nicht unähnlicher Hang zur Theatralität sowie immer wieder auch Anklänge an die Volksmusik der von diversen Teilungen zerrissenen Landstriche Polens zum Tragen kommen. Ein Wesenszug, der auch dem Finalsatz (Finale molto Presto) der um 1804/1805 in Wien (oder Łańcut) entstandenen 5. Sinfonie in g-Moll⁶ eigen ist, dem einzig erhalten gebliebenen Stück des ursprünglich nicht weniger als etwa ein halbes Dutzend an Werken umfassenden sinfonischen Œuvre Franciszek Lessels⁷.

_{¹Georg Griesinger zufolge pflegte Haydn – neben Sigismund Neukomm und Ignaz Pleyel – Lessel «als seine[n] besten und dankbarsten Schüler […] zu rühmen» (vgl. Georg August Griesinger: Biographische Notizen über Joseph Haydn. Leipzig 1810, S. 119), weshalb er ihm wohl am 24. Oktober 1805 das Autograph der C-Dur-Sinfonie Hob. I:56 zum Geschenk machte. Für den Unterricht bei Haydn legte Lessel ein Exerpt aus Johann Joseph Fux’ Kontrapunktlehrbuch «Gradus ad Parnassum» (1725) an, welches er sogar mit einem eigenen Vorwort versah: «Elementarbuch der verschiedenen Gattungen des Contrapuncts nebst einer gründlichen Anleitung zur Composition von Franz Lessel zusammen gezogen (verschollen, bis 1939 in PL-Wn). Ausserdem sind Kontrapunktübungen Lessels erhalten (heute in A-Wgm).
²U. a. entstanden bzw. erschienen während dieser Zeit 3 Sonaten op. 2 (mit einer Widmung an Joseph Haydn) und 12 Ländler für Klavier, ein Streichquartett in A-Dur, ein Quartett G-Dur für Flöte, Violine, Viola und Violoncello op. 3, ein Grand Trio Es-dur für Klavier, Klarinette und Horn op. 4, ein Trio E-Dur für Klavier, Violine und Violoncello op. 5 sowie ein Adagio et Rondeau à la Polonaise Es-Dur für Klavier und Orchester op. 9, dem später mit dem in Warschau entstandenen Konzert für Klavier und Orchester in C-Dur op. 14, das heute bekannteste Werk des Komponisten folgen sollte. Hinzu kommen möglicherweise noch jene drei Bläserpartiten, die sich in CZ-Pnm und A-Wgm erhalten haben.
³Vgl. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 1811, Nr. 27, Sp. 449-459 («Bemerkungen über Musik in Warschau»), hier besonders Sp. 456f.
⁴Vgl. Ein Davidsbündler [Anton Wilhelm Florentin von Zuccalmaglio], «Franz Lessel’s Nachlaß», in: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 12. Band, Nr. 17 (25. Februar 1840), S. 67f.
⁵Vgl. Hanna Rudnicka-Kruszewska: Wincenty Lessel. Szkic biograficzny na podstawie listów do syna [Vincenz Lessel: Eine biographische Skizze auf der Grundlage der Briefe an seinen Sohn], Kraków 1968.
⁶In einem Brief von Wincenty Lessel an den Sohn, datierend auf den 22. September 1804, heisst es: «Deine Sinfonien haben wir wieder probirt u. abermals darauf beim Fürsten [Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski] gespielt, wovon aber die Fürstin [Izabela Dorota Fortunata Czartoryska geb. Gräfin von Flemming] nur eine, aus g-moll, gehört, aber ihren ganzen Beifall erhalten hat […]». Das heute in D-B aufbewahrte Autograph des Finalsatzes, mit «Finale / Pour la 5me Sinfonie / par / Fran: Lessel mpp“ überschrieben, trägt indes die Jahreszahl 1805.
⁷Ergänzend zur g-Moll-Sinfonie von 1804/1805, die im Autograph des Finalsatzes als Lessel «Fünfte» ausgewiesen ist, finden im Nachlass des Komponisten (siehe Fussnote 3) noch drei weitere Sinfonien Erwähnung: je eine in h-Moll, Es-Dur und D-Dur. Keines dieser Werke scheint indes jemals im Druck erschienen oder gar mit einer Opuszahl versehen worden zu sein.}

SYMPHONY NO.56 C MAJOR HOB. I:56 (1774)

