H AY D N
society of north america
;[
PROFIL E
Newsletter
number 1 february 2008
Taking Oxford to Montreal and
Other Adventures in Virtual Acoustics
by Tom Beghin
September 2007–A group from McGill University leaves Montreal, Canada.
Half of the team travels to Belgium to pick up an original 1798 Longman,
Clementi & Co. piano from a private collection while the other half arrives
in London and attends to a shipment of microphones, computers,
loudspeakers, cables, and stands. Destination for both teams: the Holywell
Music Room, Oxford.
Purpose: to find out how the English instrument behaves in the historical
room and to make a reference recording; then, to replace the instrument
with multiple loudspeakers that generate frequencies from low to high;
and finally, to capture and process the response of the hall to sinusoidal
frequency sweeps that bounce off ceiling, floor, and walls, from all possible
directions, using eight microphones in various listening positions, far and
close, high and low. (These samplings take a full day of work and earplugs
are a must for those present.)
The result is a high-fidelity acoustical fingerprints of Europe’s oldest
concert hall, dating from 1748, with spatial detail, a wide dynamic range,
and a broad frequency spectrum. With these digital data, the team returns
to Montreal and the Multimodal Shared Reality Laboratory of the Centre
for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (cirmmt),
where they replicate both instrument and hall.
Recording Haydn at cirmmt,
McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Photograph by Matthew Golem
Seated at a 2004 replica of the same Longman, Clementi & Co. grand,
in a three-dimensional “dome” of twenty-four loudspeakers (shown in
picture at left), the performer plays as if in the Holywell Music Room.
As microphones pick up the sounds of the piano, the computer makes
the fastest of calculations, and, applying “convolution” and “quasi-wave
field synthesis,” sends reverberation responses identical to those in Oxford
through the loudspeakers, for the performer to engage with, then and there.
(The delay between actual sound and the response of the room is
a negligible ten milliseconds at the most.)
continued page 11
haydn society of north america newsletter
LETTER
F R O M T H E
P R E S I D E N T
H AY D N
society of north america
;[
Officers
Michael Ruhling
President 2007–2008
Benjamin Korstvedt
Vice President 2008–2009
Rebecca Marchand
Secretary 2007–2008
Jane Ellsworth
Treasurer 2008–2009
Directors
Michelle Fillion 2008–2009
Ethan Haimo 2007–2008
Michael Lamkin 2008–2009
Elaine Sisman 2008–2009
James Webster 2007–2008
Advisory Board
Christopher Hogwood 2008–2010
Denis McCaldin 2008–2009
Armin Raab 2008–2010
Walter Reicher 2008–2010
W. Dean Sutcliffe 2008–2009
It is with great pleasure and a sense of satisfaction that I am able to write
this letter for the first issue of the hsna Newsletter. Before I reflect on the
past and current events of the Society I wish to thank several people for
helping to make this Newsletter possible. First, those who submitted articles
and letters for inclusion: Tom Beghin, Anthony Martin, Armin Raab,
Christopher Hogwood and Dean Sutcliffe. Next, the College of Liberal
Arts of the Rochester Institute of Technology and Glenn Kist, interim dean,
who have generously underwritten the printing of this issue. Finally, let
me express my humble gratitude to newsletter editor Peter Alexander and
graphic designer Bruce Ian Meader. I have enjoyed working with them very
much, and as the appearance and content of this Newsletter testify, we are
fortunate to have these talented people as colleagues. Our first year has been a fruitful one. We have established our not-forprofit status; welcomed about fifty members (ten of them lifetime
members) representing musicology, theory, performance and Liebhaber;
elected top Haydn scholars from the u.s. and Canada to serve on our
Board of Directors and as officers; and invited colleagues from abroad to
formulate an international Advisory Board, all of whom enthusiastically
accepted the invitations. Please note the list of these people to the left and
join me in thanking them for their dedication to Haydn scholarship
and performance.
Newsletter Editor
Peter Alexander
Graphic Designer
Bruce Ian Meader
Support
The Haydn Society of North America
Newsletter is underwritten by the
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Liberal Arts, Glenn Kist,
interim dean, Rochester, New York.
