Beethoven's Early Years In Bonn

[Rod]

Originally posted by robert newman:


Honestly, it would require a very long posting to deal with this issue of Hadyn and Mozart alone and I certainly have little of the detailed expertise of others such as Giorgio Taboga on these issues. But perhaps I can at least touch on some of the main points now and then later on Beethoven ?

Robert Newman

But this is a Beethoven site, deal with him now and worry about Mozart later. At least simply give us the list of all the Beethoven works you believe are not by him. I don't need any further info, just the list, and I'll tell you the truth of it.

Thanks in advance.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[robert newman]

I can't really agree with Member WoO who says that the findings/writings of Giorgio Taboga on Luchesi are 'guesswork', seeing that the very opposite is true.

What we have is a 'debate' within the higher centres of institutionalised study (e.g. at Bonn and in Vienna) that is no real debate. A situation where things that are blatantly false are being insisted on as true to preserve the 'status quo' as regards the traditional attribution of a whole series of works credited traditionally to Haydn and Mozart which neither composer actually wrote.

It was Taboga and others who were brave enough to question, for example, the claims of writers such as Robbins Landon (who made a whole series of errors in attempting to downplay the significance of the Bonn archives now at Modena). It was Taboga and others who showed clear proof that Luchesi was using a pen-name of 'Captain D'Anthoin' in the writing of Hadyn symphonies prior to 1784 - a name that is recorded in journals of the time as a celebrated writer of music in Haydn's style. And who was this 'Captain D'Anthoin' ? Kramer's Magazine of 1783 does not tell us. But it just so happens that he was none other than Andrea Luchesi's own brother in law !

It would be so refreshing if it turns out that students of Beethoven were to allow these things to be at last fairly aired, seeing that the very opposite has often occurred amongst modern Haydn and Mozart 'experts'.

I therefore strongly disagree that these issues are guesswork or merely wishful thinking. They are an attempt to expose something that should long ago have been exposed and to give credit to those who actually wrote a whole series of works that have falsely been credited to Haydn and Mozart.

But please, by all means, let's see which point of view finds the support of evidence and which does not. In this sense I think that Taboga and others are hugely important in saying as they do.

Having studied these issues in some depth myself (as part of a biography on Mozart) I'm personally of the view that the discoveries made in the last decades on these issues is the most serious criticism yet made against our traditional understanding of Hadyn and Mozart's symphonic output.

Regards

Robert Newman

[Peter]

Well I think the Mozart issue is highly relevant to the Beethoven! The quality of these last symphonies has never been disputed amongst musicians. So if Luchesi had written them we would be dealing with a genius who is willing to take no credit for his own great achievement. What would Mozart himself have gained from this? He would have been better served having his operas written for him as this is where the money and fame lay. The last 3 symphonies were not the result of a commission and Mozart gained no financial advantage from them. Just think though what he would have had to lose had a fraud been revealed. No, this seems quite preposterous.

What is more likely is that several early works of Mozart's and especially Haydn may well have been attributed to them posthumously that were in fact by others such as Sammartini and Luchesi. I do not for one minute believe that Haydn and Mozart were complicit in this. In Beethoven's case Luchesi may well have assisted the young man in composition but the evidence of the Joseph cantata itself disproves the whole Luchesi theory.



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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
In Beethoven's case Luchesi may well have assisted the young man in composition but the evidence of the Joseph cantata itself disproves the whole Luchesi theory.

Well I am trying to push him on the Beethoven issue, to no avail....

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[robert newman]

Dear Rod,

In answer to your question of which works now attributed to the young Beethoven are not actually by him (and setting aside discussion on Luchesi's output for Hadyn and Mozart) I think I can suggest as follows - a text written by Giorgio Taboga at the end of his work 'Works Falsely Attributed to Joseph Haydn and W.A. Mozart' -

'Conscious that he (Beethoven) could gain fame through HIS OWN MEANS thanks to the right teaching he had received at the right time by Luchesi during his Bonn years, Beethoven refused to accept the role of 'a figurehead' of Luchesi's productions, as a 'new Mozart' or as 'Haydn's pupil' - composers whose artistic limits were well known to him.

