The Salons of Haydn and Schubert (original) (raw)

Haydn as 'Minimalist': Rethinking Exoticism in the Trios of the 1760s and 1770s

A number of Haydn’s minuet movements from the 1760s and 1770s contain sparsely scored trio sections in which a single musical idea is repeated continuously, even obsessively. In these trios—of which the most distinctive are in symphonies nos. 21, 28, 29, 30, 43, 46, and 58—Haydn developed and cultivated an aesthetic of the minimal. While they conjure a range of moods, these trios share several features that mark them as a distinct type. These include circular harmonic motion, schematic melodies, and the use of certain characteristic intervals. Although modern critics consistently ascribe 'Balkan', 'Gypsy', 'Slavonic', or 'Eastern European' qualities to these trios, the evidence for these claims is scanty. The exotic quality of the trios is best viewed in light of Haydn’s minimization of particular compositional parameters, such as dynamics, scoring, as well as motivic and textural variance. At the same time, it is precisely the minimal quality of these trios that allows Haydn to explore in dramatic fashion the mechanics of contrast in the da capo form. While Haydn’s minimal style appears most consistently in trios of the 1760s and 1770s, it also informs his later trio writing.

Formal Innovation in Haydn's Mature Piano Trios (Hob. XV: 5-32)

Haydn’s piano trios, virtually ignored through all of the 19th century and most of the 20th century (with the exception of an occasional sympathetic observer, such as Donald Francis Tovey), have undergone a major rehabilitation in recent decades. The reputation of the trios began to rise with Charles Rosen’s glowing commentary in The Classical Style. Since then, H.C. Robbins Landon has discussed the trios at length in his magnum opus, Haydn: Chronicle and Works, while W. Dean Sutcliffe has explored their textural features, both in his dissertation and in two recent articles. All of these authors have made evident their admiration of these fine compositions, while at the same time, leaving many avenues for further exploration. This study seeks to focus on the mature trios’ formal variety. By the mid-1780s, Haydn’s use of the four-movement form for symphonies and string quartets left little room for experimentation. However, the intimate, more loosely structured piano trio genre, with its lower, flexible number of movements (two- and three-movement works exclusively) seemed to inspire Haydn to an unprecedented degree of formal diversity, working hand-in-hand with some of his most revolutionary tonal ideas. I will identify some basic formal models for both the two-movement and three-movement piano trios, and trace them back to certain formal designs from his middle- and late-period keyboard sonatas (Landon nos. 19-62 [Hob. XVI: 18-52], all but the last five composed between 1765 and 1784), his string trios (composed between ca. 1761 and 1767) and his baryton trios (composed between 1765 and 1778). The latter two groups are particularly interesting, since they are relatively unknown bodies of Haydn’s work that proved to be an effective musical laboratory for him. This formal variety carried over into the mature piano trios more often than it did in other genres on which Haydn lavished his attention after about 1784. Along with the “standard” fast-slow-fast three-movement model, Haydn used three additional three-movement designs and four other two-movement designs in the mature trios. This paper will explore the development of each model, and their interrelation.

Haydn the Romantic: A Revaluation of His Place in Western Art Music

History has traditionally credited Beethoven with being the first truly Romantic composer, lauding him as being a self-made individual writing out of spiritual necessity rather than financial expediency: an artist in the modern sense of the word, rather than “merely” a craftsperson. This paper goes beyond E. T. A. Hoffmann’s assertion that Beethoven in some way “completes” the Romantic innovations of Haydn and Mozart. I assert that Haydn (whose creative period overlaps the late years of Baroque stalwarts such as Handel, Domenico Scarlatti and J. S. Bach, and continued into the early 19th century) is the true originator of many innovations historically credited to the Romantic Generation. The tonal and formal daring of Haydn’s music, especially in his experimental phases (late 1760s-early 1770s, and after ca. 1785) will be explored, using examples from his string quartets written during those years, his keyboard sonatas from the late 1760s, and his late piano trios and solo keyboard works to illustrate. These works bear witness to Haydn’s own surprisingly Romantic-sounding assertion that “art is free, and will be limited by no artisan’s fetters.” From this large, varied body of works drawn from a three-decade period, I shall posit that, far from being merely a pseudo-Romantic precursor of Beethoven, Haydn is the spiritual father of much of Beethoven’s musical thought, which subsequently resonated so deeply with many of the 19th century’s musical figures.