Scoring: 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, 2 tpt, timp, str
Period of composition: [2nd half?] 1774

Allegro di molto / Adagio / Menuet – Trio / Finale. Prestissimo

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Nach Sinfonie Nr. 55, die mit ihrem Beinamen «Der Schulmeister» Patin für den (italienisierten) Titel des 18. Projekts von Haydn2032 – Il Maestro e il scolaro – stand, haben wir es bei der Nr. 56 abermals mit einem Werk aus dem Jahr 1774 zu tun. Zugleich stellt sie einen weiteren Beitrag zur ‚Unterart‘ der C-Dur-Sinfonie dar, deren Bestimmung – nicht nur, aber v. a. auch im Repertoire der esterházyschen Hofkapelle – gewöhnlich besonders festlichen, repräsentativen Anlässen vorbehalten war und die von Joseph Haydn (je nach Verfügbarkeit) mit einem um Trompeten und Pauken erweiterten Bläserapparat besetzt wurde.¹ Dem hieraus resultierenden, durch die einleitende Dreiklangsfanfare noch zusätzlich unterstützten pompösen Charakter des Kopfsatzes sind aber auch ernste, nachdenkliche Züge eigen, die geradezu neuartig wirken und das Werk über sämtliche seiner Vorgänger gleicher Tonart hinwegheben. Mit Recht erkennt etwa H. C. Robbins Landon in ihm die bisher höchste und inspirierteste Verkörperung des Haydnschen C-Dur-Typus und rühmt die wunderbare Verschmelzung verschiedenartiger Elemente innerhalb der festlich-glanzvollen Atmosphäre des Werks.² Als Beispiel hierfür mag man sogleich das Hauptthema mit seinem Kontrast aus straff rhythmisierten Unisonopassagen und weicher, ausdrucksvoller Melodik anführen, der durch den Wechsel vom Forte zum Piano und wieder zurück zum Forte eine zusätzliche Verstärkung erfährt. Das Spiel mit klanglichen und dynamischen Mitteln, mit Spannung und Entspannung herrscht das gesamte Allegro di molto über vor. Besonders eindrucksvoll ist dabei der fast ausschliesslich in Moll gehaltene erste Abschnitt der Durchführung. Eine Vielzahl von instrumentatorischen Feinheiten verrät, wie subtil mittlerweile Haydns musikalische Sprache geworden ist. Ein Beispiel dazu ereignet sich zu Beginn der Reprise, wo er jene zart-verhaltene Phrase, die den Unisonotakten folgt, in eine sich durch sämtliche Streicherstimmen fortspinnende imitatorische Passage münden lässt und über zunächst die erste Oboe, darauf beide Oboen gemeinsam ein anmutiges SoIo erklingen lassen. Ein weiteres Beispiel gefällig? Mit einem geheimnisvollen Paukenwirbel im Pianissimo bereitet Haydn – noch in der Reprise befindlich – den Eintritt des thematischen Seitengedankens vor. Nach Ansicht von Landon handelt es sich dabei um den ersten Auftritt eines Paukenwirbels in einer Sinfonie der österreichischen Schule³, einen Moment, der das sich unweigerlich nähernde Ende dieses eindrucksvollen Satzes umso majestätischer erscheinen lässt.

Die besondere Rolle der Bläser tritt auch im darauffolgenden Adagio zutage. Nachdem die Violinen – wie üblich «con sordino» (mit Dämpfer) spielend – das feierliche, getragene Thema vorgestellt haben, wird es sogleich von den beiden Oboen übernommen. Hierauf tritt das bislang nur den Streicherbass verstärkende Fagott mit einem grossen Solo hervor, ein weiteres Novum im kompositorischen Schaffen Joseph Haydns, der in der Folge Töne und Harmonien erklingen lässt, die, ob ihrer dunkel gefärbten Eindringlichkeit, in romantisch anmutende Sphären vorzudringen scheinen. Festlich-pompöse Gestik und tänzerische Anmut wechseln sich im anschliessenden Menuett auf reizvolle Weise miteinander ab. Auch eine humorvolle Saite wird daselbst angeschlagen, wenn etwa Haydn den Beginn der Wiederholung des Satzbeginns durch die Einfügung eines Pausentaktes verzögert.

