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Haydn's (?) Cello Concertos, 1860-1930: Editions, Performances, Reception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2013

George Kennaway
George Kennaway*
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
*
Email: G.W.Kennaway@leeds.ac.uk
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Abstract

While there exist numerous nineteenth- and early twentieth-century annotated editions of repertoire such as the violin sonatas of Beethoven, the repertoire for the cello was in general edited significantly less frequently. The cello concertos by or attributed to Haydn constitute an exception, both in the number of versions and the degree of editorial intervention. Three cello concertos were associated with Haydn's name: the well-known concerto in D Hob.VIIb:2, another concerto in D Hob.VIIb:4, and a concerto in C Hob.VIIb:5. The first is now known to be a genuine work of Haydn's although this attribution was not universally accepted in the nineteenth century. The second is an unattributable eighteenth-century concerto claimed to be by Haydn and accepted as such at its publication in 1895. The third was compiled by the cellist David Popper who claimed to have based it on Haydn's sketches, providing orchestration and linking material. This article discusses aspects of the five performing editions of Hob.VIIb:2 by Bockmühl, Servais, Becker, Klengel and Whitehouse, the two editions of Hob.VIIb:4 by Grützmacher and Trowell, and Popper's concerto, considering these texts, the reception of the concertos as compositions, and the reception of individual performances. This article surveys the period of the greatest diversity of editions, a period whose later limit is determined by the eventual entry of this work into the cello canon. It will be suggested that this diversity is a consequence of non-canonicity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , December 2012 , pp. 177 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

A version of this paper was given at a research seminar at the Department of Drama and Music, University of Hull in 2009. I wish to record my thanks for this opportunity, and for the stimulating discussion that followed. Thanks are also due to Jerome Carrington, Dr. Martin Iddon, and the anonymous reviewers of this paper; and to Lydia Machell for typesetting music examples numbers 11 and 12.

References

1 All these editions are available for study at the CHASE project website: http://chase.leeds.ac.uk.

2 Hob.VIIb:4 has been recorded by Maria Kliegel and Gautier Capuçon: Maria Kliegel, Cologne Chamber Orchestra cond. Helmut Müller-Brühl (Naxos 8.555041, 2000); Gautier Capuçon, Mahler Chamber Orchestra cond. Daniel Harding (Virgin Classics 5455602, 2003). Popper's concerto has never been recorded.

3 Plate number 1046. Steingräber published a new edition of Moscheles's Piano Concerto No. 3 (preface dated 1900), with plate number 960.

4 Plate number 9282. Sinding's Sechs Stücke op. 73 (composed 1905) had Peters plate number 9275; Grieg's Stimmungen op. 74, had Peters plate number 9284 and was dated 1905.

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34 ‘Unter Vermeidung jeglicher auffälliger Portamenti, schlicht über die Stelle hinweg spielen!’. Ibid., p. 228.

35 ‘[…] sie ist so zu spielen, daβ trotz des Lagenwechsel keine Portamenti zu vernehmen sind’. Ibid., p. 229.

36 Ibid., ‘Das Wesen des Vibrato’, Mechanik und Aesthetik, pp. 199–202.

37 ‘Das letzte Sechzehntel fis wird fehlerhafterweise meistens derart verkürzt, daß es den Eindruck eines Zweiunddreißigstel macht’. Ibid., ‘Versuch einer Vortrags-Analyse’, Mechanik und Aesthetik, p. 227.

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41 ‘Frohgemut, freudig bewegthebt das zweite Thema an’. Ibid., p. 228.

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45 ‘Das Werk hat mancherlei Wandlungen durchgemacht und ist in verschiedenen Fassungen veröffentlicht worden. Die vorliegende Form von Gevaert ist eine glückliche zu nennen. Da sie unserer Analyse zugrunde liegt, können die hier vorgeschlagenen Modifikationen nicht als Abweichungen von der Originalfassung des Komponisten im Sinne einer Verletzung des Grundsatzes der Notentreue betrachtet werden’. Ibid., p. 233.

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54 ‘C'est la première fois, à notre connaissance, qu'on exécute à Paris une œuvre semblable de Haydn. Un peu vieux de forme, comme on pouvait s'y attendre, ce concerto a néanmoins de l'intérêt; l'andante, notamment, est une belle page. Une grande et difficile cadence, de la composition de M. Gevaert, a été ajoutée au premier allegro; M. servais l'a exécutée avec la plus grande sûreté et beaucoup de brio’. ‘Concerts et auditions musicales’, Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 46 (1879): 100.

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59 ‘Music in London’, Manchester Guardian (13 February 1905): 6.

60 ‘The Hallé Concerts. Prospectus for the Jubilee Season’, Manchester Guardian (5 October 1907): 6.

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65 ‘… trug er daher zunächste eine interessante Ausgrabung, ein Violoncellconcert mit Orchester von Haydn (vermuthlich ein bearbeitetes Gamba-Concert – schrieb doch Haydn für seinen Fürsten, der dieses heute veraltete fünsaitige instrument spielte, zahlreiche Gamba-Compositionen).’ ‘Tagesgeschichte’, Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 26 (1895): 996. Becker's performance took place in Dresden. The reviewer appears to mean the baryton, but there is some confusion here.

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70 ‘Music in Norwich and District’, Musical Times, 49 (1908): 46.

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72 ‘Amateur Orchestras’, Musical Times, 53 (1912): 176.

73 ‘Concertumschau’, Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 27 (1896): 699.

74 ‘Foreign Notes’, Musical Times 55 (1914): 57. Harrison broadcast Hob.VIIb:2 twice, in 1924 and 1925: K.A. Wright, ‘Wireless News’, School Music Review 33 (1924): 154, and 34 (1925): 254; ‘Music in the Provinces’, Musical Times 65 (1924): 112, and 69 (1928): 455.

75 ‘Current Events and Concert Notes’, Violin Times, 11 (June 1904): 83, and ‘Some Events of the Week’, Musical Standard, 21 (21 May 1904): 320; Cremona, 1 (July 1907): 83; Musical Standard (1 July 1905): 4.

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85 This last change may have been made by analogy with Becker's and Whitehouse's treatment of the ending of the slow movement of the ‘great’ D major concerto, which also ends pizzicato in the solo part.

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100 Anon. [Henry Chorley], Athenaeum, 2123 (4 July 1868): 25. Romberg had died in 1841. The ‘Swiss Concerto’ is his concerto no. 7 op. 44, so called from the effects of yodelling and distant echoes with harmonics in the last movement.

101 The cellist Paul Grümmer's agent advertised his concerto repertoire in 1906 as including Dvořák, d'Albert, Dohnányi (Konzertstück), Volkmann, Haydn, Saint-Saëns, Romberg (no. 9), and Tchaikovsky (Rococo Variations). Die Musik, 6 (1906-07): iv.

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