-On the Origins of the Vienna Classical Period and other Matters –
-On the Origins of the Vienna Classical Period and other Matters –
(an edited version of a work by Prof. G. Taboga – first presented in full to a musical workshop organised by the University of Bergamo, 10th December 2004)
'The greatest of many still to be explained mysteries in the history of music during the second half of the 18th century is connected with the sudden and apparently heirless end of the glorious Venetian musical tradition – a tradition that, in the first half of that century, had produced such leading persons as Vivaldi, Tartini, Valloti and Galuppi – this coinciding with the fatherless appearance in Austria of the Viennese Classical Period with its three sacred and largely ‘self-taught’ prodigies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Few scholars have conceded to the likely association of these two events and most have assumed a ‘cause and effect’ connection. Consequently, the relationship between the two phenomena has been studied only superficially.
Although it is possible for a man to die heirless, it is of course impossible for him to be born fatherless. The few short works that have tried to describe this subject have, to date, only skimmed over the problem and its real scale, and do not provide us with any exhaustive or, at least, acceptable answers. And so, it is generally admitted only that some sort of a musical Venetian presence was in Vienna for almost 200 years. It was here, up until 1824, of course, that Antonio Salieri, a Venetian musician, worked as an Imperial Kapellmeister, holding that influential position. Salieri was not really a rival of Mozart. But nor was he the teacher of Beethoven. But at the head of Salzburg’s music chapel, from 1772 to 1782 was also the Venetian-Neopolitan Kapellmeister Domenico Fischietta - one of the principal musical collaborators with Carlo Goldoni in Venice.
Perhaps the first man to correctly come to terms with the scale and significance of the problem of Venetian influence on the Viennese Classical Period was Fr. Leopold Kantner, an Austrian, an an expert in Italian and central European music of the 18th century. Kantner taught at Vienna University and in 1980, at Padua, attended a conference devoted to the great theoretician Fr. Francescantonio Valloti. It was there that Kantner stated in regard to Mozart –
‘Schmidt too can only write in a vague way about the sources of Mozart’s musical style in Italy, using terms such as ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’.....So we do not find any defininitive statement....Brandt , in a book about the masses of Haydn also wrote, ‘We cannot identify the Italian sources known to Haydn, which perhaps formed his style’.
And so we find a void or uncharted territory in the musical geography of the Viennese Classic Period. It must also be confessed that musicology of the 19th century, and even in to the start of the 20th century, was very impenetrable in Germany and in Austria. Certainly, nationalism is not limited to musical questions but, to tell the truth, we have to admit nationalism is an appropriate word to describe what has occurred. Everything had to be looked for at home. It is a strange fact that Germans have been even more radical than Austrians on this particular point. The Germans (with regard to the Vienna Classical Period) did not want Italians, only Germans. So they found what they said were sources at home. But when you actually listen to this music or study the score, you inevitably ask yourself, ‘Where does this really come from ?’ The silence is then deafening. At most, a brief hint is given regarding the ‘influence of Lombardy and Venice' because, by the nationalistic route, there are only 3 main musicians to represent that style and all others are but ‘predecessors’, or ‘contemporaries’ or ‘followers’. Thus, there is no real style in the music of this period, or in its art. We are provided with these 3 men and everyone else is an imitator and is judged by reference to them. Contrast this with the fact, the real truth, that music of the Viennese Classical Period can and must be connected to sacred music being written in Lombardy and in Venice. For example, listen if you will to Mozart’s Mass KV194 and we find (almost literally) the same themes as in works published before it by Valloti. Mozart’s is a polyphonic work in the modern style, ‘a la Valloti’. And this interpolation or that is, indisputably, taken from the same Valloti.....Let us now examine if you please Haydn’s very first mass. Open the score and look no further than the section, ‘Et incarnatus est’. We find virtually the same thing as I myself found in a ‘Credo’ by Valloti.
Now, surely, the time has arrived to discover more than what has been found only recently by a handful of musicologists only a few decades ago - although Erich Schenk has sometimes briefly stated (but without explicitly referring to church music) that Italy (Venice, Padua and the Lombardy School) were very important for the Vienna Classical Period. 'Our discoveries have just begun, but we simply must take notice of these connections’.
