Allan Badley
“It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life”, wrote Dr Johnson in the preface to A Dictionary of the English Language,
To be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause and diligence without reward.
Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pionier of literature doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitated their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this recompense has been yet granted to very few.1
Anybody who has ever attempted to compile a thematic catalogue of a composer’s works would surely recognize in Johnson a kindred spirit, for the business of lexicography and musical bibliography are not dissimilar. Johnson’s process of “deducing the definitions of words from their originals and illustrating their different significations by examples from the best writers” has obvious parallels with the music bibliographer’s concern with the identification of sources and understanding how and in what form works were transmitted. Nonetheless, the music bibliographer faces a challenge that the lexicographer does not and that is the task of establishing a work’s authorship rather than merely its earliest usage. This can involve everything from a close study of the composer’s personal and professional circumstances to stylistic studies, paper types, copyists and more. Instinct certainly plays a part as, at times, does wishful thinking, but in each case the investigation moves from the known to the unknown and is rarely if ever wholly conclusive. If Werner Heisenberg had been a musicologist and not a physicist, the uncertainty principle might have been usefully applied to the problem of establishing the authorship of contested musical works.
This paper examines the authenticity of two violin concertos attributed to Wanhal that are preserved in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien and a third work which is assigned to Wanhal’s close contemporary, Leopold Hofmann. In all three cases, only the solo part survives. Neither of the Wanhal concertos – Weinmann IIb:D4 or Eb1 – nor the concerto attributed to Hofmann is listed in any contemporary thematic catalogue. The direct material evidence that can be brought to bear in investigating these works is therefore slim, but the existence of other violin concertos by both composers provides a strong base from which to begin any investigation.
In my 2014 article ‘Chronological Signifiers in the Concertos of Johann Baptist Wanhal’, I argued that the current evidence points to the likelihood of Wanhal’s violin concertos dating from the 1760s and 1770s rather than later in his career2. The evidence supporting this assertion consists in part of entries in the Breitkopf catalogues (where these exist), and more contentiously, on a combination of internal stylistic evidence and the broader context of Wanhal’s professional activities as we know them. Unfortunately, we know very little about how he conducted his professional life beyond the fact that he derived an important part of his income through private teaching and presumably composed on commission or specifically for publication. The extant sources for the violin concertos are limited and scattered. None convincingly establishes a direct relationship with the composer nor a practice of actively seeking out new works through setting up standing orders with professional scriptoria as Paul Bryan argues Count Christian Clam Gallas appears to have done in acquiring such a comprehensive collection of Wanhal’s symphonies.3 Clam Gallas’s fascination with Wanhal’s symphonies did not extend to his violin concertos. Indeed, not only are there no concertos of any type by Wanhal in Clam Gallas’s collection, but the same holds true for Carl Ditters, Hofmann and even Haydn. Nonetheless, his collection includes manuscript copies of ten ensemble concertinos by Hofmann which are remarkable for their varied instrumentation and unorthodox musical structures which suggests that Clam Gallas’s disinterest in the genre was limited to solo concertos.4 He seems not to have been alone on this regard. Viennese concertos per se generally survive in low numbers in comparison with symphonies during this period even in cases where works are written by the same composer. Levels of productivity in each genre are naturally a contributing factor, but not to the extent that the figures suggest from even a cursory glance though the listings in RISM-Online. To take the four composers referred to earlier, we see Dittersdorf: 665 symphony sources to 61 concertos; Wanhal: 587 to 69; and Haydn: 3894 to 132. Hofmann is an outlier in this respect with 124 symphony sources to 147 concerto sources, but he appears to have ceased writing symphonies as early as ca 1767–1768, and alone of these composers, was employed primarily as a church musician from ca 1764. 5 There are reasons why concertos survive in such small numbers, one being that they may have been associated with individual players rather than Kapellen, and perhaps more importantly, they were frequently performed with one player per part and were therefore regarded as a chamber genre rather one on a similar scale to the symphony. 6 There are naturally exceptions to this – the Fürst Thurn und Taxis’che Hofbibliothek in Regensburg, for example, contains a large number of wind concertos – but these reflect the presence of particular players in these establishments as well as the possible musical interests of the patron.
