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1 CD -
2292-46018-2 - (p) 1990
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| Franz Joseph
Haydn (1732-1809) |
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| Symphonie Nr. 6 D-dur "Le
Matin", Hob. I/6 |
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22' 15" |
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- Adagio - Allegro
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6' 06" |
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1
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| - Adagio
- Andante |
7' 23" |
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2
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| - Menuetto - Trio |
4' 17" |
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3
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| - Finale. Allegro |
4' 29" |
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4
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| Symphonie
Nr. 7 C-dur "Le Midi", Hob. I/7 |
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25' 05" |
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- Adagio - Allegro
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8' 09" |
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5
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| - Recitativo - Adagio |
9' 05" |
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6
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- Menuetto - Trio
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3' 37" |
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7
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- Finale. Allegro
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4' 14" |
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8
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| Symphonie
Nr. 8 G-dur "Le Soir", Hob. I/7 |
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24' 51" |
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| - Allegro molto |
5' 35" |
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9
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| - Andante |
11' 41" |
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10
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| - Menuetto - Trio |
3' 11" |
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11
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| - Presto "La Tempesta" |
4' 24" |
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12
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CONCENTUS MUSICUS
WIEN (mit
Originalinstrumenten)
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Leitung
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Luogo
e data di registrazione
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| Casino
Zögernitz, Vienna (Austria) - giugno
1989 |
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Registrazione
live / studio
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| studio |
Producer
/ Engineer
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Wolfgang
Mohr / Michael Brammann
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Prima Edizione CD
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| Teldec
"Das Alte Werk" - 2292-46018-2 - (1 cd)
- 72' 38" - (p) 1990 - DDD |
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Prima
Edizione LP
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Experimental Music, Anno
1761
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Haydn’s trio of "imes
of the day” symphonies
was written in 1761: Symphonies
no. 5 “Le Matin”,
no. 7 “Le
Midi” ana no. 8 "Le Soir” show clearly
the hand of the twenty-nine-year~old
composer. Are these just early
attempts of Haydn to find his
symphonic feet, then? The
insignificant work of
a beginner in the
genre? Or even a commission obediently
executed for his employer, Prince
Esterházy? No
indeed, they are nothing af
the sort! On the
contrary, Symphonies nos. 6-8 shaw the
unrestrainable delight in experiment
at a creative young man who "pulls out
all the stops” here. These three
symphonies tell an exciting story,
which we retell here in leaps and
bounds.
On 1st May 1761, Joseph Haydn signed a
contract numbering fourteen
items, which bound him to the court at
Prince Paul Anton Esterházy in Eisenstadt
as "domestic officer".
Haydn, hitherto under contract
ta Count Morzin,
could not as yet guess that this
decree at 1761 would detain him at the
Esterházy court for
the best part of
thirty years. First of
all, he studied - with dn
understandable degree at excitement -
the new rights and duties attached to
his position as the newly-appointed
deputy Kapellmeister.
He was to make music, ta supervise the
musicians, to convey
any disagreements with the latter to
the Prince for him to decide on; he
was expected to keep the singers at
their best, to take care of
the instruments at the orchestra and
provide for the copying
of sheet music as
required, and, last but not least, -
thus the fourth item in
his contract - he was to compose whatever
was demanded of him
at all times:
"4. At the
supreme command of His Serene Royal
Highness, the Deputy Kapellmeister is
required to compose such works
of music as His Highness shall demand;
he shall
communicate with no-one with regard to
these compositions, and shall under
no circumstances allow them to be
copied, but shall reserve them
for the exclusive pleasure of His
Highness. In
particular: he shall not compose
music for anyone else without the
prior knowledge and consent of His
Highness.”
In present-day terms, Haydn
entered into an exclusive contract,
and he was bound to secrecy as well.