I recently completed the paperwork for registering the Haydn Society of
North America Endowment Fund with a brokerage firm. You have donated
over $500 to this fund to date, and I hope that you will continue to be
generous in building this important legacy for future Haydn scholarship.
The suggestion and impetus for the hsna Endowment Fund is in large part
due to our Web site (rit.edu/haydnsociety), which many of you have visited
and continue to consult for recent news and events. We invite you to send
information to post on the site (send to [email protected]).
continued on page 3
RIT
•
•
Web Site
rit.edu/haydnsociety
haydn society of north america newsletter
Submissions
Letter from the President continued from page 2
I enjoyed seeing many of you at the ams Annual Meeting in November,
which featured several Haydn Society members. I know you all join me
in congratulating Tom Beghin and Caryl Clark for their interesting and
informative presentations, and especially James Webster for being named
Honorary Member, and Bathia Churgin for her selection as Corresponding
Member. It is most fitting that these scholars were recognized for their
years of tireless and groundbreaking service to the field of musicology.
The Haydn Society of North America Newsletter is issued in February and
August each year. Submissions should
be sent as ms Word documents, and
photographs in jpeg format (preferably
color), attached to an email sent to [email protected], with the heading Newsletter Submission. Deadlines are December 15 for February issues and
June 15 for August issues. We encourage members to
submit items for inclusion from
the following categories:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Recent accomplishments of
Society members (awards, grants, publications, etc.)
Conference/Symposium
announcements and reports
Calls for papers, reports, etc.
Announcement of recent or forthcoming publications
related to Haydn
Reviews of publications
(500–800 words, please)
Reviews of recordings of Haydn’s music (500–800 words, please)
Haydn concert and festival announcements
Please make sure dated items correspond to newsletter issue dates.
In addition to these items, we would
like to include in each edition of our
newsletter an article regarding performance aspects of Haydn’s music, suitable for scholars and performers
of many levels (e.g. community choral and orchestral conductors and
musicians, chamber musicians,
educators, music connoisseurs, etc.). The article should be about 1500 words,
and include a brief annotated bibliography of additional materials on the topic that will be helpful and informative for scholars.
For questions, please contact
Peter Alexander, Editor 319 384-0072
[email protected]
or
Michael Ruhling, President
585 475-2014
[email protected]
James Webster, recipient of the ams Honorary Member award
Bathia Churgin, recipient of the
ams Corresponding Member award
It is clear that we have some exciting times ahead of us. By the time you
receive this Newsletter you will no doubt be packing for our first conference
in Claremont, California, in collaboration with the Society for EighteenthCentury Music. I thank the officers and board of the secm for agreeing to
the joint conference, and the committees that organized the conference,
which included myself, Peter Alexander, Bertil van Boer, Stephen C. Fisher,
Michael Lamkin, and Mary Sue Morrow. The selection committee was quite
pleased about the number and quality of submissions, and I congratulate
those whose papers were selected for the conference. We are also beginning
to make plans for our Haydnjahr 2009 Conference, tentatively scheduled for
Boston in late May, coinciding with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society’s
performance of The Creation, one of many such performances of this work
taking place worldwide on Haydn’s death day.
If any of you are interested in serving on the 2009 Conference committees,
please contact me ([email protected]) or Society Secretary
Rebecca Marchand ([email protected]).
Have a wonderful and fruitful year.
Sincerely,
Michael Ruhling, President

haydn society of north america newsletter
F R O M THE
BOARD
The Joseph Haydn-Institut
by Armin Raab
As most of you may know, the Joseph Haydn-Institut (www.haydn-institut.
de) was founded in 1955 by some of the most distinguished Haydn scholars
and musicologists of the time, including Jens Peter Larsen, Anthony van
Hoboken, and Friedrich Blume, along with the music publisher Günter
Henle. The complete edition Joseph Haydn Werke,���������������������������
the institute’s principal
task, was to become a kind of flagship edition for the Henle publishing
house, established in 1948. The edition will consist of 111 volumes, 93 of
which have been published by now.
