Haydn's Haus

[Karl Henning]

We are probably quite similar in this regard... whilst not being a Historian per se, my interest in CM was initially sparked through this aspect. A knowledgeable ex-neighbour, with whom I have shared many a history book, got me into listening to CM, initially through lending me the Requiems of Mozart, LvB & Dvorak along with some info on the stylistic differences and why they were written. Although ironically her first and main love is the Renaissance (Victoria, Gabrieli et al) I have to say that the occasion... 3 1/2 years ago now, had me hooked, because I have long been fascinated with the transition from Classicism to Romanticism.. an even more ideological earthquake than the introduction of Enlightenment thinking on an age pre-occupied with the delightful frivolities of the Rococco...

Beethoven wrote a Requiem? . . .

[Jared]

Quote of the day!

why, thank you good Sir... believe me, I'm not really capable of many of those... 

[Jared]

My ears remain pan-epochally voracious. Yet indeed I am enjoying hanging out more frequently here at Da Haus.

must be down to the personal qualities of the host, Karl.. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Beethoven wrote a Requiem? . . .

Nah, Missa Solemnis, no doubt.

[Jared]

Beethoven wrote a Requiem? . . .

OK, OK.... his Missa Solemnis... 

[Gurn Blanston]

We are probably quite similar in this regard... whilst not being a Historian per se, my interest in CM was initially sparked through this aspect. A knowledgeable ex-neighbour, with whom I have shared many a history book, got me into listening to CM, initially through lending me the Requiems of Mozart, LvB & Dvorak along with some info on the stylistic differences and why they were written. Although ironically her first and main love is the Renaissance (Victoria, Gabrieli et al) I have to say that the occasion... 3 1/2 years ago now, had me hooked, because I have long been fascinated with the transition from Classicism to Romanticism.. an even more ideological earthquake than the introduction of Enlightenment thinking on an age pre-occupied with the delightful frivolities of the Rococco...

Despite knowing myself rather well, still, when I got interested enough to listen to classical music, I told my wife not to worry, I wouldn't end up with hundreds of books on the subject. One didn't need to know anything about the history to enjoy the music. So now, hundreds of books later, my prescient wife has got to where she merely chuckles when a parcel hits the porch. Still, it would have been the first thing I was ever interested in that I didn't do the history of too. How and why would that happen? 



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Now playing:


Esterhazy Ensemble - Hob 11_123 Trio in G for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5 1st mvmt - Adagio

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, that got 4 pages back in a real hurry! Try it again....
Part 25

1776

From 1776 the daily programme included opera and theatre performances: between 1780 and 1790 Haydn directed over 1000 opera performances. Out of a total of 78 performed operas until 1784, Haydn wrote 15. The extensive Opera season occupied Haydn fully and reduced his creativity in nearly all other genres.
Haydn Festival Eisenstadt Website

Hard to phrase that more creatively or persuasively. Beyond scanning the list of works. The natural conclusion drawn from that over the years is that 'Haydn hit a creative dry spell'. But as we discussed a couple of years ago, the job of full time opera impresario didn't leave a whole lot of room for composition outside of it.

We are down to the next-last installment of baryton works. In another year they will disappear as though never having existed at all. Of course, pirated adaptations for other instruments were dominating the home sheet music market all over Europe at the time, and would continue to appear regularly for the next 150 years as 'string trios'. But the baryton itself would become virtually extinct outside of museums in just a few short years.

I short reminder that the marionette operas here are not Italian operas at all, they are mainly German singspieln so in Die Feuersbrunst of this year, we meet a character who was beloved of Viennese audiences for decades, and conversely despised by the ruling class whom he pilloried with satire. That would be Hanswurst. You should Google up or Wiki up a little history of this character. He epitomizes the Viennese sense of humor. It is truly a pity that of the <>10 marionette operas/singspiels that Haydn wrote, only the earlier discussed Philemon & Baucis and this one survived the ravages of the 1779 tragedy.

The music of 1776;

Hob 01_061 Symphony in D
   Academy of Ancient Music / Hogwood


Hob 11_119 Trio in G for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_120 Trio in D for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_121 Trio in A for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_122 Trio in A for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5
   Esterhazy Ensemble


Hob 29b_A Comic opera "Die Feuersbrunst"
   Capella Augustina \ A. Spering  Katzameier - Karasiak - Gericke – Bothmer


Whoa! One symphony in 1776? Well, maybe, maybe not. It is the only manuscript with that date that survived the 1779 fire, so whatever the actual count, one is what we have. It doesn't have the depth of the works of the early 1770's, but provides a high level of entertainment anyway. The second movement has been described as an evocation of the pastoral scene of an Italian opera, and indeed that argument could be made rather easily if one is into word picture to go with the music. The rondo finale is kind of interesting, the a section is in the major mode throughout, while the b and c are in the minor. He used this effect again (and better) in some of the London symphonies, but discovered its interest here in Esterháza. Hogwood's account is the only PI one that I have ever found, the cherry pickers all passed this one by. Their loss.

