Haydn and the Flute (by Stephen C. Fisher, orig. publ. 1/24/2016)

Haydn and the Flute

Stephen C. Fisher

Haydn contributed surprisingly little to the solo literature for the flute, or indeed for woodwinds in general. He knew the instruments well (though he is not known to have played any of them in public), used them skillfully in ensemble and orchestral writing, and gave them fine solo passages as well as featured roles in single movements or sections in larger pieces—but he composed few entire works for them. The flute was widely popular among the wealthy male amateurs who made up an important part of the musical public of the age, the best known of them being Frederick the Great of Prussia. Haydn’s neglect of the instrument is a matter of bad luck for flutists. Two of Haydn’s major patrons had chosen instruments well off the beaten path: his longtime employer Prince Nikolaus Esterhàzy played the baryton (a relative of the viola d’amore), and Ferdinand IV of Naples played the lira organizzata (a type of hurdy-gurdy). The effort Haydn devoted to these musical curiosities would have greatly enriched the literature of any instrument, and flutists in particular may curse the fact that they are not the ones to benefit from it.

In the early 1760s Haydn wrote a flute concerto in D major, Hob. VIIf:1, but, alas, it is known only from a theme he entered in a catalog, and our chances of finding a copy seem remote at this date. His only other woodwind concerto was a bassoon concerto that he recalled writing, but about which nothing else is known. None of the woodwind concertos published, performed, or recorded as Haydn’s is authentic: the D major flute concerto attributed to him, Hob. VIIf:D1, is by Leopold Hoffman, and the others, including the familiar oboe concerto Hob. VIIg:C1, are essentially anonymous works to which someone attached Haydn’s name with no justification.

Woodwinds, including the flute, fare slightly better in Haydn’s works featuring multiple solo instruments. He did not use a solo flute in the concertante that he wrote for London, Hob. I:105, with solo parts for oboe, bassoon, violin, and violoncello. However, in London Haydn also performed some of the notturni he composed for the King of Naples in the late 1780s (Hob. II:25–32) using two flutes or flute and oboe to replace the pair of lire organizzate, an idea that modern performers, particularly flutists, have taken up enthusiastically. (The lira concertos, Hob. VIIh:1–5, also work well on the flute.)

Haydn treats the flute differently from the other woodwinds in orchestral writing. The workhorses of his woodwind section are the double reeds, the oboe (occasionally replaced by English horn) and bassoon (in the earlier works often tacitly assumed to be doubling the bass line). The clarinet was still developing in Haydn’s day, and he rarely used it before the 1790s. Haydn’s conception of scoring derives from Baroque trio texture, with two melodic parts played by comparable instruments, and it took him a long time to integrate the flute into the scheme. During parts of his career he had no flutist available (many of his musicians could double on flute, but he rarely asked them to). He may have felt that the flute of his era could not hold its own in a full orchestral texture; he tends to use it in a more soloistic fashion. The wooden flute is most at home in the key of D major, and Haydn is particularly apt to use the instrument in that key and its close relatives.

A flutist named Franz Sigel played in Haydn’s orchestra for much of the 1760s. Probably most of Haydn’s earlier flute music was written for Sigel, including the lost concerto and parts in Symphonies no. 6–9, 13, 24, 30, 31, 41, and 72 (five of them in D major), as well as the so-called Scherzandi, Hob. II:33–38, and the fragment Hob. II:24. In the mid-1770s the orchestra expanded to support regular operatic seasons and Haydn again had flutists. In 1776 he composed a flute part in Symphony no. 61 (in D major), and about the same time added two flutes to Symphony no. 54 of 1774. Haydn also started using a pair of bassoons regularly in his symphonies. The departure of his first bassoonist in 1778 created a quandary; Haydn resolved it by pairing the remaining bassoon with the flute. This is especially evident in the first movement of Symphony no. 63. In its original form, as the overture to the 1777 opera Il mondo della luna, it had two bassoon parts; a year or so later, in the symphony, Haydn moved the first bassoon part up in register and gave it to the flute. In other symphonies of the period the two instruments have important duet passages. The new role of the flute may partially explain why five of the eight symphonies from 1778–81 (nos. 53, 62, 63, 70, 71, and 73–75) are in D major. After Haydn acquired another bassoonist he resumed writing for two bassoons, but by now the flute was an integral member of his orchestra. His symphonies and operas from 1778 onward all have at least one flute part.