School, Stage, Salon: Musical Cultures in Haydn’s Vienna

The Journal of Modern History, 2004

Vienna's reputation as a musical capital dates back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when it became synonymous with the names of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. True, with the exception of Schubert, none of these composers-canonized since the nineteenth century as the creators of "Vienna classicism"-could claim the Habsburg capital as their birthplace. Haydn was born in a Lower Austrian village near the Hungarian border. Mozart was a native of Salzburg, which, despite its reputation today as quintessentially Austrian, was the capital of a semiautonomous archbishopric that did not become a Habsburg territory until 1814. And Beethoven was a native of Bonn. Still, there is no denying the importance Vienna would acquire as a musical capital in the course of the eighteenth century. Haydn may not have been a Wiener by birth, but he did spend most of his career either in the city or within a day's drive, at the palace of his Esterhaizy patrons. Vienna was more or less Mozart's permanent home from 1781, when he was released from his service at the Salzburg court, to his death ten years later, and Beethoven resided in Vienna and its environs from 1792 until his death in 1827. In focusing on Haydn, the earliest representative of Viennese classicism, this essay addresses several broader issues related to the role of music in the culture of the Habsburg monarchy and to Haydn's place in that culture. In particular, my article explores three key moments in Haydn's career and development as a composer. These include, first, his boyhood years in the Lower Austrian town of Hainburg, where he acquired his earliest musical training in a modest parish school; second, the decade that followed his leaving the Choir School of St. Stephen's in Vienna (1748 or 1749-Haydn scholars are still uncertain about the precise date), when he began his career as a composer; and finally, his participation in Viennese salon life during the 1770s and 1780s. These moments-cultural snapshots, as it were-highlight important stages * I wish to thank Tom Beghin, Raymond Knapp, and Elizabeth Le Guin of the UCLA Departments of Music and Musicology for inviting me to present an earlier version of this essay in April 2001 at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Their conference, "Exploring Rhetoric in Haydn's Chamber Music," was cosponsored by the UCLA Center for Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-Century Studies.

Reviving the Classic, Inventing Memory: Haydn\u27s Reception in Fin-de-Siècle France

2012

Haydn’s French reception between 1870 and 1914 reflects a central concern of the era’s music criticism: the revival of a classical aesthetic within a post-romantic context. But which, or whose classicism was intended? Examination of contemporary French periodicals reveals a tension within the élite world of the concert hall: between the socially conservative advocates of Viennese classicism – Haydn’s music representing the standard – and supporters of a nationalistic, culturally progressive nouveau classicisme designed to rejuvenate a specifically French style without merely imitating eighteenth-century forms. While most scholars have located Haydn’s reception in France logically on one side of this divide, sources suggest a more nuanced interpretation is needed. Concert reviews show that, while audiences enjoyed Haydn’s music, many critics, habituated to Beethoven and Wagner, questioned the relevance of an “old-fashioned” style redolent of the defunct milieu of the ancien régime. A...

A Reevaluation of Haydn's Keyboard Sonatas of 1773

Art and Design Review, 2022

This essay focuses on Haydn’s set of 6 Esterházy Piano Sonatas, composed in 1773. These deceptively original sonatas, I will argue, have not been awarded their due by musicologists or theorists. Since Charles Rosen set the beginning of the Classical style at roughly 1780, others have described Haydn’s earlier works as “stylistically unformed”. This essay thus argues against such assessment and periodization, especially in the light of the innovations heralded by the Es- terházy Sonatas, as well as other works of this period. Therefore, a case shall be made for their being eminently Classical. To argue this, specific formal, harmonic, melodic features from individual movements are analyzed and assessed; several striking characteristics, demonstrating radical innovations usually recognized in Beethoven shall be revealed. In so doing, and also by engaging broader issues of perceptions of musical style, the essay endeavors to position the Esterházy Sonatas as influential works in their own light, as they point to the formal and stylistic sprouts rooted in the efflorescent Classical tradition.