The close correlation of the Breitkopf datings with the years Wanhal was a regular visitor to Varaždin invites speculation that some of the violin concertos might have been composed or performed there. The evidence to support this, however, is extremely weak since none of the extant copies can be linked directly to Wanhal’s patron, Count Ladislaus Erdődy. Moreover, Gottfried Johann Dlabacž, who met Wanhal frequently in Vienna in 1795 and published a biographical sketch of him in his Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon refers only to Wanhal composing sacred music for Erdődy during his visits to Varaždin. 7 Nonetheless, Bryan, who had an opportunity to examine the Wanhal sources held in the Ursuline Convent in Varaždin, identified a one-movement symphony by the composer for which he had also unusually written out the parts. 8 If a string symphony could be performed at the convent, then it is possible that a violin concerto could be too.
There is also evidence, seeingly stemming from Wanhal himself, that other violin concertos predate this period by many years. In his biographical sketch of Wanhal, Dlabacž specifically refers to him as having composed violin concertos well before he moved to Vienna:
“…following the urging of [Matthias] Nowák, his patron, Wanhal intensified his practice of the violin earnestly and even more determinedly than before. This daily practice so encouraged him that he wrote several concertos and solos for his instrument”.
However, as Halvor Hosar has established, the earliest known dated source for any composition by Wanhal is 1767, and crucially, Ditters, who knew Wanhal both personally and professionally as early as 1763, omitted him from his 1766 article ‘Von dem wienerischen Geschmack in der Musik’. 9 Neither does Wanhal’s name appear in the Breitkopf catalogues before 1770 – coincidentally, this sole entry is for the Violin Concerto Weinmann IIb:G1 – whereas his close contemporaries Haydn and Hofmann had works advertised as early as 1763 and Ditters in 1766. If Wanhal was not initially known in Vienna as a composer, as Hosar’s research suggests, it by no means rules out the possibility that he had composed works, including the violin concertos alluded to by Dlabacž, prior to moving to Vienna. It is unthinkable that such a gifted young musician would not have begun to compose for his instrument at an early age, just as it is equally likely that such juvenilia would have been lost, left behind or intentionally destroyed as he matured as an artist.
In his thematic catalogue of Wanhal’s works, Alexander Weinmann records over fifty individual entries under ‘Category II: Concertos’ of which the fifteen violin concertos are second only in number to those for keyboard (with twenty) and rank ahead of the eleven flute concertos.10 Nonetheless, although eleven of Wanhal’s concertos appeared in print between ca 1782 and 1810, none was for violin. Why this should be the case is unclear, but it perhaps points both to an earlier period of composition and the contexts for which the works were composed. Seven of these concertos were advertised by Breitkopf between 1770 and 1775, namely G1 (1770), G2 (1771), G3 (1772), C1 (1774) and D2, A1 and Bb1 (1775).
Given what Barry S Brook believed to be the average time lag of between one to two years between the composition of a work and its appearance in Supplements II-X,11 it is likely that the first two or three concertos were composed in the late 1760s, possibly prior to Wanhal’s Italian sojourn, and the remaining works, several years later. It is these works that may have an association with Varaždin. Concertos certainly formed part of Erdődy’s library since they are listed among other musical works in a 1788 advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung for the sale of the collection arising from his death in Vienna on 12 July 1786:
“On August 12 […] the exquisite collection of music by the late Count Ladislaus Erdődy, by bidding, will be sold at the pawnshop […]: it consists of several hundred symphonies, concertinos, concertos, quintets, quartets, German and Italian operas, oratorios, Masses, etc. by the most famous masters…” 12
Wanhal was undoubtedly one of the most famous masters in Vienna and Erdődy’s collection must have contained a substantial number of his works irrespective of the circumstances of their composition. While it is possible that the violin concertos advertised by Breitkopf in the years 1772–1775 once formed part of that collection, their wider dissemination, limited though this appears to have been, suggests that they were not composed specifically or exclusively for Erdődy’s Kapelle. 12
Without even the dubious assistance of the Breitkopf catalogues to aid in the authentication and dating of the remaining violin concertos, the task becomes doubly difficult. Dr Johnson might even have gone as far as to describe any conclusions reached as “foraminous” – full of holes, perforated in many places, porous.