Regarding music for smaller combinations, Haydn neglected several popular genres of his day that often featured the flute. He wrote at most one solo sonata for a melody instrument with continuo or keyboard, a work we know as the piano trio Hob. XV:32, which may have originally been a violin sonata. Haydn also wrote few chamber works for one woodwind with several strings. From the first thirty years of Haydn’s career as a composer, we have only three or four chamber works calling for the flute. Two of these, Hob. II:1 and 11, are sextets for flute, oboe, two violins, violoncello, and bass; the second of these bears the title “The Birthday,” and its second movement is called “Man and Wife” because of its alternation of high and low registers. The third work is a septet, Hob. II:8, for two flutes, two horns, two violins, and bass. In addition, the one-movement trio Hob. IV:G2, for flute, violin, and violoncello, was deemed sufficiently interesting musically to find its way into the Joseph Haydn Werke; it may be a fragment of a longer work, perhaps arranged from some other instrumentation.

Lacking authentic pieces by Haydn, publishers manufactured chamber works to sell under his name. Two sets of six quartets for flute, violin, viola, and violoncello are still in circulation. The so-called Op. 5 includes spurious arrangements of the two sextets just mentioned along with four pieces that have nothing to do with Haydn (Hob. II:D9–11 and G4). An even worse case is the set published as Op. 25 (Hob. II:G6, C8, A4, D16, and Es15 and XIV:F1, the sixth work being for flute, violin, violoncello, and keyboard). Joseph Aloys Schmittbaur had originally published the set as his Op. 1, with a second violin instead of a viola in the first five works. In 1777 a Parisian publisher reprinted the quartets with a viola part and Haydn’s name on the title page. While the forgery was exposed long ago, these pieces continue to be attributed to Haydn; a new edition under his name came out in 1999. Caveat emptor!

Haydn used the flute in several works composed for London. In 1784 he produced six divertimenti, Hob. IV:6–11 (also known as Op. 100), for flute (or violin), violin, and violoncello. The fourth of these is based on a baryton trio, Hob. XI:97, and the others incorporate numbers from Il mondo della luna, recycling music that would not otherwise have been known outside the Esterházy court. In London Haydn became friends with Willoughby Bertie, fourth Earl of Abingdon, flutist and dilettante composer. This led Haydn to write the charming “London trios” for two flutes and violoncello, Hoboken II:1–4, in 1794. The first of these is a three-movement work in C major; the others contain a total of five movements that Haydn never grouped in a definitive way, including a set of variations on the Earl’s catch “The Lady’s Mirror.”

Fortunately for flutists, in 1790, just before the first London visit, Haydn published three fine, substantial, original works for their instrument, the trios for flute, violoncello, and piano, Hob. XV:15–17. These are the Haydn works that belong in the repertory of every serious flutist. From them we may get an idea of what Haydn might have done for the flute had circumstances been just slightly different.

Author's Note: Hoboken’s numbering system can be confusing. His catalog inventories many works that are falsely attributed to Haydn, placing them after the ones in the same category that he considered authentic, grouped by key. If what follows the colon in the number is a key designation instead of a numeral, as in VIIf:D1 or VIIg:C1, it usually means that the piece is spurious—IV:G2 is one of the few possible exceptions. The New Grove and MGG work-lists for Haydn, the Haydn Lexikon, and the prefaces to the volumes of the Joseph Haydn Werke are good sources of information on questions of authenticity.

Edited 2/7/2016 to fix missing italicizations and other typographical errors.

The HSNA Newsletter would like to publish longer articles of interest on a monthly basis.  If you have an essay geared toward a more general audience or that is otherwise not marked for peer-reviewed publication, please consider submitting it to the HSNA Newsletter editor. We welcome all Haydn-related topics. Please send your submission directly to Rebecca Marchand: rmarchand at bostonconservatory dot edu 

Originally published in the HSNA online Newsletter January 24, 2016

HSNA Newsletter (March 2017)

HAYDN CONCERT CALENDAR UPDATES

The Haydn Concert Calendar has been updated for March 2017!