He was rewarded with annual emoluments
of 400 Rhineland guilders;
and he received a further,
non-material reward inthe shape of
Prince Paul Anton's passionate love of
music - an enthusiasm that was
surpassed by that of his successor
Prince Nikolaus Esterházy,
who became regent in l762. Employers
who loved and had an understanding of
music, and noble conditions of
employment: Haydn had struck lucky.
And fortune smiled on him for the rest
ot his lang life, towards the end of
which he wrote to his biographer Griesinger
expressing his gratitude to the Esterházy
family:
"My employer was satisfied with
everything I
produced; I received
applause and praise; as the director
of the orchestra I was allowed
to experiment and to observe what made the
desired impression and what
detracted from it - i.e. I had the
chance to improve, to make additions
and cuts, to take risks. I was
isolated from the world; there
was no-one nearby ta confuse or
irritate me, and so I had no choice
but to be original. ”
This summing-up of Haydn's career can
effortlessly be applied to the “times
of the day” symphonies. Here, Haydn
certainly did experiment and observe,
trying out ditterent
effects and juggling with different
styles. And in his experimentation,
paradoxical as it may sound, he looked
towards both the past and the future
at the same time. How come? Haydn
seems to have been familiar with the
basic wisdom of modern creativity
psychology, for he knew intuitively
that musical progress is borne on the
shoulders of composing tradition: the
composer who wants to make new
discoveries must study the scores of
his predecessors first of all, he must
be able to learn them and play them
himself. But we really ought to be
telling the story in the right order:
Haydn first set about the task of
reorganising the orchestra. He
enlarged the modest ranks of Prince Esterházy's
existing band (3 violins, l cello, 1
double-bass) by the addition of a flute,
two oboes, two bassoons and two horns,
and the body of strings was increased
in size too. Furthermore, we can
assume that the idea ot depicting the
times of the day in music came from
Prince Esterházy himself;
Haydn's
predecessor in the post, Gregor
Werner, had already composed a
"Musical instrumental calendar” circa
1740. And it's also helpful to know
that the Prince's collection of
scores included a large number of
Italian concerti -
concerti grossi by
Vivaldi, Tartini,
Valentini,
Albinoni and others testify
to the Princes fondness for the
italian concertante style. In
other words, Haydn had to take two
main things into account: the Prince’s
personal taste on the one hand, and
the new orchestra with solo woodwind
on the other. Hence the Symphonies
nos. 6-8 are actually concerti in
disguise: orchestral tutti alternate
throughout with concertino sections,
i.e. with solo ensembles. Haydn
skilfully combines the expansive
orchestral sound developed in the
Mannheim School with the traditional
development technique of
early origin, and arrives at his own
specitlc treatment of an “open-work”
style of composition
via this synthesis of historic and
contemporary elements. Another
circumstance that influenced the
symphonies was the participation of
virtuoso soloists in the Esterházy
orchestra. Thus the demanding solo
parts in Symphony no. 7 were written
for the violinist Tomasini,
while the tricky cello solos in the
finale of Symphony no. 6 and in the
adagio of no. 7 were a
gesture of affection for
Haydn’s friend Weigl, the principal
cellist at Esterházy. In
tact, it is not going too far
to say that Haydn’s concept of a new
type of symphony as a "concerto grosso
in symphonic form” brings out the wind
instruments in such prominent and
virtuoso manner, that a musical genre
of the future
is thus established: the sinfonia
concertante.
Looking back to the past, anticipating
whats to come: Haydn alternates
constantly between these two
strategies here. In the slow
introduction of the first
movement of Symphony no. 7, for
example, he has recourse to tradition,
with the pathetic and rhythmic spirit
of an old French overture being
conjured up; the programmatic
introduction to the Sixth, on the
other hand, brings a look ahead, with
the sun rising in musical form as it
was to do 37 years later in "The
Creation". "La Tempesta", a musical
depiction of a storm like that in
Vivaldi's E flat major concerto op.
