Hadyn and Musical Fraud

[robert newman]

The period covered by the careers of Hadyn, Mozart and the young Beethoven is a fascinating one. Since Haydn's late period overlaps that of the young Beethoven (with contact between the two) I think it might help to submit this article on Haydn in this separate thread. This will at least introduce the subject of Haydn's largely manufactured reputation and will show (I hope) that what is being said of certain works by 'Mozart' is actually as true of many works by 'Haydn'.

Haydn's rise to fame came as many know mainly through his association with Prince Nikolaus I Esterhazy ('The Magnificent'). He had in fact entered in Haydn's name works that had really been commissioned from many of the best contemporary composers of the time through his brother in law, Count Giacomo Durazzo. The aim of the Prince was not so much to make Haydn famous but, of course, to make his own lineage famous by means of 'Joseph Haydn's' music. Composers who were willing to submit him works in this way included Giovanni Batista Sammartini, Andrea Luchesi, W. Pichl, Michael Haydn, Joseph Eybler, and others.

Durazzo's idea was basically to manage these works by using the Vienna Court Counsellor Berhard von Kees. Kees would arrange for an orchestra to try out these newly arrived works and, if they were deemed to be acceptable, they were added to a list of accepted 'Haydn' works which he, Kees, started to keep. This Kees Catalogue of Haydn works (known in Haydn circles as the 'K.K.' list) is therefore the only reasonably reliable catalogue of 'Haydn' symphonies - Hadyn being at least their 'legal' author despite not actually having composed them.

The scale of this deception was huge. And it was to continue for decades. Glimpses of this can be seen here and there even during Haydn's lifetime though study of the Bonn archives taken to Modena, examination of watermarks and various other lines of evidence related to these manuscripts show that a huge number of works (mostly symphonies and masses) today credited to Haydn were not, in fact, of his composition.

Robert Newman


The aim here was of course to create the Haydn reputation as a glory of the Empire (a campaign that in later years also was to involve Mozart, though in a different way, through Max Franz in Bonn).

And so, from around 1770 onwards, 'Esterhazy's glory' was now propagandised as the glory of the Empire.

[Joy]

Are all these 'theories' true? I was under the impression that Haydn was a man of integrity.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[robert newman]

Yes, I am sure that Hadyn was a man of integrity. But fame, honour, money etc. were as tempting to Haydn as they are today to movie stars and famous people generally. I entirely agree that such things need to shown in detail but, at least, this is a rough outline.

Regards

Robert

[Kalimac]

Anyone reading this should go back to the (alas now very long) "Beethoven's early years in Bonn" thread where they will see that this theory is just one element in a huge fanciful speculation by an Italian named Taboga. There's a link in there somewhere to Taboga's summary in English, in which he states - as if it were fact, not a speculation on his part - that Haydn never wrote any symphonies whatever.

This would require a much vaster conspiracy than the one Mr. Newman describes here, for a number of Haydn symphonies predate his employment with the Esterhazys, and it would have been highly dangerous for a complete fraud to have ventured to London for two visits to conduct and perform his own works, especially if (as the Taboga theory has it), he didn't even have the fake works with him when he left Vienna, but picked them up in Bonn from the mysteriously obliging Kapelmeister there on the way.

Taboga's evidence that this Kapelmeister, A. Lucchesi, was the genius who wrote late Haydn (and also late Mozart, a very different-sounding composer) is that Beethoven - a young student there at the time - was a genius, and that a genius can only be produced by a teacher who is also a genius (not a historically accurate proposition) and that therefore Lucchesi must have been a genius and have taught Beethoven, even though there is no evidence that Lucchesi was Beethoven's teacher (thus requiring an entirely different conspiracy to suppress Lucchesi's teaching) and even though there has been no recorded attempt to study Lucchesi's surviving works to see whether he was capable of writing the masterworks of two differing geniuses. Indeed, it has even been alleged that, conveniently, no symphonies definitely attributed to Lucchesi survive - although, according to Grove's Dictionary, this is false.

Those who, as I am, are familiar with symphonies of Sammartini, Pichl, and Michael Haydn can judge for yourselves whether they could also have written works attributed to Joseph Haydn. For my part, I find them very different; indeed, the Haydn brothers are about as distinctive as any two composers within the high classical Viennese environment could be.

When challenged, Mr. Newman has elsewhere acknowledged that his theory is at best an interesting speculation that would require proof to be accepted. He has provided some tiny scraps of intriguing evidence but no proof of any kind, and it is highly misleading, at the very least, for him to write here as if these ideas were any kind of established fact. Mr. Newman is free to publicize his theories, but non-experts reading these topics should not be misled as to what is speculative guesswork and what is established historical fact.

[This message has been edited by Kalimac (edited 12-24-2005).]

[Peter]

Yes I'm going to close this thread as the arguments are covered in the Beethoven early Bonn year thread - please Robert could you stick to the one thread on this topic - there are now 3! When it reaches around 5 pages we generally close the thread and open a new one anyway. Thanks.

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'Man know thyself'