Im Menuett von Hob. I:55, das mit insgesamt 94 Takten zu den bisher längsten seiner Art gehört, ist auch der Grundstein für die (motivische) Substanz des darauf folgende Finale zu finden. Zu lokalisieren ist er in den Triolenketten, die im Vorfeld der besagten Generalpause mit einem Mal plötzlich hervorbrechen. Genau diese werden schließlich zum alles beherrschenden Element des darauffolgenden Prestissimo, ein Satz von mitreissendem Schwung, der nach scharfen dynamischen Kontrasten, technischer Brillanz und einer besonderen Spielfreude verlangt.

In Verbindung mit dem an Harmonien wie Bläserfarben überaus reich bedachten Adagio lässt sich aus der Lektüre des Finalsatzes leicht verstehen, warum die Sinfonie Nr. 56 – nachdem sie im Jahr 1777 sowohl in der Reihe des Pariser «Concert spirituel» als auch im «Concert des amateurs» erklungen war – binnen Jahresfrist von nicht weniger als drei verschiedenen dort ansässigen VerlegerInnen publiziert wurde. Werke wie eben dieses begründeten nicht zuletzt auch jene Popularität, die Haydn insbesondere bei seinem französischen Publikum genoss und ihm schliesslich jenen ehrenvollen Auftrag einbringen sollte, der die Entstehung der sogenannten «Pariser Sinfonien» zur Folge hatte. Erst unter den selbigen wird sich, zwölf Jahre später, wieder ein Werk finden, das den Komponisten innerhalb des Genres seiner C-Dur-Sinfonien auf einer noch höheren Stufe der künstlerischen Entwicklung zeigt: die Sinfonie Nr. 82, bekannt geworden unter dem Namen «L’Ours»(Der Bär).

Im Gegensatz zu ihrem späteren Schwesternwerk, dessen Autograph nach dem aus Paris erfolgten Auftrag in den Besitz von Claude-François-Marie Rigoley, Graf von Ogny und Gründer des Concert de la Loge Olympique, übergegangen war, verblieb die Partiturhandschrift der Sinfonie Nr. 56 über Jahrzehnte hinweg im Besitz des Komponisten. Schliesslich aber machte er sie – am 24. Oktober des Jahres 1805 – seinem aus Polen stammenden, hochgeschätzten Kompositionsschüler Franciszek (Franz) Lessel (um 1780–1838) zum Geschenk.

_{¹Sinfonie Nr. 56 stellt dabei das früheste im Autograph erhalteme Werk dar, bei der der Komponist zugleich nach Hörnern in «hoch C» und Trompeten (bzw. «Clarini») verlangt.
²Vgl. Howard Chandler Robbins Landon: The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn. Universal Edition & Rocklife, London 1955, S. 340-41.
³H. C. Robbins Landon, «Sinfonie Nr. 56 in C-Dur», in: Haydn Symphonies Vol. 10 [Nos.] 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 64. L’Estro Armonico, Derek Solomons. CBS Masterworks 1986, Beiheft, S. 5.}

2023

2022

2023

2024

NO.18

No.19

NO.20

NO.19__TRAUER

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.108 B-DUR HOB. I:108 "B" (before 1765 [1762])

Scoring: 2 ob, bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: before 1765 [1762]

SYMPHONY NO.52 C MINOR HOB. I:52 (1771)

Scoring: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: before 1774 [2nd half 1771]

SYMPHONY NO.44 E MINOR "TRAUER/MOURNING" HOB. I:44 (1770/1771)

Scoring: 2 ob, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: before 1772 [1770/1771]

2022

2023

2024

NO.19

No.20

NO.21

NO.20 __FOR ENGLISH GENTLEMEN

Symphonies

SYMPHONY NO.76 E FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:76 (1782)

Scoring: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: [1782]

Allegro / Adagio ma non troppo / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Allegro ma non troppo

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Ab den späten 1760er-Jahren verbreiteten sich – ob als handschriftliche Kopien oder daraus gewonnene Druckerzeugnisse – die Sinfonien Joseph Haydns in erstaunlichem Tempo über Europa. Waren hierbei zunächst vor allem in Paris ansässige Verlage federführend, kamen alsbald auch solche aus London hinzu, wo diverse Konzertreihen um die Gunst eines zahlungskräftigen Publikums konkurrierten. Ihren ersten Höhepunkt erreichte die Präsenz, welche der esterházysche Kapellmeister am Musikalienmarkt und in weiterer Folge auch auf den Bühnen einer immer weitere Kreise ziehenden musikalischen Öffentlichkeit gewinnen konnte, in den Jahren um 1780. Nachdem ihn ein am 1. Januar 1779 unterzeichneter neuer Dienstvertrag von der Pflicht befreit hatte, seine Kompositionen «mit niemand zu Communiciren, viel weniger abschreiben zu lassen, sondern für Ihro Durchlaucht eintzig und allein vorzubehalten», begann Haydn seine Aufmerksamkeit auf das als besonders florierend geltende Musikleben der Hauptstadt des britischen Königreichs zu lenken.