A few more baryton trios, almost down to the end now. No diminishment of creativity though, these works are entertaining from first to last.

And finally, a singspiel. The Burning House is actually an interesting story, likely easily related to by the man whose houses in Eisenstadt had burned down twice already. Apparently fire was a fact of life in those days. In any case, this is quite a nice little production. The Capella Augustina / Spering are as good as they are elsewhere, which is to say very good indeed. Singspiel with human characters was a relatively new phenomenon at this time, at least according to a letter from Mozart to his father from Munich where he saw one (music by George Benda, IIRC) and enthusiastically reported home. That planted seed led to The Abduction from the Seraglio in 1781-2. But in marionette opera, this was apparently nothing new, since there are no raised eyebrows or comments made anywhere about this being something new and unique (I looked!). Of course, marionette theater was huge in Italy and probably Europe in general for a long time by then, so extending that to opera, especially German opera, seems like a natural thing if your puppeteers are virtuoso.

As always, I invite discussion, feedback, questions, answers, expansion etc.

[Elgarian]

I'm afraid I will always continue to sit on the fence over this one... I love Romanticism as much as I do the product of the Enlightenment mind, even though they are polar opposites. I enjoy alternating Renaissance, Baroque, Classical & Romantic, every bit as much as I do Orchestral, Chamber, Instrumental & Choral/ Vocal. I certainly think however that discovering the joys of Haydn are to be worked at, and are not as immediate as many other composers.

Sometimes I have to admit total bafflement and recognise that I have no understanding of my tastes at all. Yesterday I listened to Act 3 of Valkyrie (Goodall/ENO/Hunter/Norman Bailey), and by the end of it I couldn't understand why I ever bothered listening to anything else. But then I've felt the same after listening to  Ariodante, La Boheme, several Mozart piano concertos, Immerseel's Beethoven 5, Haydn's 1st cello concerto, and Elgar's 1st symphony. I am, in short, a puzzle to myself.

[Karl Henning]

Nah, Missa Solemnis, no doubt.

OK, OK.... his Missa Solemnis... 

Well, but the Berlioz Grande Messe des morts might have been meant . . . .

[Leo K.]

Sometimes I have to admit total bafflement and recognise that I have no understanding of my tastes at all. Yesterday I listened to Act 3 of Valkyrie (Goodall/ENO/Hunter/Norman Bailey), and by the end of it I couldn't understand why I ever bothered listening to anything else. But then I've felt the same after listening to  Ariodante, La Boheme, several Mozart piano concertos, Immerseel's Beethoven 5, Haydn's 1st cello concerto, and Elgar's 1st symphony. I am, in short, a puzzle to myself.

I identify with this statement!

Although the music of the enlightenment has my heart, the music of Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler has always haunted me, and now, Elgar's music won't let me go either!

[Karl Henning]

Oh, I can certainly understand Mahler haunting someone . . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

Sometimes I have to admit total bafflement and recognise that I have no understanding of my tastes at all. Yesterday I listened to Act 3 of Valkyrie (Goodall/ENO/Hunter/Norman Bailey), and by the end of it I couldn't understand why I ever bothered listening to anything else. But then I've felt the same after listening to  Ariodante, La Boheme, several Mozart piano concertos, Immerseel's Beethoven 5, Haydn's 1st cello concerto, and Elgar's 1st symphony. I am, in short, a puzzle to myself.

Well, I don't know if you are different in that aspect from the "normal" classical music aficionado. Even I, who am out of the closet, so to speak, as being a Classicist all the way, get a nice thrill from listening to some of my favorite Romantics, like Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and especially Dvorak. It isn't as though I would dive into them the way I have Haydn, but it is damned fine music, and only a deaf man or a cretin would fail to hear it. But as a long term interest, I don't see how one can afford, in either time or money, to be totally catholic. If I was to research and study every composer that I really do like (let's narrow it down to those for the sake of argument), I would be long dead before I got half through the list. So I have just 4, and I will be lucky to learn them before I depart this mortal coil.

[Leo K.]

Oh, I can certainly understand Mahler haunting someone . . . .