PPT 2: Table 1
As Table 1 shows, only two of the six concertos are preserved in multiple copies: C2 and A2. Although the survival rates for the Breitkopf concertos are not particularly impressive, they are unquestionably higher with two copies each of G1 and G3, three copies of A1 and seven of Bb1. Of the remaining works, C1 survives in a single copy and D2 is lost. Nonetheless, the geographical distribution of these copies is with one exception restricted entirely to Austria, Bohemia, Croatia, Moravia and Slovakia which suggests that the Breitkopf listings contributed little or nothing to the wider circulation of the works.
Weinmann | Sources | Comment |
IIb:C2 | CZ-Bm IV A 331
CZ-Pnm XXII A 86 CZ-Pu 59 R 5035 |
Prov. P. Leonardi Dont/Ord. Cist. (Osek)
Ex Rebus | [other hand:] Augustin Hübner | beym Schulfach Anno 1795 die 9 octobris |
IIb:C3 | A-Wgm IX 39565 | IX 39585 in Weinmann |
IIb:D3 | A-M V 903 | |
IIb:D1 | A-SCH 70 | Andreo Penckhner 1775 |
IIb:D4 | A-Wgm IX 55805 | Solo only |
IIb:Es1 | A-Wgm IX 55806 | Solo only |
IIb:A2 | A-M V 901
CZ-PU |
Ex Musicalibus Josephi – Pois [?] Schaarapatka |
Table 1: Wanhal Violin Concertos not advertised by Breitkopf
Given the poor survival rate for all these works, establishing their authenticity is a somewhat hazardous business. The unique structural conventions of the concerto also make direct comparisons between genres problematic. Nonetheless, recurring stylistic fingerprints can be found in these works which indicate the strong possibility that they are the work of a single composer even if misattributions cannot be entirely ruled out. It is beyond the scope of the present paper to consider the authenticity of all fourteen violin concertos, but what can be gleaned from the fully extant works and other concertos by Wanhal serves as a useful lens though which to consider the status of D4 and Eb1 for which only the solo parts survive.
The Physical Evidence
The solo parts for D4 and Eb1 are both preserved in the archive the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien. They are grouped together with two further works – Concertos A1 and Bb1 – in a wrapper labelled “4 Violino Principale Stimmen zu Concerten” under the signature IX 55803–55806. The parts are all written on the same 10-stave upright-format paper type and remarkably are the work of a single professional copyist. In each case the composer attribution appears to have been added later and in a different hand. [PPT 3-4]
Since the two Hofmann concertos referred to above are identically marked and written in the same hand [PPT 5], we can assume that the composer attributions were either added in the scriptorium or by a single owner. Given their uniform appearance and apparent lack of use, it is possible that in each case we have part of an incomplete master set from which other copies were made. However, a more likely explanation is that at some point the parts were acquired by an individual who was in all probability an accomplished violinist. We have very little understanding of how the music copying business functioned in Vienna in the eighteenth century, but there is no reason to suppose that a customer could not purchase a solo part to a concerto and order copies of the other parts if the work were to be performed.
Although the parts provide few definitive clues about when they were copied, the works themselves, with the probable exception of Concerto Eb1, all appear to have been composed within a few years of each other. Concertos A1 and Bb1were advertised in Breitkopf Supplement X 1775, while the authentic Hofmann Concerto (Badley Bb1) was advertised four years earlier in Supplement VI 1771. Eb1, however, displays a number of stylistic markers that indicate a composition date that is somewhat later than the other works and may indicate that these parts were copied or acquired after 1780.