Möglich, dass bereits Johann Christian Bach, der 1735 geborene jüngste Sohn des Thomaskantors zu Leipzig sowie sein aus Köthen stammender Kollege Carl Friedrich Abel sich darum bemühten Haydn als komponierenden ‹Gaststar› für ihre weithin bekannte, seit 1775 in Hanover Square Rooms im Londoner Stadtteil West End beheimatet, zu gewinnen. Ein erster nachweisbarer Versuch solches zu bewerkstelligen ging jedenfalls von Willoughby Bertie, dem komponierenden wie Flöte spielenden 4. Earl of Abingdon aus, dessen Schwager, der aus Italien stammende Tänzer, Choreograph und Impresario Giovanni (alias «Sir John») Gallini, sich seit 1776 im Besitz der Hanover Square Rooms befand. Nach dem überraschenden Tode Bachs am Neujahrstag des Jahres 1782 und des binnen weniger Monate folgenden Rücktritts von Abel hatte jedenfalls besagter Earl die geschäftlichen Agenden der fortan unter dem Namen «Hanover Square Grand Concert» laufenden Veranstaltungsreihe übernommen.

Im November 1782 berichtete der vielgelesene «Morning Herald», dass Haydn «stündlich erwartet» werde. Im Februar 1783 war er allerdings noch immer nicht eingetroffen, worauf im «Morning Chronicle» zu lesen stand, dass «wir [zwar aktuell] weder ihn noch seine Musik haben, die Musik aber sicherlich kommen wird, während der Musiker höchstwahrscheinlich in Wien bleiben muss.» Während die Musik tatsächlich kam und zwar in einem solch reichen Masse, dass an den zwölf Abenden der ersten Saison der Grand Concerts nicht weniger als elf Mal eine seiner Sinfonien erklingen konnte, blieb der Komponist der selbigen tatsächlich bis auf weiteres fern. Seinem englischen Publikum schien dies alles natürlich recht befremdlich und führte zudem auf Seiten der Presse zu immer bunteren Blüten, wie sie etwa der «Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser» vom 17. Januar des Jahres 1785 seinen Leser*innen bot: «Dieser wunderbare Mann, den man den Shakespeare der Musik nennt und den Triumph des Zeitalters, in dem wir leben, ist dazu verdammt, am Hof eines jämmerlichen deutschen Fürsten zu residieren, der sowohl unfähig ist, ihn zu würdigen, als auch der Ehre unwert … Wäre es nicht eine Leistung, die einer Pilgerfahrt gleichkäme, wenn ihn einige tatkräftige junge Männer von seinem Schicksal erlösen und nach Grossbritannien verpflanzen würden, dem Land, für das seine Musik wie geschaffen erscheint?»

Tatsächlich konnte sich Haydn ob der Wertschätzung seines Fürsten alles andere als beklagen und verrichtete seine künstlerische Arbeit in der ihrer architektonischen Vollendung zustrebenden Schlossanlage namens Eszterház überdies eh und je nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen. Trotzdem (oder vielleicht auch gerade deshalb) kam eine auch noch so kurze, räumliche «Verpflanzung» seiner selbst einem Wunschdenken gleich.

Da also Haydn nichts anderes blieb, als seine Musik auf Reisen zu schicken, brachte er in den Jahren 1782 und 1784 je eine Serie von drei Sinfonien zu Papier. Zugleich entwickelte er einen Geschäftssinn sondergleichen, der ihn die Werke der heute im Zentrum stehenden Trias der Sinfonien Nr. 76-78 binnen kürzester Zeit sowohl in handschriftlicher Form über diverse Notenhändler vertreiben als auch den Verlagen von Christoph Torricella in Wien, William Forster in London und Charles-George Boyer in Paris zum Kauf anbieten liess.¹