But it also fell to Beethoven to end up as a guiltless holder of Andrea Luchesi's works. Let us begin with the 3 quartets for piano WoO36, with the trio, WoO37, with the concerto Wo04 and from the Hess serenade, which Austrian/German musicology has obstinately persisted in attributing to Beethoven's name, this notwithstanding Ferdinand Reis's refusal to recognise as authentic in the case of WoO36 (1832). Or what of Andreas Holschneider's discovery that they are not even 'the first preserved Beethoven's autographs' because the handwriting is not absolutely Beethoven's (1970). Let us continue with the two cantatas Wo087 for Joseph 2nd and Wo088 for Leopold 2nd's coronation, these composed in fact by Luchesi as a duty pertaining to his own office as Kapellmeister but which were nevertheless credited to Beethoven in 1884 without any proof being given of his paternity in these works.

Let me relate the long, enlightening quotation from an article by G de Saint Fox about the lack of seriousness in attributing to Mozart and Beethoven works that it is surely more plausible to presume were composed by Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi, and about the way they were attributed to this or that 'holy giant', all the while systematically failing to acknowledge the very existence of Luchesi and his possible paternity. (See 'Mozart and Young Beethoven', R.M. 1-30 (1920) pp.102 following by G de Saint Fox) -

'As we saw, the compiler of the new Koechel Edition that appeared in 1905 has included amongst authentic Mozart works under the catalogue numbers 25a and 511a, two previously unpublished works whose autograph manuscripts are kept in the British Museum in London - n.511a is bound in one volume containing two authentic Mozart manuscripts 'De Profundis' (1771) amd the same transcription for string quintet of the C Minor Serenade for winds (1782). In the same volume we find also the manuscripts of two other unpublished works, which have been placed by the compiler of the new Koechel in the canon of Mozart's unfinished works, but without seemingly suspecting their authenticity. Basing himself on the absence of a slow movement in n.25a (a trio for piano ,violin and viola) the author of the new Koechel believed that this piece had to be included. Double mistake ! Firstly because, as we shall see, this piece is NOT by Mozart and then because it is not at all an unfinished work. It is only incomplete - two pages are missing in the first allegro, but the work is only of two movements......These several manuscripts have a common origin and the history of their arrival in England is rather curious. It seems that they had been offered by the Austrian Emperor to the Turkish Sultan Abdul Aziz, who, caring little about these relics of the 18th century, gave them to his chief of music, Guatelli Pasha. Julian Marshall, an English collector, bought them from the son of the above said Pasha. W. Guatelly bey, and the British Museum became their proprietors after acquiring the Marshall Collection. Since 1908 my collaborator and teacher Theodore de Wizewa and I were studying these mysterious manuscripts and had the occasion to publish a set of 3 articles about one of them in the 'Musical Guide' of 25/12/1910 on 1/1/1911 and on 12/02/1911. We believed we recognised in it an adaption of an extraneous work for two pianos, probably destined by little Mozart to be played in the concerts he gave in London with his sister. We excluded any possibility early on that this was an original work by Mozart for several reasons - style and writing particulars, virtuosities of unusual effect, several traits of 'pianistic' character that are simply never found in Mozart, a rondo of a style that Mozart never used.etc. In 1911 the late Charles Maherbe, then Opera Librarian (whose expertise on the autographs of the classic masters was known) informed us after detailed examination of these manuscripts that neither the trio, nor the other compositions could be in Mozart's hand. Since that time I have reached the stage of absolute certainty. We can dare say these London manuscripts do not come from Mozart. Everything comes instead from an equally famous hand and we do not displease the gracious British Museum conservator in stating that the four autographs in question are actually the original manuscripts of unpublished compositions by the young Beethoven !'

But the above article by Saint Fox crediting these works to Beethoven has not stopped the fact that they are today rubricated among Beethoven's doubtful or even spurious works like, for example, Anh.3 - that is to say, it is neither by Mozart nor by Beethoven. Like Anh.1 we find the 'Jena' symphony once attributed to Beethoven and now (wrongly) to Friedrich Witt. And like Anh.2 we have six quartets before credited to Mozart and then as works by Beethoven, but today without paternity.

In such a situation I enunciate what is for me a truism - these are actually works by Andrea Luchesi - works that must be made to disappear, either by giving them away to Turks, eliminating their covers, or attributing them to any of the 'holy giants' in order to get rid of them - as they are drifting mines, ready to explode at the least bump.

Very little remains but to conclude with Georges de Saint Fox who wrote over 80 years ago -

'So we must acknowledge that all of the period of the artistic formation of Beethoven - a very important even decisive phase - is totally unknown to us. Only a few very spaced and uncertain points of verification are offered to us by their biographers (who have done everything in their power to put the glorious works in a good light - all except for Thayer - but never trying to go back to the past to establish the actual heritage bequeathed by the 18th century to the emerging genius of Beethoven'.