The latest release is the two volumes of Die Jahreszeiten; the second great
German oratorio Die Schöpfung is at the proofreading stage and will come
out in 2008. Some other important volumes are in preparation: the string
quartets opp. 42, 50, and 54­–55, edited by James Webster; Haydn’s theatrical
music and other works for chorus and orchestra; symphonies from about
1766 to 1769; and, as a highlight for 2009, L’isola disabitata, the only opera
still absent from our edition. A long-standing gap was closed this year by
the publication of the first of the eagerly awaited critical reports to the
piano sonatas volumes. The late Georg Feder, editor of the three sonata
volumes and head of the Haydn-Institut for three decades, was able to finish
the work only a few weeks before passing away in December 2006.
Haydn was a colossus,
a pivotal figure
in the history of
Western art music.
F R O M T H E
Haydn has never
quite been forgiven
for the enormous
popular success
he achieved
Musical compliments

that have lain
Claiming Haydn’s Rightful Place
by Dean Sutcliffe
virtually unnoticed
haydn society of north america newsletter
It seems that Haydn has never quite been forgiven for the enormous
popular success he achieved; it is something we seem to find hard to enter
into imaginatively. If anyone doubts that this strain still survives, try reading
the account of Haydn in Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music.
Yet there has never been so much high-quality work being produced on our
composer. Sometimes this takes the form of thematic studies
(I am currently reading Melanie Lowe’s Pleasure and Meaning in the
Classical Symphony), or there is the recent Cambridge Companion to Haydn,
edited by Caryl Clark, with all its wonderful new leads for interpretation.
But the renewed vitality in music theory is also producing much exciting
work, whether on sonata forms or on the use of galant formulae.
Also recently I’ve heard a tremendous recording of the op. 9 quartets by
the London String Quartet, who have taken an imaginative leap by basing
their performances not on the edition of the Joseph Haydn Werke (and we
Haydnists are very lucky to have such an edition to work with), but on a
Longman and Broderip publication of the works in London in 1790.
Expect plenty more initiatives and fresh issues to debate, and the hsna
will play a major part in stimulating these.
Though belonging to Old Europe’s heritage, the Haydn-Institut has always
been in close contact with the New World. Three North American Haydn
scholars are members of our board of trustees: Elaine Sisman (Columbia
University); Tom Beghin, Belgian by birth, but lecturing at Montreal’s
McGill-University; and James Webster (Cornell University), who is one of
the board’s vice chairmen. Other members of the new Haydn Society, like
Stephen Fisher and Sterling Murray, have worked as editors on the Haydn
edition. By 2009, we hope, this connection will have become even closer!
The founding of hsna was timely, allowing us just enough of a run-up
to the Haydn bicentenary celebrations in 2009. These should enable the
Society–and Haydn scholarship–not just to consolidate but to expand,
especially if the expected raft of conferences eventuates. I hope these and
the activities of the Society will enable us to claim perhaps even more
for Haydn than we do already.
Claiming Haydn’s Rightful Place continued from page 4
The presence of significant others on the Viennese scene around his time
and the historical models that have arisen to account for this (the “great
triumvirate”) have undoubtedly contributed much to this situation.

Compliments to Dr. Haydn
by Christopher Hogwood
and unplayed for
more than 200 years
The inaugural issue of a new Haydn newsletter seems a perfect opportunity
to give notice of a set of musical compliments to Haydn that have lain
virtually unnoticed and certainly unplayed for more than 200 years.
Many works were dedicated to Haydn during his lifetime, often by aspiring
pupils or colleagues. Mozart’s six string quartets and Beethoven’s op. 2
sonatas are the best known, but the list includes works by Pleyel, Gyrowetz,
Wölfl, Cramer, both the Rombergs, Eberl, Eybler, Hummel, Ries, and many
others. There was even a posthumous compliment from Johan Wikmanson:
a dedicatory letter added by his widow to his op. 1 string quartets, which
were published after his death.
