Happy New Year to all of you.
I wish you good health and glorious days.
The year 2016 was somewhat bumpy. It brought Brexit and Donald Trump. Mr Trump may not be a duly-elected President of the United States because Russian President Vladimir Putin meddled in an American election.
Let us hope Mr Trump does not change what has been put into place radically. He does not have a clear mandate and countries need stability and continuity. Moreover, what happens in the United States affects the entire world.
A New Year is a beginning and I hope 2017 will bring us joy and peace.
I am inserting Mozart’s Laudate Dominum. It is one of the finest compositions ever. (SeeVesperæ sollenes de confessore,K.339, Wikipedia)
I apologize for not acknowledging receipt of this nomination yesterday. I had to keep appointments.
First I would like to thank Dear Kitty1.Some Blog for nominating me for the blogger recognition award displayed above. I do not think I deserve an award at this point because I haven’t posted articles frequently for several months. However, I have worked carefully on those I published. There are rules to follow.
The first rule attached to this nomination is to thank my colleague most sincerely. She is a person I have admired from the moment I started blogging and interacting with other bloggers.
The second rule is to tell how by blog started. This rule could lead to my writing several posts, but I will keep it short. I started blogging when I realized US President Obama was criticized for the best things he did. He has helped to modernize the United States, bring it up to today’s societal standards. If Donald Trump replaces him, I fear very much that he will do away with Obamacare. He’ll protect the rich.
The third rule is to give advice to bloggers. The Google rating of my post is not good which has nothing to do with content. It’s presentation. I have learned to insert images and videos into my posts, but I do not know how to customize my blog. Filling your sidebar is important. As well, keep a formula. For instance a picture and a few words can make for a beautiful post. But my two pieces of advice would be:
– To make access to your blog as easy as possible.
– To make your blog easy to navigate is also crucial.
Each nominee will receive a notification. You need not thank me and you are free to decline this nomination. If you choose to accept it, the rules are:
Write a post to show your award.
Give a brief story of how your blog started.
Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog.
Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to.
This post is one of two posts about an unfortunate connection. More than a century after the Esterházy family had been patrons to Joseph Haydn‘s (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809), an Esterházy, but of a different branch than Haydn’s generous patrons, would commit treason against France, but was protected by the French army. He retired in 1898 and escaped punishment by feeing to England.
So, although this post is mostly about Haydn and the Esterházy family, I am not focussing on the Joseph Haydn who, with Mozart and Beethoven, is the foremost composer of the Classical period (1730–1820)[i] in the history of western music and the composer best known as the person who “helped establish the forms and styles for the string quartet and the symphony.”[ii]
The Haydn I wish to write about is the musician who, after difficult beginnings, came to the attention of aristocrats: Karl Joseph von Fürnberg, the Bohemian count Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin (1758) and, in particular, the extremely wealthy Esterházy family, the House of Esterházy, a Magyar family at whose court, first in Eisenstadt and, second, at Esterháza (now Fertöd), Haydn would work for nearly thirty years (from 1761 to 1790). He was Vice-Kapellmeister to prince Paul II Anton Esterházy de Galántha (22 April 1711 – 18 March 1762) and, a year later, when prince Anton passed away, he became Hofkapellmeister, or music director, to his brother, prince Nikolaus I or Miklós József Esterházy (d. 1790).
Humble beginnings
Let us look at Haydn’s early life. Haydn was born to a humble family in Rohrau, Austria, a village near the border with Hungary). He was the son of a wheelwright and his wife Maria, née Koller, who had worked as a cook at the palace of Aloys Thomas Raimund, Count Harrach (7 March, 1669, Vienna – 7 November, 1742, an Austrian politician and diplomat.
It was not possible for Haydn to develop his talent for music in Rohrau. At the age of six, he was therefore sent to apprentice as a musician at the home of Johann Matthias Frankh, a relative of the Haydn family who lived in Hainburg. As Frankh’s student, Haydn learned to play the harpsichord and the violin. But it was as a singer that he was brought to the attention of Georg von Reutter. At the age of eight, in 1740, Haydn auditioned for Reutter, the director of music at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, who convinced Joseph’ family to let him take young Joseph and his brother Michael as choirboys at St. Stephen’s. Haydn was eight years old. However, at the age of seventeen, he was expelled from the choir. His voice had changed and he had played a practical joke on another chorister.
Haydn was taken in by Johann Michael Spangler, a musician whose garret he shared, and supported himself with odd musical jobs. Fortunately, he met Nicola Porpora who gave him a position as accompanist for voice lessons and corrected his compositions. As a chorister, Haydn had not acquired sufficient knowledge of the theory of music to become a composer. Matters would change.