At the same time, American Professor Mark Lindley, a scholar studying relations between music theory and practice in the 18th century, has drawn our attention to new theoretical ideas first put forward by Valloti himself (specifically on his theory of musical dissonance). Lindley mentions this and then added –
‘Valloti not only stated that his theory was scientifically valid, but also stated that scientific music is the foundation for a well regulated musical regime....Valloti is convinced that the whole consonant chord must come before any dissonance, including the note on which it must be resolved. Valloti applies this doctrine, this rule, but does so in his own way.........Then we have the privileges of the interval of the minor seventh.....which has an ambiguous nature, being neither a consonance nor a perfect or true dissonance. Many consequences can be drawn from this doctrine on the significance of the minor seventh and many chords in works such as Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ (KV618) progress from consonance to dissonance without resolving etc. It is an exact aesthetic, not a romantic aesthetic, which deserves our close attention and it helps us appreciate that Valotti was not another Bach, another Tartini, or another Vivaldi. He was, in fact, original and unique in his theory’.
But decades after Kantner and Lindley pointed out these things at the Padua conference we still look in vain for other contributions from Austrian-German musicologists, by their Anglo-Saxon followers or even by Italians themselves. This despite the fact that Enrico Corbi wrote about the Paduan conference of 1980 in the Antonian magazine ‘Il Santo’ saying –
‘The most stimulating contribution (to that conference) has been the contribution made by Leopold Kantner, an Austrian musicologist, on the subject of Vallotti’s influence outside his native Italy. There is, in fact, a gap in German language historiography in connection with the part played by schools of northern Italy in the shaping of the first Vienna Classical period – that is to say, the so-called Viennese Classicism. In other words Kantner has shown that, in the sacred style of music, affinity between Vallotti on the one side and Mozart and the Haydn brothers on the other, is sharper than with the presumed contemporary Austrian models’.
It is of course impossible to maintain that Mozart and Haydn were Vallotti pupils or were his followers. His theories were not known to them, perhaps even his very existence was not known. And yet a logical explanation for Vallotti’s influence on Mozart and Haydn’s music surely must be conceded. What, then, is the common element between these two composers ? How was it possible for both to adopt Vallotti’s typical stylistic features without either being his pupils, as occurred in the case of Abbe Vogler while he was at Padua ? It was Kantner’s denouncement of the removal of Italian influences on the Vienna Classical Period by German musicologists which helped me to pick out and follow the ‘Ariadne’s thread’ that connects, in actual fact, the three ‘sacred prodigies’ of the Viennese Classic period to a long forgotten Venetian musician – a musician who was a pupil of Valloti, to whom, in fact, all three are at least partially indebted for their success, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. I refer, in fact, to the last Kapellemeister of the Cologne Principality, Andrea Luchesi, born at Motta di Livenza near Treviso on 23rd May 1741 and who died in Bonn on 21st March 1801.
It surely cannot be long now, before it's generally recognised that this obliteration of music history began in Bonn at a specific date. That date was 24th May 1784, when the new Prince Elect, Max Franz, could not help but note that 28 symphonies and 3 masses, all today attributed to Haydn and 10 other symphonies, all now attributed to Mozart, were in point of fact, productions of his very own Venetian Kapellmeister.
I am grateful to Professor Spedicato, who has given me the opportunity to convey to the wider musical public, in this regard, the results of some 20 years research. It is now plain that Haydn and Mozart were never the great composers that many would like us to believe. Nor were they Vallotti followers. They were, instead, only mediocre imitators and feigned authors of the works of others. This is immediately evident in the case of Haydn, for, out of an initial 256 symphonies, his is today credited with 107, with not one of them his. Moreover, the same is as true for Mozart when we bear in mind that more than 70 works have already been discovered that were wrongly attributed to him, with many more still in the ‘pending’ file. It is clear that Mozart too must be fairly reappraised. //
The above excerpts came from a work written by G. Taboga (only slightly paraphrased).
I will end this post with a highly relevant discussion from the end of the same work, in which Taboga is describing specific works of ‘Mozart’ to a famed Italian expert on music of the 18th century, Luciano Chailly -
‘I should now like to refer again to Maestro Luciano Chailly, whom I have known briefly by correspondence and letter only. On Professor Emilio Spedicato’s initiative I sent him a copy of my first book, ‘Andrea Luchesi, L’Ora della verita’ along with some other material, and asked him his opinion on the reliability of the findings that I had obtained. I also informed him beforehand that I would be sending him further documents. I closed my letter with a postscript that read –
‘My last and most recently finished ‘labour’ has been concerned with the faked autographs of Mozart and Haydn, and has been completed only in the last few days. I was in Regensburg myself on 18th December along with a personal photographer in order to have infrared photographs of the autographs that I enclose as 28b. You can consider this study as a preview, about which I would especially appreciate your opinion’.