(Giorgio Taboga)

Finally, when the young Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna, he did so with the aid and the blessing of his Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi - a character who has been as much the victim of falsehood as any composer and whose true contribution to music is only just starting to be appreciated.

Regards

Robert Newman

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Peter:
This is all very interesting Robert and I'm thankful for you bringing this debate that I was unaware of to our forum! Now certain things I can accept - Luchesi may well have been responsible for some of the early Mozart and Haydn works that were wrongly attributed to them, but I find it incredible that it is being stated that Mozart's greatest symphonies were by this man and that Mozart and Haydn were aware of the duplicity.

I disagree!! When Haydn fell behind in a commission to write 3 piano trios, he took 2 piano trios from his pupil Pleyel and submitted them for publication as his own! When Mozart fell behind in a commission to compose 3 flute concerti, he retooled an oboe concerto and submitted it to the buyer!

As for the Beethoven piano quartets, they seem to be a wealth of thematic material that Beethoven would use in his opus 1 trios, opus 2 sonatas, and even his Hess 298 symphonic movement in C-minor.


Hofrat

[Rod]

Originally posted by Hofrat:

As for the Beethoven piano quartets, they seem to be a wealth of thematic material that Beethoven would use in his opus 1 trios, opus 2 sonatas, and even his Hess 298 symphonic movement in C-minor.

Hofrat

I mentioned myself already about the material used again in op1 and 2 and so far have failed to get a response. Also there is material in WoO4 which sounds to me very similar to that found in one of Beethoven's Violin Romances.

None of the works in question sound unbeethovenian. Usually it is easy to distinguish what is and isnt as Beethoven's style even in his youth is very distinctive.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 08-19-2005).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Hofrat:
I disagree!! When Haydn fell behind in a commission to write 3 piano trios, he took 2 piano trios from his pupil Pleyel and submitted them for publication as his own! When Mozart fell behind in a commission to compose 3 flute concerti, he retooled an oboe concerto and submitted it to the buyer!

As for the Beethoven piano quartets, they seem to be a wealth of thematic material that Beethoven would use in his opus 1 trios, opus 2 sonatas, and even his Hess 298 symphonic movement in C-minor.


Hofrat

We are quibbling here! I don't deny that many relatively unimportant Mozart and Haydn works have been wrongly attributed. I cannot believe though that works of the stature of Mozart's last 4 symphonies were by Luchesi. Why was he willing to have great works such as these passed off as by other composers and how come no one at Bonn said anything? Wouldn't Ries or Neefe at least have known the truth? Luchesi lived for another 10 years after Mozart's death so why did he not stake his claim?

As for Beethoven using themes from earlier works of his or anyone else, so what? It isn't the material but what the composer does with it. Just look at Mozart's overture to Bastien - the same charming little theme, virtually note for note, but it is no Eroica. Whether or not Beethoven deliberately borrowed the theme is irrelevant. Within the western tonal system most themes are based on simple arpeggio or scale patterns so similatiries are inevitable - I have a dictionary of themes which shows this all too clearly.

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'Man know thyself'

[WoO]

Robert,

I am not saying that the whole Luchesi affair is false, nor that such "borrowings" between composers didn’t exist. At first I found the story fascinating.

But let’s keep things based on facts. When Taboga concludes the article I quoted with the following words:

"Therefore we should consider the Wiener Klassik as a whole italian phenomenon. The 'famous idiot' Haydn(28) didn’t compose any symphony, and those which are still registered in his name are Sammartini’s and Luchesi’s; the high masses and the oratori aren’t his as well. … Mozart… his best symphonies have to be ascribed to Luchesi; Beethoven could become a genius thanks to the long and accurate teaching he received in Bonn from the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi".

(28) Carpani, Le Haydine, p.252

Wow! Could you believe your eyes?

This completely baffled me

So who did write Haydn’s string quartets, piano sonatas, cello and piano concerti?

Is there any evidence of the long and accurate teaching?

Whole italian phenomenon?

Robbins Landon is an authority (of course who doth not err?). Taboga is a bemusing amateur. ;-)

Regards,
WoO

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Always proceed with care, notwithstanding

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:


As for Beethoven using themes from earlier works of his or anyone else, so what? It isn't the material but what the composer does with it. Just look at Mozart's overture to Bastien - the same charming little theme, virtually note for note, but it is no Eroica. Whether or not Beethoven deliberately borrowed the theme is irrelevant. Within the western tonal system most themes are based on simple arpeggio or scale patterns so similatiries are inevitable - I have a dictionary of themes which shows this all too clearly.