A particularly discrete form of flattery came from Pavel Wranitzky in
the form of two printed sets of Trois Divertissemens/pour/Deux Violons,
Viole, Violoncelle, Flute/Hautbois, deux Cors & Basse, published in 1800
by Johann André. Although these carried no explicit dedication, the title
explained that they are “amplifications” of six of Haydn’s best-known
string quartets, opp. 71 and 74.
continued on page 6
I have often sensed a slightly guarded, even bashful tone, in writing about
Haydn, a hedging of praise and enthusiasm. Haydn was a colossus, a pivotal
figure in the history of Western art music, and we could be more relaxed
and confident in asserting this.
continued on page 5
B OA R D
haydn society of north america newsletter
F R O M THE
BOARD
Compliments to Dr. Haydn continued from page 5
F R O M T H E
B OA R D
Wranitzky expanded the ensemble to nine players by adding flute, oboe,
two horns, and double bass, making it one of the larger divertimento
scorings for the period. The results were published in 1800, but have since
been overlooked by performers until the stimulus of an anniversary
(Wrantizky died 26 September 1808) has recently focused attention on them.
The first set of three divertimenti has recently been published in a new
edition prepared by the present writer for Edition hh (www.editionhh.
co.uk). The arrangement of Haydn’s op. 71 no. 1 will be heard (probably
for the first time since the composer’s lifetime, and almost certainly for
the first time in America) in a concert to be given in New York’s Zankel Hall
at Carnegie Hall at 7 pm Saturday, 1 March 2008, by the ensemble known
as The Academy–a program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and the
Weill Music Institute (www.acjw.org).
Pavel Wranitzky, like his younger brother Anton, was central to the
musical world of Vienna. He held a position at court, composing for
the emperor’s wife, Marie Therese, and was in charge of operatic music
first in the Kärntnertortheater and later in the Burgtheater. Haydn
insisted that Pavel Wranitzky take charge as concertmaster of the Viennese
performances of The Creation (1799, 1800), and at Beethoven’s request he
conducted the premiere of that composer’s First Symphony (2 April 1800).
He had also been a member of the same Masonic Lodge as Mozart, ‘Zur
gekrönten Hoffnung’, and helped Constanze sort out Mozart’s legacy in
dealings with André.
A compliment
from the highest levels
of Viennese
musical society
The program will also include Haydn’s Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major
(‘The Philosopher’), the American premiere of the complete ballet music
for La Revue de Cuisine by Bohuslav Martin, and the suite from
Stravinsky’s Pulcinella.

P E R F O R M A N C E
The musical compliment to Haydn therefore came from within the highest
levels of Viennese musical society, and cannot have existed and been
published without the approval of Haydn himself. In any case, we know
from the assistance that Haydn gave to Wranitzky in proposing his chamber
works for publication in London by John Bland that he approved of him as
a composer as well as a concert director.
P E R S P E C T I V E S
Some Questions and a Few Answers about
Performing Haydn Quartets
Reflections on Time Well Spent with Haydn
by Anthony Martin
The New Esterházy Quartet (www.newesterhazy.org) is amidst an eighteenconcert Haydn cycle of all sixty-eight string quartets. We had already played
together in many and various ensembles when the joyful necessity of this
project arose with the approach of 2009, the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s
death. In each of our rehearsals and concerts we face a number of issues
that all performers of Haydn quartets share. In the space of this article there
is opportunity to raise just a few questions and offer even fewer answers;
the book on the subject is yet to be written.
The arrangements are far from slavish: Wranitzky makes enterprising
changes, re-allocates music from strings to winds, adds idiomatic parts for
the horns, supplements Haydn’s markings with additional and different
marks of expression, and creates an added element of concertante interplay
to suit the new context and ambience. While these texts will be of interest
for their reading to players who perform the original quartet versions, this
recasting presents them in almost symphonic concert dress and opens them
up for larger-scale public performance.
Compliments to Dr. Haydn continued from page 6
The elegance and efficiency of Wranitzky’s writing shown in the
divertimenti will hopefully draw more listeners this year to explore the
remainder of his output (see www.wranitzky.com for more details).
François Joseph Fétis wrote in 1868: “The music of Wranitzky was in fashion
when it was new because of his natural melodies and brilliant style.