(The above post script from Taboga to Chailly was concerned with the taking of photographs of a manuscript that is inscribed with the name of Mozart, a copy of the ‘Paris’ Symphony (KV297) now at Regensburg that has been written on top of the now erased name of Luchesi. Luchesi’s handwriting is found there in a familiar form that he had used for some time, and also as an alternative form of writing. Thus, the explanation that the signature was an error corrected later by the same person at Regensburg cannot possibly be correct. Furthermore, the original signature is that of Luchesi, and not that of anyone at Regensburg.
Maestro Chailly replied to Taboga's letter with the following undated letter –
‘Dear Professor Taboga,
I received your letter of 6th February 2002 and the copious material of Luchesi (books, records etc). Thanks. It’s a fascinating thing and I congratulate you on your tenacity and on your results. The choral pieces are all first rate. Among the symphonic works the concerto for harpsichord, organ and strings is the finest, and the first movement in C Major is particularly original. I will see what I can do because I’m very excited about this. .....’
Taboga and Chailly spoke another few times by telephone. And then, on the 8th November 2002 Taboga sent Chailly further material - his findings on Mozart’s piano concertos, on the subject of Mozart’s singspiel ‘The Impressario’, and on the opera ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ adding a note to Chailly to say –
‘In case you are interested I could let you have the scores of the two concertos for harpsichord/organ and orchestra. One of these was attributed to Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart in Venice in February 1771. Mozart was still playing it in October 1777 at concerts. His father and Nannerl used it regularly at Salzburg for the purposes of study and exhibition. As for the ‘Marriage of Figaro’, I have with me the poster for the actual first performance on 11th April 1785 at Frankfurt on Main. This antedates by more than one year the first performance of Da Ponte and Mozart’s work (1st May 1786). The Frankfurt performance has actually been known about since 1901 (Wolter) but nowadays no ‘Mozartean researcher’ dares to speak of it. It is questionable whether they undertake research to discover the truth, or, rather, to conceal it.’
(I might also add that even in to the 1780's Mozart was still very much involved with this Luchesi keyboard concerto. He wrote a new cadenza for it in the early 1780's).
The above is submitted to Beethoven Forum for the purposes of fairly sharing information to those interested in the history of music and to give credit to Professor Giorgio Taboga for his immense and often pioneering work in areas where, until now, reactions have tended to be either silence, or condemnation.
Robert Newman
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 08-30-2006).]
(an edited version of a work by Prof. G. Taboga – first presented in full to a musical workshop organised by the University of Bergamo, 10th December 2004)
'The greatest of many still to be explained mysteries in the history of music during the second half of the 18th century is connected with the sudden and apparently heirless end of the glorious Venetian musical tradition – a tradition that, in the first half of that century, had produced such leading persons as Vivaldi, Tartini, Valloti and Galuppi – this coinciding with the fatherless appearance in Austria of the Viennese Classical Period with its three sacred and largely ‘self-taught’ prodigies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Few scholars have conceded to the likely association of these two events and most have assumed a ‘cause and effect’ connection. Consequently, the relationship between the two phenomena has been studied only superficially.
Although it is possible for a man to die heirless, it is of course impossible for him to be born fatherless. The few short works that have tried to describe this subject have, to date, only skimmed over the problem and its real scale, and do not provide us with any exhaustive or, at least, acceptable answers. And so, it is generally admitted only that some sort of a musical Venetian presence was in Vienna for almost 200 years. It was here, up until 1824, of course, that Antonio Salieri, a Venetian musician, worked as an Imperial Kapellmeister, holding that influential position. Salieri was not really a rival of Mozart. But nor was he the teacher of Beethoven. But at the head of Salzburg’s music chapel, from 1772 to 1782 was also the Venetian-Neopolitan Kapellmeister Domenico Fischietta - one of the principal musical collaborators with Carlo Goldoni in Venice.
Perhaps the first man to correctly come to terms with the scale and significance of the problem of Venetian influence on the Viennese Classical Period was Fr. Leopold Kantner, an Austrian, an an expert in Italian and central European music of the 18th century. Kantner taught at Vienna University and in 1980, at Padua, attended a conference devoted to the great theoretician Fr. Francescantonio Valloti. It was there that Kantner stated in regard to Mozart –
‘Schmidt too can only write in a vague way about the sources of Mozart’s musical style in Italy, using terms such as ‘maybe’ or ‘perhaps’.....So we do not find any defininitive statement....Brandt , in a book about the masses of Haydn also wrote, ‘We cannot identify the Italian sources known to Haydn, which perhaps formed his style’.