8/5, takes us back again to tradition,
while the balanced chamber-music
"conversation" in the andante of no. 8
once again anticipates what lies
ahead. Here, Haydn creates the model
of a "musical discourse", with formal
sense of order and rhetoric nuances of
expression counterbalancing each other
in the manner that the philisophers of
the Enlightenment - Lessing,
Gottsched, Bodmer and Baumgartner -
viewed as the principle of a new kind
of art. The alternation of solo and
tutti in all three symphonies is
backward-looking in character, but the
solo bassoon line (the trio in the
minuet of no. 6), or the solo
double-bass (in the trio of the minuet
of no. 8) are clearly forward-looking.
Likewise forward-looking is the
fully-composed cadenza in the adagio
of Symphony no. 7: here, Haydn no
longer leaves the interplay of forces
up to improvisation, but determines
the relationship between thematic
substance and playful décor himself.
The traditional harmony and modulation
plans are undoubtedly
backward-looking, but harmonic attacks
such as in bars 87-92 of the first
movement of no. 7, where F major
suddenly veers off into the remote key
of B major, anticipate future
evelopments. Ket's return once more to
the rarity in the Symphony no. 7, the
slow movement. Haydn (one is almost
tempted to say: in bold
anticipation of Scumann or Liszt)
writes a "recitativo" in which the
solo violin develops the ability to
speak freely - what Schönberg was later to
coin the term "musical prose" to
describe. Haydn follows this with an
instrumental aria, a vocal Konzertstück which he then
rounds off in logical consistence
with the above-mentioned written-out
cadenza together with the orchestral
closing formula that comes after it.
Operatic drama and operatic
declamation: the 29-year-old
deputy Kapellmeister at
Eisenstadt even dares to try his hand
on this as yet unfamiliar territory.
Haydn cannot yet know Lessing's
"Hamburgische Dramaturgie" of 1769,
but he is already in the position to
realise Lessing's innovatory demands:
"In vocal music the text
offers far too much
support to the espression...
where-as this help is lacking in
instrumental music. Here, then,
the artist will have to employ
his utmost strenght; he will
only select from the sequences
of notes able to express a
feeling those that express it
most clearly."
Let's take a curious example: at
the opening of the adagio of
Symphony no. 6, the strings (= a
school class early in the
morning?) play a G major scale and
end up on the wrong note, B
flat; they are energetically
corrected by the solo violin (the
teacher?), which
points out that last note should
be B. An amusing little scene,
depicted in music of the "utmost
strength". Experimental music,
then, at a point when new rules
have not yet been drawn up.
Haydn brings everything together
that falls into his inquisitive hands: the old
concerto principle and the new
solo style of the symphony;
the old minuet and the modern
instrumental recitative; C. P.
E. Bach's or Gluck's "fiery"
style (compare the similarity
between Don Juan's journey to
Hell and the first movement of
Symphony no. 7) and the
Enlightenment manner of a
balanced debate (cf. the
andante of no. 8). Aged only
29, Haydn was lucky: he ended
up in the right place at the
right time, in the service of
the right man. Prince Esterhãzy
pushed the flexible young
composer forwards and made him
take heed of tradition at one
and the same time. And with
"his" new orchestra, Haydn had
the right framework for
experimenting. Capable
soloists were a challenge that
he responded to without
hesitation. And thus it was
that the year 1761 gave birth
to experimental music: Haydn's
lively mind found the new
musical territory just as
exciting as the old ground,
and couldn't resist exploring,
comparing, combining and
synthesizing. That is the
story that these three
symphonies tell: the story of
a model of musical progress
that has lost none of its
currency to the present day.
In other words:
the right conditions tor experimenting
have to exist, there has
to be suitable “moterial” for
experimenting on (and
that includes trodition,
of necessity), and of
course a mind
that loves to experiment
- and is given scope to
do so. Haydn had this sort
of mind - and
nothing does his boundless creative
genius greater injustice
than the cosy old image, full
of prejudice and
condescension, of “Papa
Haydn”.
Hans-Christian
Schmidt
Translation: Clive R. Williams
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Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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