I dont know if this is directed at me also, difficult to say as it appears I am invisible in this debate so far. The issue is not simply one of Beethoven 'borrowing' or being 'helped'. All the works in question could pass for me as Beethoven's. It is being cited that these works are not Beethoven's at all and by co-incidence he later borrowed the material from this work by another man, or even passing the other guy's stuff off as his own.

If Beethoven didn't actually comose any of this music, what the hell did he compose at this time and what has happened to it!? Are we saying he was an idle fraudster until he got to Vienna?


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 08-19-2005).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
I dont know if this is directed at me also, difficult to say as it appears I am invisible in this debate so far. The issue is not simply one of Beethoven 'borrowing' or being 'helped'. All the works in question could pass for me as Beethoven's. It is being cited that these works are not Beethoven's at all and by co-incidence he later borrowed the material from this work by another man, or even passing the other guy's stuff off as his own.

If Beethoven didn't actually comose any of this music, what the hell did he compose at this time and what has happened to it!? Are we saying he was an idle fraudster until he got to Vienna?

I'm sure you're not being ignored Rod! I was dealing with the issue raised by Hofrat concerning B's later use of material from the WoO36 quartets, which I regard as incidental. I agree with you and it seems to me that ridiculous claims have been made regarding Luchesi. However he must have been more of an influence on Beethoven than has previously been acknowledged by musicologists as he was Kappelmeister throughout most of Beethoven's Bonn years.

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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

Having read all the postings on this thread I think it very important to repeat that -

1. Nobody is saying that any Beethoven's works are actually by Luchesi. Not I and certainly not anyone else that I am aware of. What is being said is that more than a few works which have been attributed to Beethoven from his Bonn period are not by Beethoven.

2. I completely agree that Luchesi and Beethoven may well have worked together on a number of these works - as we might expect in such a student/Kapellmeister situation.

3. Peter and others find it very difficult to believe that Luchesi could possibly have written such masterpieces as those symphonies today attributed to Mozart as the 'Prague', 39, 40 and 41. Well, if Peter and others would like a posting here to support that view I would be happy to offer one. It may be fairly lengthy but it would not be a problem to make.

4. The subject of Haydn attributions has long been highly problematic, even for those who defend the 'status quo' on this issue. The same is true of various Masses. Here again there is considerable evidence that 'Hadyn' symphonies were being written in great numbers by Sammartini and Luchesi. On this too I will happily submit an essay if anyone here would like to see the argument.

5. May I suggest that readers listen to a recording of Luchesi's sonatas for piano and violin - this published decades before Beethoven went to Vienna ? I think it might lend considerable support to the view that one of the great influences on the young Beethoven was his own Kapellmeister.

Best regards

Robert (Newman)

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by robert newman:


Having read all the postings on this thread I think it very important to repeat that -

1. Nobody is saying that any Beethoven's works are actually by Luchesi. Not I and certainly not anyone else that I am aware of. What is being said is that more than a few works which have been attributed to Beethoven from his Bonn period are not by Beethoven.


Well you did! - "Then too, there are the two Cantatas Wo087 for Joseph the Second's Death and Wo088 for Leopold the Second's Coronation (these actually composed by Andrea Luchesi as a duty pertaining to his office as Kapellmeister - but which were nevertheless credited to Beethoven (1884) with really no proof of a Beethoven paternity."

I do however agree that there is a problem with attributing some of the works from the Bonn period.




3. Peter and others find it very difficult to believe that Luchesi could possibly have written such masterpieces as those symphonies today attributed to Mozart as the 'Prague', 39, 40 and 41. Well, if Peter and others would like a posting here to support that view I would be happy to offer one. It may be fairly lengthy but it would not be a problem to make.

Of course I find it hard to believe! I'm sorry but why should I suddenly accept an unproven theory against all knowledge and common sense? If what you say were true, there would have to be indisputable evidence. An essay will not be necessary, because a book has already been published in 1997 on this which obviously failed to prove the case, though doubtless the author made himself a fair sum.

I still would like an answer as to why Luchesi was the biggest idiot in musical history that he didn't admit to writing these pieces? Can you think of any artist (other than that Tony Hancock film!) who has willingly produced great work over a period of decades in different styles for others to pass of as their own and succeeded in concealing it for over 2 centuries?

As I have said, I can accept that some early Haydn and Mozart symphonies may have been wrongly attributed, I can accept that Luchesi had more influence on Beethoven than is recognised, but the rest is fanciful in the extreme.