The uniformity of these copies and their obvious professionalism no doubt encouraged Weinmann to accept them at face value in spite of the lack of corroborative evidence. This is perfectly understandable in the circumstances, and indeed in the intervening years since the publication of his incomplete thematic catalogue, no contra-attributions have come to light. Nonetheless it is important to look afresh at the first movements of D4 and Eb1 the better to assess their possible authenticity and to place them within the context of Wanhal’s other violin concertos.
In ‘Chronological Signifiers’ I identified six stylistic characteristics in Wanhal’s concertos which have a bearing both on the possible period of composition and, by extension, their possible authenticity. These are:
- Changing thematic constructions and notational conventions in first movements
- A tendency to expansiveness through the repetition of short phrases rather than brief motivic cells
- An emphasis on extending the tonic in the opening phrases
- The increasing avoidance of initial pairings of cadences on the tonic and dominant
- The effective abandonment of extensive triplet and sextuplet figuration in solo parts from around the mid-1770s
- The changing structural function of Ritornello III
Sitting alongside these general characteristics, however, are those that relate directly to instrumental idiom. In violin concertos, the most obvious examples of these are the prevalence or otherwise of double-stopping or pseudo-independent part-writing, widely spaced triadic formations in extended figuration patterns, bariolage and the extended use of either the low or high register of the instrument. These are discussed later in the paper.
[PPT] Violin Concerto in D (Weinmann IIb: D4)
Allegro moderato
The Allegro moderato first movement of Concerto D4 is an odd mixture of the enterprising and the unenterprising. The structural treatment of the ritornello is very interesting, particularly in its tonal function at the end of Solo II, yet the section that follows, Solo III, is an unenterprising recapitulation of Solo I with a mechanical transposition of the secondary material into the tonic via a bifocal close.
PPT 6: Ritornello I
In keeping with the modular conventions of ritornello construction typical of concertos of the period, Ritornello I consists of a series of short, interlinked, open-ended units – expressed here as ABCDEFA’ – that coalesce into a theme characterized by its internal variety and lack of periodicity. The second statement of A is modified to bring the section to an unambiguous close. The function of ‘A’ is interesting in that although it is the head motif of the movement, it is not used to launch Solo I (although it does so in Solo II) but it is employed to bookend Ritornellos I and IV thus creating a neat structural symmetry at both the ritornello level and across the movement as a whole. Ritornello II omits modules A and B, but in opening Solo II with the ‘A’ material rather than the new theme that opens Solo I, it can be argued that the composer achieves a similar structural effect to that employed at the end of Ritornello I. Ritornello III, however, comes as a real surprise and marks out this movement as highly unorthodox.
One of the most important structural changes that occurred in first-movement concerto form in the later eighteenth century concerns the function of Ritornello III. In the middle decades of the century, the process of retransition (generally from the relative minor) took place in Ritornello III with Solo III opening in the tonic with a decorated version of the ‘A’ material from Ritornello I. However, from the 1770s – and in some cases earlier than this – a number of composers began to push the retransition back to the close of Solo II and have Ritornello III underline the return of the tonic.14 It is no coincidence that this shift occurred with the increasing tendency to organise the solo sections of concertos along sonata-form lines. Thus, the arrival of the recapitulation was given greater dramatic emphasis by the principal theme (P) being stated by the orchestra rather than the soloist. Both approaches are encountered in Wanhal’s concertos, but those composed in the 1780s are far more likely to adopt this ‘modern’ convention than works composed during the previous decade.
PPT 7: Concerto D4 Retransition
In the first movement of D4, however, we see a very unusual approach taken by the composer. The retransition occurs at the end of the Solo II, and as if to signal that something unusual is about to happen, the opening of the passage is marked dolce to set it apart both expressively and thematically from the material that precedes it. The retransition is effected in the course of three-and-a- half bars, but the orchestra re-enters not with a triumphant restatement of ‘A’ or even, as is typical with medial ritornello statements, with a truncated version of Ritornello I, but with entirely new material which culminates on V7 and ushers in Solo III. Thus, we have a peculiar hybrid which conforms with neither dominant Ritornello III type.
