When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, according to the writer Samuel Johnson, for

Transcription

1 When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, according to the writer Samuel Johnson, for there is in London all that life can afford. The city doubled in population from the beginning to the end of the 18th century, housing close to ten percent of the entire population of England. Daniel Defoe commented that This whole Kingdom are employed to furnish something, and I may add, the best of everything, to supply the city of London with provisions. Thriving business meant a concentration of considerable wealth, and the wealthy, including a swelling middle class, sought entertainment in their leisure, thereby providing a lively and enthusiastic audience for the arts. Importantly, this included a mixture of public concert settings, such as opera houses, theatres, music clubs, churches and pleasure gardens, as well as the private settings in the parlours, salons and drawing rooms of grand residences all over the city. A demand was created for a mixture of both large and small scale music, with popular works often arranged in adaptations that could work in both settings. Thus it was the audiences of Olde London Towne, and the potential for fame and fortune, that brought dozens of Europe s most famous composers across the English Channel in the late 18 th century, including Geminiani, Handel, J.C. Bach, the young and old Mozart, Haydn, as well as one Carl Friedrich Abel. Abel was a virtuoso viola da gambist initially taught by his father at the court of Köthen. None other than J.S. Bach was Kapellmeister at that court during Abel s youth, and, according to Charles Burney, when Bach left for the new post of Kantor at Leipzig, the old Abel claimed his title. Upon his father s death, the young Abel followed Bach to enroll as a student at the Thomasschule. Abel was later appointed to the Dresden Court, also a Bach family connection with Wilhelm Friedemann living and working in the city, where he began to compose. Abel lived

2 in Dresden for 10 years and finally left during the Seven Years War in the season for London with nothing but three Thaler and six symphonies, according to Burney. Abel would remain in London for the rest of his life, coming to prominence as a performer, composer and impresario. The latter title came via his most significant relationship with a Bach family member, namely Johann Christoph, with whom he became acquainted in 1763 and subsequently began the famous Bach Abel concert series. The series included around 15 concerts every season, lasting from 1765 until 1781 and introducing London audiences to many of Europe s most famous performers. Beginning with the entertainments hosted by Mrs Cornely at her Carlisle House and then moving to Almack s Great Room at St James s, the concerts found a permanent home in their own dedicated rooms at Hanover Square via the patronage of Sir John Gallini. The Hanover Square Rooms were the principal concert venue in London for over a century. It is said that while J.C. Bach was responsible for selecting many of the singers for these concerts, the instrumentalists had commonly been associated with Abel through the Dresden court. Abel was loved and respected in London for his warmth, loyalty, generosity and even his indulgent nature, spending most of his time with other artists, designers and engravers, such as Thomas Gainsborough, who painted a famous portrait of his friend holding a seven string gamba. Abel s compositional style, bridging the Baroque and galant, is rich and expressive, often jovial and light, occasionally using dramatic elements of the Sturm und Drang style and revealing influences from both the Mannheim and Italian schools of composition. Burney praised the composer, remarking that his invention was not unbounded, and his exquisite taste and deep science prevented the admission of whatever was not highly polished. His Symphonia in C

3 major, Op.1 No.2 features a typically joyous opening movement, followed by a very dark and sombre Andante and finishing with a lively dance. This movement demonstrates Abel s penchant for crafting phrases of an unusual length, the opening extending to nine bars rather than the more common two or four bar units (PLEASE CHECK THIS SKYE). The manuscript used for today s performance was published by Hummel in In 1760 Abel received a royal privilege allowing him to publish his music in London, but he also sought to maintain his reputation on the continent by selling his Op. 1 to Hummel, who published it in Amsterdam, and the Op.2 and 3 to Breitkopf in Germany. Hummel suggests winds can be used ad libitum, but we have elected to perform the work with just our pure gut strings. Abel s Concerto for flute No.5 in G is part of a set that was never published during the composer s lifetime, but was most likely conceived in Dresden just prior to his departure for London. The Dresden court had employed some of the greatest flautists of the day, such as Buffardin and Quantz, and their great skill led to the instrument becoming extremely popular. Over a thousand flute quartets emerged from various composers in the 18th century! Despite his fame as a gambist Abel was certainly a capable flautist, with all his works for flute demonstrating a great affinity with the instrument. They are well within the comfortable range of an amateur, perhaps an intentional commercial strategy, but contain a wealth of beautiful musical material. The performance today will be accompanied by single strings and continuo, the standard concerto instrumentation of the period. Johann Christian Bach, the London Bach as he came to be known, was the leading composer