And so we find a void or uncharted territory in the musical geography of the Viennese Classic Period. It must also be confessed that musicology of the 19th century, and even in to the start of the 20th century, was very impenetrable in Germany and in Austria. Certainly, nationalism is not limited to musical questions but, to tell the truth, we have to admit nationalism is an appropriate word to describe what has occurred. Everything had to be looked for at home. It is a strange fact that Germans have been even more radical than Austrians on this particular point. The Germans (with regard to the Vienna Classical Period) did not want Italians, only Germans. So they found what they said were sources at home. But when you actually listen to this music or study the score, you inevitably ask yourself, ‘Where does this really come from ?’ The silence is then deafening. At most, a brief hint is given regarding the ‘influence of Lombardy and Venice' because, by the nationalistic route, there are only 3 main musicians to represent that style and all others are but ‘predecessors’, or ‘contemporaries’ or ‘followers’. Thus, there is no real style in the music of this period, or in its art. We are provided with these 3 men and everyone else is an imitator and is judged by reference to them. Contrast this with the fact, the real truth, that music of the Viennese Classical Period can and must be connected to sacred music being written in Lombardy and in Venice. For example, listen if you will to Mozart’s Mass KV194 and we find (almost literally) the same themes as in works published before it by Valloti. Mozart’s is a polyphonic work in the modern style, ‘a la Valloti’. And this interpolation or that is, indisputably, taken from the same Valloti.....Let us now examine if you please Haydn’s very first mass. Open the score and look no further than the section, ‘Et incarnatus est’. We find virtually the same thing as I myself found in a ‘Credo’ by Valloti.
Now, surely, the time has arrived to discover more than what has been found only recently by a handful of musicologists only a few decades ago - although Erich Schenk has sometimes briefly stated (but without explicitly referring to church music) that Italy (Venice, Padua and the Lombardy School) were very important for the Vienna Classical Period. 'Our discoveries have just begun, but we simply must take notice of these connections’.
At the same time, American Professor Mark Lindley, a scholar studying relations between music theory and practice in the 18th century, has drawn our attention to new theoretical ideas first put forward by Valloti himself (specifically on his theory of musical dissonance). Lindley mentions this and then added –
‘Valloti not only stated that his theory was scientifically valid, but also stated that scientific music is the foundation for a well regulated musical regime....Valloti is convinced that the whole consonant chord must come before any dissonance, including the note on which it must be resolved. Valloti applies this doctrine, this rule, but does so in his own way.........Then we have the privileges of the interval of the minor seventh.....which has an ambiguous nature, being neither a consonance nor a perfect or true dissonance. Many consequences can be drawn from this doctrine on the significance of the minor seventh and many chords in works such as Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ (KV618) progress from consonance to dissonance without resolving etc. It is an exact aesthetic, not a romantic aesthetic, which deserves our close attention and it helps us appreciate that Valotti was not another Bach, another Tartini, or another Vivaldi. He was, in fact, original and unique in his theory’.
But decades after Kantner and Lindley pointed out these things at the Padua conference we still look in vain for other contributions from Austrian-German musicologists, by their Anglo-Saxon followers or even by Italians themselves. This despite the fact that Enrico Corbi wrote about the Paduan conference of 1980 in the Antonian magazine ‘Il Santo’ saying –
‘The most stimulating contribution (to that conference) has been the contribution made by Leopold Kantner, an Austrian musicologist, on the subject of Vallotti’s influence outside his native Italy. There is, in fact, a gap in German language historiography in connection with the part played by schools of northern Italy in the shaping of the first Vienna Classical period – that is to say, the so-called Viennese Classicism. In other words Kantner has shown that, in the sacred style of music, affinity between Vallotti on the one side and Mozart and the Haydn brothers on the other, is sharper than with the presumed contemporary Austrian models’.
It is of course impossible to maintain that Mozart and Haydn were Vallotti pupils or were his followers. His theories were not known to them, perhaps even his very existence was not known. And yet a logical explanation for Vallotti’s influence on Mozart and Haydn’s music surely must be conceded. What, then, is the common element between these two composers ? How was it possible for both to adopt Vallotti’s typical stylistic features without either being his pupils, as occurred in the case of Abbe Vogler while he was at Padua ? It was Kantner’s denouncement of the removal of Italian influences on the Vienna Classical Period by German musicologists which helped me to pick out and follow the ‘Ariadne’s thread’ that connects, in actual fact, the three ‘sacred prodigies’ of the Viennese Classic period to a long forgotten Venetian musician – a musician who was a pupil of Valloti, to whom, in fact, all three are at least partially indebted for their success, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. I refer, in fact, to the last Kapellemeister of the Cologne Principality, Andrea Luchesi, born at Motta di Livenza near Treviso on 23rd May 1741 and who died in Bonn on 21st March 1801.