He treats the orchestra well, especially in symphonies. I recall that,
in my youth, his works held up very well in comparison with those of
Haydn. Their premature abandonment of today has been for me a
source of astonishment.” I hope this anniversary year will manage to
return his music to favor.
continued on page 7
The New Esterházy Quartet
haydn society of north america newsletter
First of all, what instruments shall we bring to the table for this feast? For
us the answer is clear: instruments that approach those for which Haydn
wrote his quartets: fiddles strung with gut, stripped of later modifications
and additions (such as the chin- and shoulder-rests and endpins that are
appropriate for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century virtuoso repertoire),
and lighter, more flexible bows on pre-Tourte models. This is not to say that
Haydn cannot be played with the modern versions of the violin family, or
even contemporary electric violins, or electronically synthesized sounds, or
saxophones. But by using instruments contemporary to Haydn we discover
not only the tone colors he was thinking in, but also modes of articulation
and phrasing that might be more appropriate to his creations than the
longer lines of later music.
continued on page 8
haydn society of north america newsletter
P E R FORMANCE
Some Questions and a Few Answers continued from page 7
P E R SPECTIVES
P E R F O R M A N C E
When it comes time to play, how shall we sit? Evidence is scant, but it is clear
that the normal seating for a quartet (like that of an orchestra) has changed
over the past century. We sit, as do the contemporary Schönberg Quartet
of Amsterdam, the Griller Quartet in the mid-twentieth century, the
Kneisel and Joachim Quartets of the late nineteenth century, and the Müller
Quartet of the early nineteenth century, with the two violins vis-à-vis in
front, the cello behind the first violin and the viola behind the second.
Thus not only are the two violins heard more independently from each
other, but the treble is supported directly by the bass, the lower voices both
project from behind, and the inner voices sit together as a unit. Note that
until string quartet playing became a public performance rather than a
private recreation, this seating also puts the two violins next to each other,
with the quartet seated in a circle.
Nevertheless, there are recurrent questions that Haydn’s notation even at
its most specific raises. What is a dot, and what is a dash? Do these signs tell
us what to do, or what not to do? This question has been simplified by the
research of Robert Riggs, who has reached the conclusion that for Mozart
and Beethoven (and for Haydn as well, he has told me in correspondence)
there is no essential difference between dots and dashes (daggers, wedges,
strokes, Keilen). For his convincing argument, please consult the article
referenced below. That hash settled, there still remains the question of what
information is provided by a dot or stroke. Does it prescribe a specific
off- or on-string bowing? Does it modify the front and/or the backside
of the note, that is, its attack and/or release? Does it suggest an increase or
decrease of emphasis? Could it also simply proscribe the addition of the
slurs that a well trained eighteenth-century violinist would be expected
tastefully to apply to otherwise unarticulated passages?
Now, what music to put on our stands? This is always a vexing problem,
usually solved by pragmatic considerations, such as the availability of the
desired quartet in whatever edition there is at hand. Available editions of
parts are the old Peters, edited by Andreas Moser and Hugo Dechert; Diletto
Musicale, edited by Reginald Barrett-Ayres and H. C. Robbins Landon;
Henle, with various editors; and the new Peters, edited by Simon RowlandJones. The old Peters edition was published in four miscellaneously ordered
volumes, the Diletto by individual quartet, and the Henle and new Peters
grouped by opus numbers. Each edition’s virtues and drawbacks deserve a
thorough discussion, but in brief the new Peters editions seem to be
very conscientiously edited and laid out for performance. Furthermore,
they are sold with score included. However, as with the Henle edition,
not all quartets are available yet.
Seated, with
instruments in hand
and music before
our eyes, how do we
proceed to prepare
a performance?