If you are performing Haydn's music in a concert in North America, please send the information to Rebecca Marchand.
 

NEW HAYDN BIOGRAPHY WEBSITE

Wolfgang Oehmicke announces the launch of his German-language Joseph Haydn biography website: www.haydnbio.org 

He writes: "My motivation for this site and the aims of my work are described in the preface. There has not been a website in this special form yet. With scientific accuracy it shall contribute to a description of Haydn’s life and work according to present-day Haydn scholarship and achieve new insights by own research. The present version 1.0 indeed needs additional work, especially in the field of chronology of Haydn’s oeuvre. So you are welcome to give your critical view of contents and form of this site in order to establish a Haydn community knowledge pool."

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Emily H. Green and Catherine Mayes, editors,  Consuming Music: Individuals, Institutions, Communities, 1730-1830 (University of Rochester Press, 2017)

Beverly Jerold, Music Performance Issues: 1600-1900 (Pendragon Press, 2016)

Boyd Pomeroy, Review of Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin, eds. Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno (University of Rochester Press, 2015) in Music Theory Online

A letter from Michael Ruhling (Past President, HSNA)

Dear Haydn Society of North America members,

I was sitting at a table at the Hotel Ohr in Eisenstadt in August 2005, having beer and wine with, among others, Michael and Kathleen Lamkin, Rebecca Marchand, and Walter Reicher, Intendant of the Haydn Festspiele.  We were discussing the success of the conferences hosted by the Haydn Society of California at Scripps College, when someone floated the idea of expanding it into a national or continental organization.  Those around the table believed I should be the one to move this idea forward.  On November 4 of the following year, in Los Angeles, we held the inaugural meeting of the Haydn Society of North America, and I was appointed president. 

It has been my sincere pleasure to serve as president of HSNA for over ten years.  During that time HSNA has held several conferences, most notably the 2009 conference in Cambridge, MA, developed our own web site, printed newsletters, and created a unique online journal that will soon publish its twelfth issue.  I think it is fair to say that HSNA has done a fair job of expanding Haydn scholarship here and abroad, and positively influencing the performance and pedagogy of his music.  Our members are engaged in writing, performing, lecturing, and teaching all over the country and world.  I am pleased about all of this, but even more honored to be associated with all of the fine and generous people I have worked with because of HSNA.  My sincerest thanks to all of you, but especially to those of you who have been officers and directors-at-large! 

As we begin this year with our new president Mary Sue Morrow, I trust all of us look forward to continuing our activities with the same enthusiasm, spirit, and charity, that you have displayed so often and so consistently.  Among the most immediate initiatives in the coming months are:

• Increasing membership
• Continuing to expand the online journal in the number and quality of scholarly submissions, and in readership through institutional and individual subscriptions
• Planning conferences, both on our own and collaboratively with other groups
• Working with our sister societies (SECM, MSA, American Handel Society, etc.) to find mutually beneficial areas of cooperation
• Developing ways of supporting and encouraging younger scholars and performers
• Increasing the endowment

Please offer Mary Sue, Michael, Alex, and Bruce, along with the Board of Directors, any ideas you might have on these issues, and continue to energetically support the work of the Society.

With best wishes for the coming year, and years,

Yours Sincerely,

Michael E. Ruhling,

Past President, HSNA

Happy Birthday, Joseph Haydn (and a happy 200th to the Handel & Haydn Society!)

Originally posted March 31, 2015

Today we celebrate Haydn's 283rd birthday, a mere week after the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston kicked off its Bicentennial celebrations, complete with a mayorally-proclaimed "H & H Day" on March 24th. The Boston Public Library is hosting an exhibit about H & H through September 5th. You can read more about it via Teresa Neff's post over at Musicology Now.

As part of their Bicentennial year, the Handel & Haydn Society wiil be performing The Creation on May 1 and 3, 2015.

Publicity for an 1875 performance of The Creation by the Handel and Haydn Society