Celebrating Haydn's Bicentenary
Concerts and Performers
Concert 1
Sunday 30th August, morning
Baryton Trios
Vienna, Palais Esterházy
The Esterházy Ensemble
Works for baryton trio by Haydn and
Tomasini
The baryton (viola di bordone) is an exotic stringed instrument, rather like a bass viol with the addition of sympathetic strings. Rare even in the eighteenth century, it became an obsession of Haydn’s patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, who demanded a regular supply of baryton music for his own use. Haydn duly obliged with duos, divertimenti, concertos and no fewer than 126 trios.
Where better to have this performance than in the Esterházy family’s own palace in the centre of Vienna. The principal hall, retaining the rich Neo-Classical decor Haydn would have known, is very rarely accessible to visitors. The programme consists of three three-movement divertimenti, two by Haydn and one by Luigi Tomasini (1741–1808, the Esterházy orchestra leader).
The Esterházy Ensemble, directed by Michael Brüssing, specialises in music for baryton and viola da gamba at the court of the eponymous princes. Their recording of the complete baryton trios is published in 2008 as part of the Brilliant Classics Haydn edition.
Concert 2
Sunday 30th August, afternoon
‘Mass in Time of War’
Vienna, Basilica of Maria Treu (Piaristenkirche)
Capella Savaria, Capella Cantorum, Ákos Paulik (conductor), Mária Zádori (soprano), Judit Németh (alto), Zoltán Megyesi (tenor), Krisztián Cser (bass)
Haydn’s ‘Mass in Time of War’
The single work in this programme, Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (or ‘Kettledrum Mass’, 1796), was commissioned by the Piarist fathers and first performed in this church. With French troops advancing on Vienna, this impassioned, dramatic work can be interpreted as an urgent appeal for peace.
The monastery church of the Piarists is one of the finest High Baroque churches in Austria, but difficulty of access means that it is rarely seen by visitors. Designed ten years before Haydn was born, it was completed – with frescoes by Maulbertsch – when he was over thirty.
Founded in 1981, Capella Savaria is the oldest period-instrument ensemble in Hungary. (‘Savaria’ is the Latin form of Szombathely, their city of origin.) Outstanding for the vigour and verve as well as the authenticity of their playing, they have performed in most countries in Europe as well as in the Americas,
and have recorded over 60 CDs. Their regular collaborator, the choir Capella Cantorum is of commensurate excellence.
Concert 3
Monday 31st August, morning
Piano Trios
Vienna, Albertina, Hall of the Muses
Vienna Piano Trio
Haydn and Mendelssohn
Haydn’s glorious trios for violin, cello and piano are among his best-kept secrets, and arguably the most under-explored and under-valued corpus of works in the chamber repertoire. This programme includes two of the finest, Nos. 27 (in C) and 29 (in E flat), and Mendelssohn’s Opus 66 (in C minor) in honour of the bicentenary of the younger composer’s birth.
For twenty years, the Vienna Piano Trio – Wolfgang Redik (violin), Matthias Gredler (cello), Stefan Mendl (piano) – has been performing regularly in festivals and concert halls in virtually every major music centre in Europe, the Americas, Australia and the Far East. They unfailingly give moving performances which balance classical nobility, romantic turbulence and affecting delicacy.
The Albertina, a Habsburg residence named after a son-in-law of Empress Maria Theresa, is home to one of the world’s greatest collections of prints and drawings. The building was thoroughly refurbished at the beginning of the nineteenth century and beautifully restored a few years ago. The Musensaal on the upper floor is the light-filled and delicately Neo-Classical venue for the concert.
Concert 4 (Danube, Concert 5)
Monday 31st August, evening
Early Haydn symphonies
Vienna, Liechtenstein Gartenpalais
Wiener Akademie
Roberto Paternostro (conductor)
The Liechtensteins were the wealthiest aristocratic dynasty of the Austro-Hungarian empire and outstanding patrons of art and architecture. One of the grandest residences of the age, their ‘garden palace’ (1691–1711) was created by some of the most talented practitioners of the building arts then working in Central Europe. The splendid Hercules Hall, venue for this concert, has frescoes by Andrea Pozzo, master of Baroque illusionism.
The programme includes three early symphonies by Haydn, the wholly delightful ‘Morning’, ‘Midday’ and ‘Evening’ (Nos. 6, 7 & 8), and the Symphony No. 1 by his older contemporary CPE Bach, whom he greatly admired.