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'Man know thyself'

[Hofrat]

Originally posted by Peter:
We are quibbling here! I don't deny that many relatively unimportant Mozart and Haydn works have been wrongly attributed. I cannot believe though that works of the stature of Mozart's last 4 symphonies were by Luchesi. Why was he willing to have great works such as these passed off as by other composers and how come no one at Bonn said anything?

How much blame may we assess to the publishing houses at that time? In many incidents, the publishing houses would change the composers' names to promote sales. Only now, some 200+ years after the "switch," are musicologists able to make some order out of the mess made by the publishing houses.

An example that comes to my mind is the German born Kapellmeister of the Swedish court, Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792). In the 1780's, he was sent on a 4 year musical enrichment tour of Europe. In Paris, he tried to get some of his symphonies published. His material was of excellent quality but the publishers feared that this "nobody" would not sell and they would be stuck with dead inventory. So, the publishers published the symphonies under the name Cambini, a composer who was a big hit in Paris at the time. Stylistically, Kraus is very different than Cambini, but for over 200 years, these symphonies were attributed to Cambini until only recently when scholarly research returned them to Kraus.

Could this be the case with Luchesi??


Hofrat

[robert newman]

Dear Peter,

You wrote (in reference to several of 'Mozart's' greatest symphonies -

'Of course I find it hard to believe! I'm sorry but why should I suddenly accept an unproven theory against all knowledge and common sense? If what you say were true, there would have to be indisputable evidence. An essay will not be necessary, because a book has already been published in 1997 on this which obviously failed to prove the case, though doubtless the author made himself a fair sum.

I still would like an answer as to why Luchesi was the biggest idiot in musical history that he didn't admit to writing these pieces? Can you think of any artist (other than that Tony Hancock film!) who has willingly produced great work over a period of decades in different styles for others to pass of as their own and succeeded in concealing it for over 2 centuries?

As I have said, I can accept that some early Haydn and Mozart symphonies may have been wrongly attributed, I can accept that Luchesi had more influence on Beethoven than is recognised, but the rest is fanciful in the extreme.'

In reply, let's first agree to fairness being the rule. (As I am sure you will readily do).

Fine. In that case, let's first ask ourselves how it is (as you can see very plainly from a mountain of available literature) that as far as Kapellemeister Andrea Luchesi is concerned, he and his musical achievements have been quite amazingly deleted from/edited out of/annulled/proscribed/censored/omitted (or any other term that we could use), and this despite the fact that his importance is today increasingly acknowledged to be real.
Why is this ?

Let me ask a second question -how is it possible that of the symphonies whose composers were not named in the 1784 inventory at Bonn these same symphonies are now to be found credited to Hadyn and Mozart at Modena with all trace of their true origin either deleted (by means of removing their covers) or otherwise altered ? What an astonishing coincidence, is it not ?

3. It was standard practice in the 18th century for the musical works of the current Kapellmeister to remain unsigned and unattributed to him during his lifetime. Why then are these same anonymous symphonies from Bonn of 1784 now accepted wholesale as works by Hadyn and Mozart in Modena ?

I could ask a great more questions of this kind. One could look at these individual works if you please. For example, it is a plain fact that elements of Mozart's 40th symphony are derived from a work written decades earlier in Italy. It is equally true that until 1908 the so-called 'Linz' symphony of Mozart was actually that work which today goes by the name of Symphony No.37, and not Symphony No. 36. Such a cavalier attitude to the Koechel list is very typical.

It is true too (as you seem to agree) that Mozart was not even commissioned to write the trilogy, Symphonies 39,40 and 41 and yet is credited with doing so in 6 weeks during 1788. Yet, again, (with the exception of symphony 41) copies of 39 and 40 are found at Modena, being the very symphonies inventoried in 1784.

Again, I repeat that I would readily submit here strong evidence that many works today attributed to Haydn (Symphonies and Masses) were not of Haydn's composition and that the same is true of many mature 'Mozart' symphonies.

Great efforts were made to conceal these facts but I honestly believe that an accumulation of evidence (watermarks, correspondence, documents themselves etc.etc. points strongly in this direction).

Finally, in reply to your suggestion that a book could be written on such a subject only to make its author money - imagine (if you will) how difficult it would be to write such a book in reality. Imagine too how reluctant any such author would be to state his case openly. And yet we find (contrary to this) the defenders of the traditional view unable and unwilling to come to terms with their own statements and their own attitudes on these very issues.

I therefore think that anyone who wishes to examine these issues would be better placed to form a judgement than those who reject such things outright without doing so.

Very best regards

Robert Newman