It surely cannot be long now, before it's generally recognised that this obliteration of music history began in Bonn at a specific date. That date was 24th May 1784, when the new Prince Elect, Max Franz, could not help but note that 28 symphonies and 3 masses, all today attributed to Haydn and 10 other symphonies, all now attributed to Mozart, were in point of fact, productions of his very own Venetian Kapellmeister.
I am grateful to Professor Spedicato, who has given me the opportunity to convey to the wider musical public, in this regard, the results of some 20 years research. It is now plain that Haydn and Mozart were never the great composers that many would like us to believe. Nor were they Vallotti followers. They were, instead, only mediocre imitators and feigned authors of the works of others. This is immediately evident in the case of Haydn, for, out of an initial 256 symphonies, his is today credited with 107, with not one of them his. Moreover, the same is as true for Mozart when we bear in mind that more than 70 works have already been discovered that were wrongly attributed to him, with many more still in the ‘pending’ file. It is clear that Mozart too must be fairly reappraised. //
The above excerpts came from a work written by G. Taboga (only slightly paraphrased).
I will end this post with a highly relevant discussion from the end of the same work, in which Taboga is describing specific works of ‘Mozart’ to a famed Italian expert on music of the 18th century, Luciano Chailly -
‘I should now like to refer again to Maestro Luciano Chailly, whom I have known briefly by correspondence and letter only. On Professor Emilio Spedicato’s initiative I sent him a copy of my first book, ‘Andrea Luchesi, L’Ora della verita’ along with some other material, and asked him his opinion on the reliability of the findings that I had obtained. I also informed him beforehand that I would be sending him further documents. I closed my letter with a postscript that read –
‘My last and most recently finished ‘labour’ has been concerned with the faked autographs of Mozart and Haydn, and has been completed only in the last few days. I was in Regensburg myself on 18th December along with a personal photographer in order to have infrared photographs of the autographs that I enclose as 28b. You can consider this study as a preview, about which I would especially appreciate your opinion’.
(The above post script from Taboga to Chailly was concerned with the taking of photographs of a manuscript that is inscribed with the name of Mozart, a copy of the ‘Paris’ Symphony (KV297) now at Regensburg that has been written on top of the now erased name of Luchesi. Luchesi’s handwriting is found there in a familiar form that he had used for some time, and also as an alternative form of writing. Thus, the explanation that the signature was an error corrected later by the same person at Regensburg cannot possibly be correct. Furthermore, the original signature is that of Luchesi, and not that of anyone at Regensburg.
Maestro Chailly replied to Taboga's letter with the following undated letter –
‘Dear Professor Taboga,
I received your letter of 6th February 2002 and the copious material of Luchesi (books, records etc). Thanks. It’s a fascinating thing and I congratulate you on your tenacity and on your results. The choral pieces are all first rate. Among the symphonic works the concerto for harpsichord, organ and strings is the finest, and the first movement in C Major is particularly original. I will see what I can do because I’m very excited about this. .....’
Taboga and Chailly spoke another few times by telephone. And then, on the 8th November 2002 Taboga sent Chailly further material - his findings on Mozart’s piano concertos, on the subject of Mozart’s singspiel ‘The Impressario’, and on the opera ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ adding a note to Chailly to say –
‘In case you are interested I could let you have the scores of the two concertos for harpsichord/organ and orchestra. One of these was attributed to Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart in Venice in February 1771. Mozart was still playing it in October 1777 at concerts. His father and Nannerl used it regularly at Salzburg for the purposes of study and exhibition. As for the ‘Marriage of Figaro’, I have with me the poster for the actual first performance on 11th April 1785 at Frankfurt on Main. This antedates by more than one year the first performance of Da Ponte and Mozart’s work (1st May 1786). The Frankfurt performance has actually been known about since 1901 (Wolter) but nowadays no ‘Mozartean researcher’ dares to speak of it. It is questionable whether they undertake research to discover the truth, or, rather, to conceal it.’
(I might also add that even in to the 1780's Mozart was still very much involved with this Luchesi keyboard concerto. He wrote a new cadenza for it in the early 1780's).
The above is submitted to Beethoven Forum for the purposes of fairly sharing information to those interested in the history of music and to give credit to Professor Giorgio Taboga for his immense and often pioneering work in areas where, until now, reactions have tended to be either silence, or condemnation.
Robert Newman
[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 08-30-2006).]
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