Aristocratic Patronage
We have already seen that Haydn first came to the attention of Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph von Fürnberg. He was a member of Fürnberg’s small orchestra and, during his tenure as Fürnberg’s employee, he wrote his first quartets. We also know that, in 1758, he was recommended to Bohemian Count Morzin. (See Ferdinand Maximilian von Morzin, Britannica.) During the three years Haydn was Kapellmeister to count Morzin, his patron put him in charge of an orchestra of about 16 musicians. At this point, Haydn composed his first symphonies.
Later, in c. 1761, when Count Morzin dismissed his musicians, a relatively unknown Haydn was hired by prince Paul II Anton Esterházy de Galántha(22 April 1711 – 18 March 1762), a member of the extremely wealthy Esterházy family. He worked first at Eisenstadt, earning a yearly salary of 400 florins and, after Prince Anton or Pál Antal passed away, in 1762, his patron would be Nikolaus Esterházy or Miklós József Esterházy, Pál Antal’s brother, in whose employ he would remain for nearly 30 years and whom he followed when the princely family moved to Esterháza (now Fertöd), their Hungarian palace, built in 1762-1766.
Joseph Haydn conducting a string quartet in Vienna (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Esterházy Family as Patrons
Prince Nikolaus I was Haydn’s patron until his death in 1790. His successor dismissed Nikolaus’ court musicians but continued to pay Haydn 400 florins a year, which had been his salary in 1761. Moreover, Count Nikolaus had left Haydn a pension of 1000 florins. As well, given that his services were no longer needed, Haydn’s new patron allowed him to travel, which led to an apotheosis in Haydn’s career.
Haydn Duties at Esterháza
At Esterháza, Haydn had onerous duties. According to Britannica, “while the music director [who was still alive] oversaw church music, Haydn conducted the orchestra and coached the singers in almost daily rehearsals, composed most of the music required, and served as chief of the musical personnel.”
However, he could choose the musicians who would be members of his chamber orchestra. Moreover, he was free to invite fine guest musicians, if such was Prince Nikolaus’ wish, which was usually the case. Mozart, who became Haydn’s protégé, was undoubtedly the most remarkable musician ever to perform at Esterháza. Finally, distinguished visitors flocked to Esterháza and, every year, Haydn spent up to two months in Vienna, the city that was home to Mozart and would soon be home to Beethoven, who would be Haydn’s student, albeit briefly.
So, even though he lived at a distance from Vienna, Esterháza offered Haydn a stable life and he was not only a respected member of Nicolaus’ court, but also the prince’s personal music teacher, Nikolaus played the baryton, now a mostly obsolete instrument. Joseph Haydn wrote approximately 170 pieces for Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, in the earlier part of his career. (See Haydn, Wikipedia.)
London: an “Apotheosis”
As we know, when Nikolaus I died, Haydn was financially secure. Yet he let German impresario Johann Peter Salomon convince him to visit England and conduct new symphonies with a large orchestra. It would lead to unprecedented and totally unsuspected success. Haydn’s “Paris Symphonies” were excellent compositions, but his “London Symphonies” are a summit. Moreover, it is in London, between 1796 and 1798, that Haydn composed The Creation(Die Schöpfung), an oratorio. (See Haydn, Wikipedia.)
I will pause at this point and post a second article focussing on another member of the Esterházy family, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the man who sold information to Germany, a crime imputed to Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery officer of Jewish background. The Dreyfus Affair would divide France into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards and reveal considerable contempt against Jews, particularly in the military.
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[i] Narrowly speaking, the Classical period extends from (1730–1820). It follows the Baroque period (1600–1760) and is followed by the Romantic period (1815–1910). These periods overlap.
composer: Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809)
piece: « String Quartet No. 62 in C major, Op. 76, No. 3, Hob.III:77, “Emperor”: II. Poco adagio, cantabile »
performers: Reinhold Friedrich
In Wikipedia’s entry on Joseph Bologne, mention is made of “a famous portrait of him [Saint-George] crossing swords in an exhibition match with the French transvestite spy-in-exile, the Chevalier d’Éon, in the presence of the Prince of Wales, Britain’s future king George IV.” The famous portrait is the above “satire.”
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Allow me to begin this post by speaking of the two Mozarts: the white Mozart or Amadeus, and the black Mozart, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George.
When Mozart, the white Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was in Paris, in 1777-1778, he was influenced by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. One would expect the white Mozart to have influenced the black Mozart, but that was not the case. However, the two differ in that the career of the black Mozart (December 25, 1745 – June 10, 1799) was affected by his ethnicity and the French Revolution. Three divas opposed his appointment as director of the Royal Opera because he was a mulatto.