Some Questions and a Few Answers continued from page 8
P E R S P E C T I V E S
Another open question is that of dynamics. To what extent are dynamics
uniform? That is, if one line has a forte should the others? And what does
forte mean, anyway? Is it necessarily subito? Could it be approached via
crescendo? Or is it sometimes an indication of the (softer) beginning of a
(louder) passage which should be achieved via crescendo? (This paradoxical
interpretation is occasionally useful when the printed forte is clearly not the
height of a phrase, but only its beginning.) Is the dynamically unmarked
opening of a movement automatically forte? (This is the assumption of
the new Peters edition, but it is not always to our taste.) Is forte sometimes
merely tutti, and thus the dynamic is supplied by the instrumentation
without extra effort by the individual players? Does a sforzando apply to the
beginning of a note, the entire note, or beyond the note?
Seated, with instruments in hand and music before our eyes, how do we
proceed to prepare a performance? Naturally as string players we tend to
first concern ourselves with bowings and fingerings, both as individuals and
as a group. Haydn gives us no indications of up and down bows, and very
few suggestions for fingering, and those are for special effects. A familiarity
with Leopold Mozart’s book on violin playing and other string treatises
from the late eighteenth century can help provide a starting point for
what theoretically would be expected, and a familiarity with the response
of period instruments would also help to inform practical choices of bow
direction and distribution as well as shifting and use of open strings.
Most important, of course, is musical intent and taste, for which performers,
not books or instruments, must take responsibility. In honoring the letter
of Haydn’s notation, and what we can read in contemporary sources,
we still must always seek to discover the unique expressive content of each
individual movement, the expressive intent of its composer.
continued on page 9
haydn society of north america newsletter
Perhaps the most recurrent question is that of repeats. For bi-partite sonataallegro movements Haydn provides us a wide range of notated schemes:
both halves repeated, first half only repeated, either half with first and
second endings, and second half repeated before the last bar is reached.
Sometimes an adjustment in dynamics or timing in the approach to the last
bar of a half will make a repeat more palatable. The conservatives of the
New Esterházy Quartet have thus far prevailed over the liberals in rejecting
the creation of first and second endings for particularly awkward-sounding
repeats. If repeats are truly optional, why do we always take them in minuet
movements, but never on da capo? And where both halves of a sonataallegro movement are given repeats, why would we take only the first repeat,
when the aab form is notated unequivocally in other movements?
continued on page 10
haydn society of north america newsletter
P E R FORMANCE
Some Questions and a Few Answers continued from page 9
P R O F I L E
Taking Oxford to Montreal continued from page 1
P E R SPECTIVES
The members of the New Esterházy
Quartet are internationally known
period-instrument and chamber music
specialists Kati Kyme and Lisa Weiss,
violins; Anthony Martin, viola; and
William Skeen, cello. As individuals,
the players perform in the top echelon
of early music ensembles such as
Orchestra of the 18th Century,
the Bach Ensemble, Artaria Quartet,
Smithsonian Chamber Players,
Arcadian Academy, the Göttingen
Festival Orchestra, & Musica Angelica.
Founded in 2006, the New Esterházy
Quartet takes its name from the
Hungarian estate where Joseph Haydn
lived and worked for nearly three
decades, and from the noble family
who were his employers and patrons.
The name also honors Quartetto
Esterhazy, the ground-breaking
historical string quartet from the 1970s,
with the blessing of that ensemble’s
eminent founder and leader,
Jaap Schroeder.
The New Esterházy Quartet has
recently embarked on a performance
cycle of all 68 of the Haydn’s string
quartets. The concerts will span
two seasons, culminating in 2009,
the 200th anniversary of Haydn’s
death. This is the first complete
period-instrument Haydn cycle ever
performed in North America.
Repeats can also be an issue in programming, since art is long and life is
short. At the moment the New Esterházy Quartet plays Haydn as opener
and closer and in-between, so it is never a question of warming up on
Haydn, without repeats, in order to get to the meat of the concert. But it
does seem a form of disrespect, both to audiences and to the composer, to
foreshorten Haydn by confining an abridged version of one of his quartets
to the front end of a program. This is a more difficult problem than any of
the others touched upon here, how to give Haydn his due in the company
of the later composers who owe everything to him. We–readers, listeners,
and players–know that time spent with Haydn is time well spent with
not merely a great composer, but with an experienced, witty, profound,
entertaining, and supremely civilized human being.