LOL 

[Jared]

We are down to the next-last installment of baryton works. In another year they will disappear as though never having existed at all. Of course, pirated adaptations for other instruments were dominating the home sheet music market all over Europe at the time, and would continue to appear regularly for the next 150 years as 'string trios'. But the baryton itself would become virtually extinct outside of museums in just a few short years.

Thanks for your work here, Gurn, and I'm sorry that many of my comments have taken the thread off the track you had intended.. 

I will be honest, I have not as yet heard any of the Baryton Trios to which you refer.. I believe Haydn's heart wasn't always in the creation of of the over 120 trios he wrote for the instrument, and that as a whole, they aren't mentioned amongst his finest output... would I be right in thinking that this is the only complete set of these works still recorded?

[chasmaniac]

I don't see how one can afford, in either time or money, to be totally catholic...

The Lutheran in you must enjoy his Bach, then, eh? 

[Karl Henning]

No, the Gurnatron declines to compute the Bachster! The Old Bach, anyway ; )

[Karl Henning]

I will be honest, I have not as yet heard any of the Baryton Trios to which you refer.. I believe Haydn's heart wasn't always in the creation of of the over 120 trios he wrote for the instrument, and that as a whole, they aren't mentioned amongst his finest output... would I be right in thinking that this is the only complete set of these works still recorded?

It's such an out-of-the-way instrument, hardly anyone but a Haydn fancier would have heard any of them, Jared.  I've done only a sampling of them myself . . . I think that the fact that they aren't mentioned amongst his finest output is more a matter of their hardly having been heard, digested, evaluated, and it were wise not to leap to the conclusion that they aren't among his finest. (He wrote nearly as many symphonies . . . and surely quite a few of those are considered as ranking highly in the literature.)

Anyway, Gurn can speak to this question with much more intelligence than your servant . . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

Thanks for your work here, Gurn, and I'm sorry that many of my comments have taken the thread off the track you had intended.. 

I will be honest, I have not as yet heard any of the Baryton Trios to which you refer.. I believe Haydn's heart wasn't always in the creation of of the over 120 trios he wrote for the instrument, and that as a whole, they aren't mentioned amongst his finest output... would I be right in thinking that this is the only complete set of these works still recorded?

Oh, no harm done there, Jared. Any discussion is way better than no discussion!

Well, you know, it is a difference in attitude that prevails in the 18th century opposed to the 19th. In fact, the entire Romantic Revolution, as I call it, was based (IMO) on the fact that due to great changes in social mores and structure, composers felt that working for a living was not the stuff of artists. I'm not saying they were right or wrong, merely acknowledging their point. Haydn, OTOH, and JS Bach and Telemann and all of their peers ad infinitum were totally overjoyed to be where they were. Haydn wa every bit as happy writing baryton trios for his Prince as he would later be writing operas, or masses, or whatever he was asked (read: ordered) to write. He viewed himself as a master craftsman, and just like in any other trade he made things to order as well as he could.

OK, that said; it is my firmly held belief that there are 2 reasons why you don't see many baryton trios (but a lot more now). They are these: 1> that until the last 20 years or so, there haven't been any barytonists! and 2> there are so damned many of them that one can scarcely know where to start. I know that John Hsu, on his 3 disks, managed to include all the ones in the minor mode, and the one written for the Prince's birthday in 6 movements instead of 3. So he started in by knocking out the oddities first.

I strongly recommend that you get just this 1 disk, listen to it well, then form an opinion based on that. I think Haydn put a great effort into these from beginning to end. When you are writing for Baryton, Viola & Cello, it is hard to sound perky. But if you take them at face value and just listen to the great interplay of the parts, I think you might have a positive thought or two. Try it and see. 

This one here:

[Jared]

^^ no, that looks like a great place to start. I was looking at the Penguin Guide, who principally recommend the Hsu, Miller & Arico disks on ASV... which I'm guessing have been out a long time, and possibly harder to get hold of now, because they are hardly budget price.  I guess my initial thoughts were led by Sid's review on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Haydn-Complete-Baryton-Esterhazy-Ensemble/dp/B001P4KG1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1324577194&sr=1-1

where he discusses the ranking of this output and the merits (or otherwise) of jumping in for the whole set.

of course, I have heard of the instrument, and knew vaguely what it was... but the fact that it was such a sizeable portion of JH's output had completely eluded me.. 

[Jared]

No, the Gurnatron declines to compute the Bachster! The Old Bach, anyway ; )

Karl... I simply couldn't live without regular doses of Bach... I'm sure you're the same..