Joseph Haydn’s Klavierstücke: A Detailed Examination

Joseph Haydn wrote (or arranged) around 85 compositions for solo keyboard, ranging from sonatas for harpsichord dating from the 1750s (intended for his students), to a triptych of piano sonatas, including two virtuoso works, in the mid-1790s. Though Haydn’s 62 sonatas predominate in his output, he also wrote many solo keyboard works outside the sonata genre. These works include capriccios, variation sets, a sonata-form Adagio in G major (later reworked for his piano trio, Hob. XV:22) and an assortment of shorter pieces, mostly arrangements of symphony and string quartet movements. A number of these works have been examined briefly by H. C. R. Landon (1976-1980), A. Peter Brown (1986), Lázsló Somfai (1995), and Elaine Sisman (2003) in conjunction with discussions of Haydn’s keyboard works in general. Building on the work of Landon, Brown, Somfai, and Sisman, this study provides detailed formal analyses of these works, according to the New Formenlehre of William Caplin, Janet Schmalfeldt, and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, focusing on the two capriccios (Hob. XVII:1 and 4), the three major variation sets (Hob. XVII:2, 3, and 6), and the Adagio in G major (adapted into Hob. XV:22). In so doing, this essay aims to give these fascinating works–largely unknown apart from the F minor Variations, Hob. XVII:6–their proper due. These Klavierstücke are not merely a musical footnote in Haydn’s compositions for solo keyboard: they provide an important stylistic link between the fantasias and rondos of C. P. E. Bach and the variations and bagatelles of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Reviving the Classic, Inventing Memory: Haydn's Reception in Fin-de-Siècle France

HAYDN, 2012

Haydn's French reception between 1870 and 1914 reflects a central concern of the era's music criticism: the revival of a classical aesthetic within a post-romantic context. But which, or whose classicism was intended? Examination of contemporary French periodicals reveals a tension within the élite world of the concert hall: between the socially conservative advocates of Viennese classicism-Haydn's music representing the standard-and supporters of a nationalistic, culturally progressive nouveau classicisme designed to rejuvenate a specifically French style without merely imitating eighteenth-century forms. While most scholars have located Haydn's reception in France logically on one side of this divide, sources suggest a more nuanced interpretation is needed. Concert reviews show that, while audiences enjoyed Haydn's music, many critics, habituated to Beethoven and Wagner, questioned the relevance of an "oldfashioned" style redolent of the defunct milieu of the ancien régime. Among the bourgeois concert-goers of the Third Republic, however, Haydn's music fired nostalgia for pre-revolutionary France, and triggered the projection of false memories of an aristocratic past that had never existed for their eighteenthcentury ancestors. Combined additionally with literary and visual associations, Haydn's music strengthened constructs of republican French identity and 2 historical validation for the new ruling class. Yet the tension between "classicisms" remained, as exemplified by the problematic results obtained by composers such as Debussy, d'Indy, and Dukas, who tried to integrate their respective styles with Haydn's in works commissioned by the Société Internationale de Musique for the composer's centenary in 1909.

How Haydn's Piano Trios Achieve the Complexity and Sophistication of His Larger Works

The piano trio falls under the genre of 18th century chamber music and more specifically, the sub-genre of accompanied keyboard music. This sub-genre was born with the rise of instrumental music and of the harpsichord as a solo instrument early in the century. The violin and cello were used as accompanying instruments to smoothen the texture of the percussive harpsichord sound (Fillion, 2001). The piano trios are accompanied sonatas, with the piano as the main instrument, the cello supporting the bass and the violin offering long, sustained sounds as well as punctuated accents. Haydn’s Piano Trio in C Major, Hob. XV:27 is one of three piano trios (Hob. XV:27-29) believed to have been written during his second tour of London in 1794-1795. Though written for amateur pianists, these late piano trios are as complex as his larger quartet and symphonic works (Tilmouth and Smallman, 2001). This paper provides an analysis of the form, harmony and meter of Piano Trio Hob. XV:27 using a combination of Caplin’s formal function/ punctuation model and Hepokoski and Darcy’s Sonata Theory (Klorman, 2016), metrical theory (Klorman, 2016) and harmonic analysis methods (Caplin, 2013), and shows how Haydn raised the level of sophistication of the piano trio to that of his larger works.

The piano trio in London from 1791 to 1800

1981

The late piano trios of Joseph Haydn, which were published in London during his two trips there in 1791 and 1794, are neglected and misunderstood works. This study examines Haydn's late trios in the light of other works of the same type which were published for the same audience in order to gain a clearer perspective of this repertoire. A variety of cultural and economic factors influenced the music considered in this study. In particular, the pres­ ence in London of a large class of affluent but relatively unsophisticated musical amateurs provided a lucrative outlet for composers who could satisfy the public's demand for new music. The accompanied sonata, that is, the sonata for key­ board with accompaniment for other instruments, especially violin and cello, was a popular genre with London amateurs. Two varieties of accompanied sonata are found in the music studied: 1) the sonata with optional accompaniments, and 2) the concertante sonata, in which at least one of the acco...