The Wiener Akademie was founded in 1985 and has become internationally respected for its unmistakably Austrian musicality, virtuosity and lively interpretation of repertoire ranging from Baroque to early Romantic music played on period instruments. They focus on bringing to light lesser known works alongside masterpieces of the standard repertoire. For many years they have had a regular concert series at the Vienna Musikverein.
Concert 5
Tuesday 1st September, morning
String Quartets
Vienna, Hofburg, Rittersaal
Quatuor Mosaïques
String quartets by Haydn and Mendelssohn
The winter palace of the Habsburg emperors, the Hofburg is a vast agglomeration of buildings which grew during the course of six centuries of building and refurbishment. The first of our two concerts here is in the Rittersaal, a mideighteenth-century hall with white and gold Rococo stucco and woodwork and red silk wall hangings.
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Quatuor Mosaïques, one part French and three parts Viennese (Erich Höbarth and Andrea Bischof violin, Anita Mitterer viola, Christophe Coin cello) has an international reputation as the finest of string quartets that specialise in historically-informed performance with period instruments. They play Haydn’s Quartet Op. 76/3 in C major (‘Emperor’) and a quartet by Mendelssohn, Op. 44/2 in E minor.
Concert 6
Tuesday 1st September, afternoon
‘The Seasons’
Eisenstadt, Schloss Esterházy
Wiener Kammerchor, Bach Consort Wien
Rubén Dubrovsky (conductor) Cornelia Horak (soprano), Daniel Johannsen (tenor), Josef Wagner (bass – baritone)
Haydn, Die Jahreszeiten
The second of Haydn’s two great, late oratorios, The Seasons was the last major work which Haydn composed. Its composition at the height of his maturity owed much to his London visits: hearing Handel’s Messiah was profoundly inspiring, and the text for The Seasons was based on James Thompson’s poem of the same name.
Eisenstadt, an attractive country town to the south-east of Vienna, is dominated by a vast 17th-century mansion, the principal seat of the Esterházy family, for whom Josef Haydn was the Kapellmeister for most of his career. It was in the Great Hall of Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt that many of Haydn’s works were first performed, and it still retains the wooden floor that Haydn insisted be laid on the marble original for acoustical reasons.
Formed in 1999, the Bach Consort Wien has found its artistic home in Vienna’s Musikverein where it regularly performs as the house ensemble in the Early Music cycle. Abroad, they have performed at festivals in Germany, Spain, Portugal and Croatia, and future travel plans include Switzerland, Italy and France. The soloists are all very well known in Austria in the opera house and on the concert platform, while the Wiener Kammerchor is one of Austria’s finest choirs with regular appearances at the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Musikverein amongst others.
Concert 7 
Wednesday 2nd September, afternoon
Haydn Benefit Concert, 4th May 1795 in the New Room, King’s Theatre, London
Vienna, Hofburg, Zeremoniensaal
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic
Adam Fischer (conductor), Wolfgang Redik (violin), Thomas Höniger (oboe)
Haydn’s Symphonies Nos. 100 (‘Military’) and 104; duet from Orlando Paladino and concert aria ‘Scena di Berenice’ by Haydn; Oboe Concerto by Giuseppe Ferlendis; Violin Concerto by Giovanni Battista Viotti.
This concert is an almost complete reconstruction of a particular event (the benefit in question was Haydn’s: he was awarded the substantial profits), the authenticity extending to the practice of interleaving symphonic movements with other pieces.
Freed from almost feudal servitude by the death in 1790 of his employer Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy, Haydn was soon on his way to London for the first of two visits, each lasting around eighteen months. Measured by the quantity of musical events, their variety, cosmopolitanism and funding, London was at the time the leading centre for music in Europe. Haydn was fêted as a celebrity, his concert series were immensely successful, and he returned to Vienna a wealthy man.
Embedded within the Hofburg and rarely accessible to the public, the ‘Hall of Ceremonies’ is the grandest hall in Vienna, magnificently embellished with Corinthian columns.
The Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic was founded by Adam Fischer in 1987 to bring together outstanding musicians from both countries. It has recorded Haydn’s complete symphonies in Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt and has acquired an international reputation as one of the most spirited and sensitive interpreters of the Viennese classics. They have toured widely, with repeated appearances at the Mostly Mozart festival in New York, the BBC Proms in London and the Mozart Festival in Salzburg.