Suggested Reading
Leopold Mozart, A Treatise on the
Fundamental Principles of Violin
Playing, trans. by Editha Knocker
(Oxford University Press).
Essential reading for any string player,
and informative on many aspects
of eighteenth century musical life
for all others.
Robert Riggs, “Mozart’s Notation
of Staccato Articulation:
A New Appraisal,” The Journal of
Musicology 15 (1997): 230–277.
Read this and no longer need to ask,
“Is this a dagger I see before me?”
Robin Stowell, ed., The Cambridge
Companion to the String Quartet
(Cambridge University Press).
A collection of enlightening essays
on historical and technical matters.
A. Ehrlich, Das Streich-Quartett in
Wort und Bild (A.H. Payne). A pictorial
guide to string quartets published in
Leipzig in 1898, useful for studying
historical quartet seating.
Reginald Barrett-Ayres, Joseph Haydn
and the String Quartet (Schirmer
Books). Attempts to put Haydn’s
quartets into a wider Viennese context.
10 Hans Keller, The Great Haydn
Quartets (Braziller). Strongly held and
argued opinions from a fierce and
uncompromising mind, alternately
exhilarating and infuriating, essential
for anyone who cares deeply about
Haydn quartets.
Christoph Wolff, ed., The String
Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph
Manuscripts (Harvard University Press).
Note particularly the essays by
Somfai, Webster, and Feder on Haydn’s
quartet autographs.
David Young, ed., Haydn the Innovator
(Arc Music). Attention is directed
to the last essay in this gentlemanly
British collection, “Performing Haydn’s
Quartets” by Alan George (violist of
the Fitzwilliam Quartet), which can
profitably be read in conjunction with
this article.
In his performance of the big E-flat Major grand concert sonata Hob. xvi:52,
written by Haydn for the London-based professional pianist Therese Jansen, the performer plays for an imaginary audience in virtual English concert hall acoustics, which envelop the lazily dampened, resonant though somewhat muffled sounds of his English piano. These sounds, finally, are recorded in multifold channels (“surround”), so as to convey the sound-
enveloped ambience in the richest possible way.
This adventure represents the last chapter of a complete recording of
Haydn’s solo keyboard music at the Schulich School of Music at McGill
University with Martha de Francisco as recording producer/Tonmeister,
Wieslaw Woszczyk as virtual acoustics engineer/architect, and myself
as performer/music historian. Other collaborators include McGill graduate
students Erin Helyard, Doyuen Ko, Ryan Miller, and Jeremy Tusz.
The premise of the project is to match an instrument with a certain
socio-historical context of performance, and to cast both in an appropriate
acoustical environment. Rejecting the traditional model of one-keyboard-
fits-all–either the generic fortepiano or the modern-day Steinway–
the project features an array of seven instruments, many of which were built
for the occasion:
• Viennese harpsichord, Johann Leydecker, Vienna, 1755, replica by Martin Pühringer, Haslach, 2004 (with the idiomatic Viennese “short octave”)
• Saxon clavichord, ca. 1760, by Joris Potvlieghe, Tollembeek, 2003
• French-style double manual harpsichord, ca. 1770, by Yves Beaupré, Montreal, 2007
• Square piano (Tafelklavier), Ignaz Kober, Vienna, 1788, replica by
Chris Maene, Ruiselede, 2007
• Viennese fortepiano, Anton Walter, Vienna, 1782, with Stossmechanik, replica by Chris Maene, Ruiselede, 2005
• The same instrument (modeled after Mozart’s) with a Prellmechanik,
“modernizing” it to a fortepiano of the 1790s
• English grand piano, Longman, Clementi & Co., 1798, replica by
Chris Maene, Ruiselede, 2004.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
W. Dean Sutcliffe, Haydn: String
Quartets, Op. 50 (Cambridge University
Press). Pars pro toto, the method
and conclusions of this in-depth
study extend far beyond the six Haydn
quartets considered here.