Als erste der drei für Haydns versäumte Englandreise der Jahre 1782–83 bestimmten Sinfonien, beginnt diejenige in Es-Dur Hob. I:76, mit einer nachdrücklichen Festlegung der Grundtonart, indem sie auf ihr erstes, von einem mondän auftretenden Fagottsolo geprägtes Thema zu gegebener Zeit ein zweites auf der Dominante B-Dur folgen lässt, das unter den Oboen und Violinen geteilt und von einer energischen Unisono-Passage durchkreuzt wird. Die zentrale Durchführung treibt sodann ihr Spiel mit einem dem Schluss der Exposition entnommenen Motiv, bevor sie das Hauptthema in neue Tonarten führt und das Material des Anfangs wieder aufgreift. Auch das darauf folgende Adagio ma non troppo hat zwei Themen anzubieten, von denen sich das erste lyrisch, das zweite hingegen düster-bedrohlich gibt. Beide Elemente werden abwechselnd variiert, wobei das letztere ein ausgeprägtes Gefühl von Dramatik vermittelt. Im Trio-Teil des Menuet wird der melodieführende Part durch eine Kombination aus Flöten-, Fagott- und erster Violinstimme gebildet, wobei dieser von den beiden Hörnern eine nicht unerhebliche Unterstützung erfährt. Das nicht zu schnell zu nehmende Allegro des letzten Satzes erfährt seine Zündung im abermaligen Zusammenspiel von Flöte und erster Violine, dessen monothematischer Verlauf in einer Folge von Imitationen ungeahnte Kräfte freisetzen wird.

_{¹Haydn hat also mindestens drei als «authentisch» zu bezeichnende Abschriften seiner Sinfonien aus der Hand gegeben. Bald kursierten aber auch unerlaubte Abschriften der selbigen, obwohl dies der Komponist – was sich zumindest am erhalten gebliebenen Aufführungsmaterial der B-Dur-Sinfonie Hob. I:77 belegen lässt – nachweislich zu unterbinden versuchte. So schreibt etwa Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart aus Wien in einem Brief an den Vater in Salzburg adressierten Brief vom 15. Mai 1784: «… ich weis ganz zuverlässig, daß Hofstetter des Haydn Musique dopelt copiert – ich habe seine Neuesten 3 Sinfonien wirklich.»}

SMYPHONY NO.77 B FLAT MAJOR HOB. I:77 (1782)

Scoring: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: [1782]

Vivace / Andante sostenuto / Menuet. Allegro – Trio / Finale. Allegro spiritoso

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Die Sinfonie B-Dur Hob. I:77 ist zweifellos die kompositorisch profilierteste der drei Sinfonien des Jahres 1782¹, weshalb sie auch möglicherweise von Charles-George Boyer zu Paris an den Beginn seiner mit der Opuszahl 37 versehenen, 1784 erschienen Druckausgabe² gesetzt wurde.

Die beiden Themen des mit Vivace überschriebenen ersten Satzes sind aus demselben rhythmischen Grundimpuls abgeleitet. Nachdem sie nacheinander vorgestellt wurden, beginnt mit der Durchführung ein kontrapunktisches Spiel, in dem der Kopf des ersten Themas in wechselnder Folge der mit sich selbst‹enggeführt› wird. Ein ähnliches Spiel, das auf dem selbigen des zweiten Themas basiert, wird indes frühzeitig abgebrochen, um der Reprise Platz zu machen. Im Gegensatz zum Andante sostenuto, das mit sordinierten Violinen und den dazu kontrastierenden Stimmen der mittleren und tiefen Streicher gefällt, wirkt der darauffolgende Menuet derb und behäbig. Zu guter Letzt nimmt das Allegro spiritoso³ den Duktus des Eröffnungssatzes wieder auf und schliesst insofern den Bogen, als auch hier die Durchführung über weite Strecken auf einem Fugato mit dem Kopf des Hauptthemas basiert.