4 and musician in the city by the end of the 1760s, in demand as a performer, teacher and composer, and adored for his gregarious and amiable nature. The young Mozart, whose concerto style was strongly influenced by Christian, wrote to his father I love Bach, as you know, with all my heart. I have the highest respect for him. Christian was the youngest son of JS and trained with his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel in Berlin after the death of their father. Christian was the first to throw off the mantle of the Protestant Kapellmeister tradition which had been such a defining feature of the Bach family for two centuries, leaving for Italy in 1755 and rising to fame for his operas in Milan. News of his successes reached the King s Theatre in London, and Christian was commissioned to write two operas for the season. He never returned to his post at Milan Cathedral, and lived comfortably in London for twenty years in the acquaintance of royalty and the cultural elite. Despite his successes, the opera Adriano in Siria, from which our aria La dolce fiamma is sourced, was a failure. Burney reported that everyone seemed to come out of theatre disappointed, acknowledging however that the songs were sung afterwards at concerts with great applause, and found, as detached airs, excellent, though they had been unfortunate in their totality. The aria performed today, a ravishing love song to show off the performer s skill with messa di voce, would have originally been sung by the famous castrato Manzuoli, but will be performed today by our fabulous baritone, David Greco. It is clear from correspondence between members of the Mozart family that they were in possession of a study manuscript of this aria in the late 1770s, indicating the high regard in which they continued to hold Johann Christian Bach. The 18th century Cantata was equally suitable for lyrical and dramatic expression; a hybrid of

5 both opera and oratorio. Unity of subject matter was conveyed in a number of ways; through the treatment of the voice, the recitative, either accompanied or secco, and the aria. It is worth questioning why the form achieved comparatively little historical importance. The composers Arne, Boyce, Stanley and many others evidently enjoyed it, as did their public. The texts were generally of a simplistic manner, and dealt with pastoral life, fictitious nymphs and shepherds and trivial love affairs, and it is perhaps due to this that the form did not take off. One could easily contest this argument however, as there is undoubtedly a great deal of lovely music to be found in these Cantatas, many of which are yet to be revived. The very fact that no critical edition exists of the cantata opus we perform today is testament this fact. Charles John Stanley (17 January May 1786) a famed organist and composer of his day, had the terrible misfortune of being left nearly blind at age 2 after slipping on a marble hearth with a china basin in his hand. This was a misfortune that certainly didn t mar him from becoming one of the most celebrated composers and musicians in England. At seventeen he became the youngest person ever to obtain the Bachelor of Music degree at Oxford University. Perhaps due to his disability, he developed a remarkable memory, and was able to conduct and play from memory at almost all his concerts. As an organist he was director of music at the famed Temple Church in London, and his playing attracted the likes of George Frederic Handel, who attended regularly to hear him play. Stanley went on to work closely with Handel and conducted many of his oratorios in later life. The Cantata for Voice Op. 3 No. 1 that we present today, To Wisdom's cold delights, is from his Op.3 collection of 6, and was first published in 1742.

6 Franz Joseph Haydn ( ) was blessed with consistent patronage for most of his adult life from Prince Nicolaus, head of the extremely wealthy Esterházy family. However, with the death of the Prince in 1790 and the succession of his son Anton, an economization of the family finances resulted in the dismissal of the majority of musicians at the Esterházy court, with Haydn himself accepting a reduced salary. By this stage Haydn had become the foremost composer in Europe but suddenly no longer found himself bound to his previously numerous, arduous and isolating musical responsibilities at court, thus granting him the freedom to travel and embrace the fame he had won for himself abroad. Around this time Haydn was visited by the German impresario Johann Peter Salomon who made him an extraordinary offer of a concert series in London along with a large commission for the city, including an opera, six symphonies and numerous other works. The composer accepted, enjoying great success during two visits from and He wrote home to Vienna from London: My arrival caused a great sensation throughout the whole city, and I went the round of all the newspapers for three successive days At present I am working on symphonies but in order to have more quiet I shall have to rent a room far from the centre of town. Haydn produced some of his most outstanding music in London, including the Surprise symphony, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, and amassed considerable riches to the tune of florins. Charles Burney, attending at his first concert, reported that Haydn himself presided at the piano forte; and the sight of that renowned composer so electrified the audience, as to excite an attention and a pleasure superior to any that

7 had ever been caused by instrumental music in England. On leaving London in 1795, Haydn signed the rights to his new symphonies to Salomon, who published them not in their full orchestral setting, but in chamber arrangements, announced in The Times on 19 June 1798 for five Instruments, vizt. Two Violins, a German Flute, a Tenor, and a Violoncello: with an Accompaniment for the Piano Forte ad libitum. In this way the enterprising Salomon was able to cater to music loving salons and drawing rooms all over England, ensuring wide dissemination and substantial profits. Symphony No.94, premiered on March 23rd, 1792 at the Hanover Square Rooms in London with Haydn at the fortepiano, earned the inevitable nickname the following morning via a recount of the seemingly innocent C major tune of the Adagio movement. The Oracle in London described the moment thus: The surprise might not be unaptly likened to the situation of a beautiful Shepherdess, who lulled to slumber by the murmur of a distant Waterfall, starts alarmed by the unexpected firing of a fowling piece. The particular salon in which you will hear the work today features harpsichord instead of fortepiano. Historically informed performers and scholars throughout the world are eternally grateful to the pen of Charles Burney ( ), who was been referenced many times throughout these concert notes. Burney was an English music historian whose journals, under the title The Present State of Music, recount vast numbers of performances of music all over Europe and especially in the concert venues of London, providing invaluable details about performance context, the style, impact and reception of all manner of compositions and the social and musical networks of the 18th century.