haydn society of north america newsletter
Matching the keyboards is a “collection” of rooms, selected for acoustical character as well as historical relevance for Haydn or more broadly eighteenth-century chamber music performance:
The Music Room and the Ceremonial Room of Esterháza (Fertöd, Hungary)
Two private rooms in Haydn’s house in Eisenstadt
A salon of the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt
A Prunkraum of the Albertina in Vienna
The Festsaal of the Lobkowitz Palais in Vienna
The drawing room of the Château Ramezay, the eighteenth-century Governor’s Mansion in Montreal
Holywell Music Room in Oxford
continued on page 12
haydn society of north america newsletter
11
O N T HE
HORIZON
Upcoming Events
Haydn Society of North America/
Society for Eighteenth Century
Music Conference
February 28–March 2, 2008 Details: secm.org
The New Esterházy Quartet
is engaged in a project to
perform all 68 Haydn quartets.
Performance details listed at
www.newesterhazy.org
or rit.edu/haydnsociety
33rd annual Classical Music Festial,
Eisenstadt, Austria
July 30–August 16, 2008 Details: cmfusf.arts.usf.edu Recent/Forthcoming Publications
Floyd and Margaret Grave
The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn.
New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006
Kathleen Lamkin Esterházy Musicians 1790 to 1809:
Considered from New Sources in the
Castle Forchtenstein Archives, Vol 6
Eisenstädter Haydn-Berichte
Schneider: Tutzing, 2007
Floyd Grave “Recuperation,
Transformation, and the
Transcendence of Major over Minor
in the Finale of Haydn’s
String Quartet Op. 76 No. 1.”
Eighteenth-Century Music 5/1
(March 2008; in press)
Bathia Churgin and
Mary Sue Morrow, editors
The Symphonic Repertoire, Vol.1:
The Eighteenth Century Symphony Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2008
(forthcoming)
12 Taking Oxford to Montreal continued from page 11
The objective has been to combine rooms and instruments towards
interpretations that have a specific rhetorical or communicative intent.
Thus, the splendor of the Esterháza Ceremonial Room and the magnificent
French double-manual harpsichord invite me to make my gestures more
formal as I play off a newly published print of sonatas (Hob. xvi:21–26,
for Nicolaus Esterházy) for my own imaginary patron or prince, in the
company of several family members or highly ranked servants. In contrast,
the more intimate and acoustically absorptive Albertina Prunkraum, with
its fine, recently restored silk coverings on the walls, evokes the private
surroundings of a young princess sitting at her exquisite Tafelklavier
with music teacher, governess, or mother-in-law encouragingly at her side,
reading through Haydn’s fine musical letters (Hob. xvi:40-42, for the
fifteen-year old Marie Esterházy).
The ten programs, each with a distinct title (“The Music Lesson,”
“Visiting Haydn’s Workshop,” “The London Scene,” etc.) explore different
modes of performing and listening. Together, they reveal complementary
windows onto eighteenth-century musicking and showcase the
inexhaustible talent of Haydn the “rhetorical man” (an epithet coined by
Richard Lanham and aptly applied to Haydn by Elaine Sisman).
For the first time, the described techniques of “virtual acoustics,” a rapidly
developing field in the world of sound engineering, are applied to a classical
music recording that is to be released commercially. The resulting sounds,
therefore, must be convincing, or natural. At the same time, however,
the project invites the listener to reconsider and possibly redefine these
very terms. Have acoustics remained underappreciated in our assessments
of musical style and performance? Can modern recording techniques
provide ways to reveal alternative contexts for “historical listening”?
Are we ready to expand our stereophonic expectations of recorded sound
and explore fuller, more integrated sonic images of instrument, room,
and musical interpretation?
The research side of the project was funded by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds Québecois de la
recherche sur la société et la culture. The recordings will be released
by the Canadian label Analekta in the Fall of 2008, in celebration of the
2009 Haydn Year. The complete 12-sacd-box will include extensive liner
notes, a dvd (featuring a “making of ” as well as some videotaped complete
performances) and an appendix-cd (with one short track, the Andante
for Musical Clock, Hob. xix:10, performed on seven instruments in
seven rooms, for a total of forty-nine combinations). The sacd format
(Super Audio Compact Disc, surround sound) also allows for stereophonic
listening through a regular cd-player.
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haydn society of north america newsletter