However, by then, Joseph had commissioned and premièred Haydn six “Paris Symphonies” and he had met the white Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus during his 1777-1778 visit to Paris. It is during his stay in Paris that the former Wolfgang Theophilus, the white Mozart, lost his mother. She had accompanied him on this tour, but was taken ill and died on 3 July 1778. Wolfgang was 22 at that time and Joseph, 33.
However the French Revolution all but destroyed Joseph whose patrons were Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. As we know, he was Marie-Antoinette’s music teacher. Marie-Antoinette composed “C’est mon ami,” a lovely pastoral song.
Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: L’amant anonyme (1780),
Ballet Nº 1
It’s a spring day in Sherbrooke. Such days do not last. So I thought I would celebrate by sending all of you a photograph of one of my little drawings: pure fantasy. For the first time, I let the camera do part of the work, except that it wasn’t work.
Please accept this token of my appreciation for your lovely blogs and for the kind messages I receive from you. I enjoy this exchange.
Hymns to the Virgin Mary, or Marian hymnology, as I will call it, constitute a substantial part of sacred music. Moreover, Marian art is abundant. Mary’s main feasts are the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception, three of which are related to the Nativity Cycle. The exception would be the Assumption. Mary did not die. She ascended into heaven.
1. The Annunciation
The Feast of the Annunciation commemorates the day on which the Archangel Gabriel visited Mary to announce that she would bear and give birth to the son of God. The Feast of the Annunciation (see Rubens, below) is celebrated on 25 March, exactly nine months before Christmas Day, when Christians celebrate the birth of Christ. The above image is by Paolo de’ Matteis (9 February 1662 – 26 January 1728).
2. The Nativity
The central Marian feast is the Nativity. The Nativity is in fact a celebration of the birth of Christ, but Marian feasts are rooted in the Nativity cycle. Where Marian art is concerned, the Nativity includes portrayals of the Shepherds in adoration, of the visit by the Kings of Orient, as well as portrayals of the Presentation of Jesus as firstborn son, and the Purification of Mary. Just below, I have inserted a visit by the Shepherds, by Gerard van Honthorst (4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656), a Dutch Golden Age artist who is also called Gerrit van Honthorst.
The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622
3. The Assumption
Mary did not die. She ascended into heaven and her Assumption is celebrated on 15 August. In the Eastern Church, Byzantine Emperor Maurice selected 15 August as the date of the feast of Dormition and Assumption. The 15th of August is also the Acadian’s Feast Day. Acadians are the French-speaking inhabitants of Canada’s Atlantic provinces. Their national anthem is the Ave Maris Stella.
The Assumption of the Virgin Mary, by Rubens, 1626
(Please click on the picture to enlarge it.)
4. The Immaculate Conception
According to Roman Catholicism, Jesus was conceived without stain or macula. This dogma is disputed as it is linked with the notion of an inherent fault, the original sin, the sin committed by Adam and Eve. Newborns or infants who die before Baptism do not go to heaven. They are sent to Limbo.
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THE FOUR ANTIPHONS (Antiennes)
Marian hymnology
As for Marian hymnology, it originally consisted of four antiphons (antiennes, in French) sung in Gregorian Chant. Two (the Alma Redemptoris Mater and the Salve Regina were composed by Hermann of Reichenau, and would have been Gregorian chants. The four Marian antiphons are in fact linked to the Liturgy of the Hours, the Canonical Hours, and commemorate the four seasons.
Antiphons are “responsories” or the response by the choir or the congregation to a psalm or hymn. But they may involve responsorial singing by alternating choirs. Simply expressed, antiphons resemble a refrain. “The refrain was called an antiphon (A). The resulting musical form was A V1 A V2…”[1] Antiphons are not restricted to Marian hymnology. We should also note that Marian feasts are associated with the seasons, as are other Christian feasts. Antiphons are not restricted to Marian hymnology.
The Marian liturgical calendar is divided as follows:
Traditionally, the Alma Redemptoris Mater is sung at the end of Compline, one of the Canonical Hours. It is said to have been composed by Hermannus Contractus (Herman the Cripple) (1013–1054).
Traditionally, the Ave Regina Cælorum has been sung at the end of each Canonical Hours, but mainly Compline,between 2 February (Candlemas or Chandeleur in French) until the Holy Week. Candlemas is the day commemorating the Presentation of the Jesus at the Temple and the Purification of the Virgin Mary.
The Regina Cœli or Cæli (Queen of Heaven), is a night prayer (Compline or Vespers). Its authorship has not been determined but it was sung by Franciscans in the twelfth century. It was sung in place of the Angelus from Holy Saturday through Pentecost. It is therefore associated with the celebration of Easter.
The Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) is sung at Compline from the Saturday before Trinity Sunday until the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent. (Wikipedia). It was composed by German monk Hermann of Reichenau, the above-mentioned Hermannus Contractus (Herman the Cripple) (1013–1054), the composer of the Alma Redemptoris Mater.
—ooo—
However, to the four antiphons, we may add the above-mentioned Ave Maris Stella, Mozart’s breathtaking Ave Verum Corpus, various Ave Maria‘s, the most famous of which are Schubert’s Ave Maria, and the Ave MariaCharles Gounod composed on the first prelude of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier (BWV 846-893). I will discuss these in my next blog.
Polyphony was invented by the Greeks. It is part of Western Europe’s Græco-Roman heritage. Guillaume Dufay (August 5, 1397 – November 27, 1474), Gilles Binchois (c. 1400 – 20 September 1460), and Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1425 Belgium – February 1497) contributed to the development of polyphony (Franco-Flemish school).
The examples I have used below are taken from Wikipedia and YouTube. (Please donate to Wikipedia. Small donations add up.)
Homophony in Tallis’s (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585) “If ye love me,” composed in 1549. The four voices move together using the same rhythm, and the relationship between them creates chords: the excerpt begins and ends with an F major triad. (Wikipedia)
The numbers indicate finguering. They do not refer to the position of the chord: root position and inversions. During the baroque period, it was not unusual simply to provide musicians with a figured bass from which they “realized” the chords.
Thomas Tallis, English composer
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Harmony (polyphony mixing human voices and instrumental voices) (click on title to hear)
I have used the word “contrapuntal” several times with respect to the voices interwoven in madrigals. Therefore, I have spoken of counterpoint. However, I do not remember mentioning harmony.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Music’s two dimensions
Music resembles time. As you know, for the Greeks, time was both chronos (the horizontal dimension of time) and kairos (the moment, or vertical dimension of time).
Similarly, music has two dimensions: harmony (vertical) and counterpoint (horizontal). Harmony is associated with chords and counterpoint, with melody, but they may intersect.
I just looked up the entry harmony in Wikipedia and found a quotation by Carl Dalhaus (remember The Idea of Absolute Music). He also uses the terms vertical and horizontal to differentiate harmony from counterpoint. I may therefore have picked the terms browsing Dalhaus.
It was not that counterpoint was supplanted by harmony (Bach’s tonal counterpoint is surely no less polyphonic than Palestrina’s modal writing) but that an older type both of counterpoint and of vertical technique was succeeded by a newer type. And harmony comprises not only the (‘vertical’) structure of chords but also their (‘horizontal’) movement. Like music as a whole, harmony is a process.vertical to explain the difference between counterpoint and harmony.[i]
The Fugue
For instance, the fugue is a form that is mostly contrapuntal. However, when the voices touch one another, it has to be harmonically acceptable. Consequently, one cannot dissociate fully harmony and counterpoint. There are links. However, in the curriculum, the study of harmony precedes the study of counterpoint.
The Melodic line
With respect to the melodic line, I cannot go into details because I am writing a mere blog. But, it may be useful to know that, generally speaking, the melodic line takes us from chord to chord, but not necessarily in a chordal fashion. The notes may be distributed over the staff (the lines).
Chords
The basic chord consists of three notes, the triad: do-mi-sol or four notes, as in the dominant seventhsol-si-ré-fa, or more notes. These notes may be played simultaneously, in chordal fashion, but they may also be played separately (arpeggiated).
In most traditional music: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., the melodic line is eight “measures” long. Just sing Twinkle, twinkle little star or Ah, vous dirais-je, maman. Or sing the choral movement, the Ode to Joy, of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Harmonic progression
Fully-deployed, the harmonic progression of the melody consists of chords built on I-IV-VII-III-VIII-II-V-I, or do-fa-si-mi-la-ré-sol-do, but a I-IV-V-I progression is just fine. It depends on the length of the melody and other factors.
In solfège, sight-singing, musicians use the do-ré-mi chain. But in harmony, they use Roman numerals.
Throughout the middle-ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque era (c. 1600 – c. 1750), schools worked on the combination of notes. Nowadays students still learn Rameau (harmony) and Fux (counterpoint). However they do not study the original treatises. They use a textbook.
Western Europe’s fundamental theoretical works are:
So, we now know, albeit superficially and in a simplified manner, that harmony is the vertical dimension of music and counterpoint, its horizontal dimension.
What amazes me is that, undergirding sublime music, there should be so much theory. Yet give the barbershop quartet a piece to sing and, if they know the piece, the tune, they just might “harmonize” it very little time, by ear.
The Mozart Family on Tour