_{¹Zur Vorgeschichte von Hob. I:77 vgl. den Wissenstext zur Sinfonie Nr. 76 Es-Dur.
² Nouvelle Suite / DE SYMPHONIES / A GRAND ET PETIT ORCHESTRE. / Composées / Par differens Auteurs. / DEDIÉES / à Monsieur le Baron de Bagge / Par le S^r. BOYER, Editeur. / N^o. 1 Contenant trois Symphonies / PAR J. HAYDN. / ŒUVRE 37^e. / […] .
³Der Zusatz «spiritoso» zur Tempoangabe des Finalsatzes geht auf eine handschriftliche Ergänzung Haydns zur Stimme der 1. Violine in der durch den Wiener Berufskopisten Johann Radnitzky erstellten Stichvorlage für William Forster zurück. Der Londoner Verleger registrierte den Eingang des dazugehörigen Stimmsatzes am 24. Februar 1784.}

J. CHR. BACH: SYMPHONY IN G MINOR OP. 6 NO. 6 (until 1769)

Time of creation: until 1769

Allegro / Andante più tosto adagio / Allegro molto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Johann Christian war der ‚klassischste‘ unter den Söhnen Bachs und zugleich derjenige, der von der Anmut wie Eleganz der italienischen Oper am stärkten beeinflusst war. Bedauerlicherweise wurde ihm lange Zeit nachgesagt, dass es seiner Musik an des Vaters Ernsthaftigkeit oder der Originalität seines Bruders Carl Philipp Emanuel fehle – ein Ruf, den seine Sinfonie g-Moll op. 6 Nr. 6, die erstmals 1769 im Druck erschien¹, auf eine besonders nachhaltige Weise aus der Welt schaffen sollte.

In vielerlei Hinsicht typisch für Johann Christian, folgt sie der dreisätzigen Form der Opernouvertüre und zeigt sich obendrein der Dramatik eines imaginären Bühnenwerks verpflichtet, wie dies auch von manch einer zeitgleich entstandenen Moll-Sinfonie Joseph Haydns behauptet werden darf. Betont werden muss aber auch, dass es der Bach-Sohn mit seinen musiktheatralischen Anleihen hier besonders ernsthaft meinte, insofern er dem anfangs angestimmten Tongeschlecht bis in finale Allegro molto die Treue hielt. Während die bereits im vorderen Allegro aufgebaute Spannung hier durch die tiefen, bedrohlich wirkenden Rufe der Hörner eine zusätzliche Steigerung erfährt, wird im vorausgehenden Andante più tosto adagio auch manch sanfterer Tonfall angeschlagen.

_{¹Bach Sinfonien op. 6 erschienen in zwei unterschiedlichen Ausgaben, die erste 1769 bei Antoine Huberty in Paris, die zweite im darauffolgenden Jahr bei Johann Julius Hummel in Amsterdam. Allerdings stimmen die beiden Drucke nur in vier Stücken überein. Trotzdem bildet die Sinfonie g-Moll in beiden Fällen das Schlussstück.}

SYMPHONY NO.78 C MINOR HOB. I:78 (1782)

Scoring: fl, 2 ob, 2 bn, 2 hn, str
Period of composition: [1782]

Vivace / Adagio / Menuet. Allegretto – Trio / Finale. Presto

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von Christian Moritz-Bauer

Wie schon die ihr unmittelbar vorausgegangene B-Dur-Sinfonie mit einem Vivace beginnend, ist die (nach der Zählung in Anthony van Hobokens «Thematisch-bibliographischem Werkverzeichnis») 78. der Sinfonien Joseph Haydns dazu imstande, eine denkbar grosse Palette an Gemütsbewegungen auszulösen, die von der zärtlichsten Liebe bis zu wütender Verzweiflung reichen kann.¹

Nach einem bewegten Einstieg in c-Moll wendet sich das zweite Thema der verwandten Tonart Es-Dur zu, die auch den weiteren Verlauf der Exposition bestimmt. Abermals zeichnet sich die Durchführung mit ausgefeilten kontrapunktischen Passagen aus, in denen Fragmente beider Themen verarbeitet werden. Im Gegensatz zu den langsamen Sätzen ihr vorausgehenden beiden Sinfonien werden die Blasinstrumente im wiederum in Es-Dur stehenden Adagio von Anfang an integriert was einer Vorausschau auf die späteren eigentlichen «Londoner Sinfonien» gleichzukommen scheint. Dem burschikos auftretenden Menuet in C-Dur folgt ein Presto bezeichnetes Rondofinale, das in einer Mischung aus Sonatenform und zwischen Moll und Dur changierenden Doppelvariationen daherkommt, wobei die ‹volkstümlichen› Episoden in C-Dur allmählich die Oberhand gewinnen.

_{¹Zur Vorgeschichte von Hob. I:78 (wie auch von Hob. I:77) vgl. den Wissenstext zur Sinfonie Nr. 76 Es-Dur.}