The enterprising treatment of this crucial structural moment in the first movement is not without other, albeit different, examples in Wanhal’s violin concertos which adds modest weight to its claims to authenticity. In Concertos A1 and Bb1, we see another approach taken but one which also lies outside the norm. In both cases, Ritornello III retains its expected retransitional function but is approached not via the relative minor, but by its dominant which is well established before the appearance of Ritornello III. Of the two movements, A1 is the more interesting.
PPT 8 Concerto A1 Retransition
Solo II opens conventionally in the dominant with P, a varied form of the head motive from Ritornello I. A new passage, unrelated to any material in Solo I, unfolds in two sequential legs; the first in f# minor, the expected tonal destination of this section, and the second, back in the dominant, E major. At this point, Wanhal exploits the thirds relationship by juxtaposing a new passage in c# minor which begins in a more lyrical manner than the preceding section in keeping with the expressive minor mode, and then quickly dissolves into virtuosic passage work complete with double-stops, high tessitura writing, and a triadic passage notable for the rising chromatic contour of its top notes which culminates in a dramatic plunge from e3 to fx1 immediately before the cadence into Ritornello III. This passage occupies nine bars (the cadence is resolved in the first bar of Ritornello III) which contains within it two additional cadential affirmations of C# minor.
PPT 9 Concerto Bb1 Retransition
The second solo section in Concerto Bb1unfolds in a slightly different manner but builds strongly to its unconventional close in v of vi. The section opens with a statement of the P theme in the dominant, displaced here by a half bar, a familiar occurrence in the mid-century Viennese concerto. This is followed immediately by another statement of P, this time back in the tonic, which leads into a phase of modulatory extension based on a rising series of sequences which end in G minor. The extended passage that follows is dominated by triplet figuration, one of the hallmarks of Wanhal’s early concertos, and passes through a cycle of fifths to arrive in D minor. As is the case in Concerto A1, this tonality is affirmed by two cadences before the third resolves into Ritornello III, thus creating an elision between the two sections. Once again, there is a dramatic vocal skip ahead of the final cadence which adds to the dramatic intensity of the moment.
It is interesting to note that two distinct versions of this movement exist. In a copy of the work preserved in Zagreb which formerly belonged to Don Nikola Undine-Algarotti, the sequential legs in Solo III have been tightened by the excision of material resulting in the shortening of the movement by several bars, shifting the return of Solo III to the half bar. 15 It is this version, with its tentative connections with Salzburg through Algarotti, that Cliff Eisen and I believe may have been the version Mozart played in Augsburg in 1777.16 It differs from at least one of the two copies in Stift Seitenstetten and in the solo part preserved in the Gesesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien.17
The flexibility of treatment of Solo II and the mechanics of retransition in Concertos D4, A1 and Bb1 cannot in itself establish the authenticity of the otherwise unknown D4, but it does serve to highlight an important facet of Wanhal’s creative personality: a fondness for structural experimentation. This is well documented in studies of his symphonies by Paul Bryan and Matthew Riley,18 in David Wyn Jones’s work on his string quartets19 and in his Masses by Halvor Hosar.20 That such a phenomenon is encountered in several concertos attributed to the same composer strongly suggests a familial relationship, and in doing so, it increases the likelihood that D4 is an authentic Wanhal concerto. Where it belongs in Wanhal’s concerto output, however, is rather less certain since it displays characteristics that are both conservative and progressive. The interesting treatment of the head motive in the Ritornello, the extension of the tonic in the opening phrases and the unconventional process of transition, suggest it is possibly a transitional work composed in the second half of the 1770s, yet the prominent use of Scotch snaps in the new P theme in Solo I, the rather primitive structural treatment of Solos I and III and the lack of thematically generated development of material in Solo II, all indicate an early composition date. The second and third movements do not help a great deal to clarify this uncertainty. While the lyrical, unfussy Adagio looks forward to the early 1780s, the powerful, driving finale reverts to the conventional retransitional function that is prevalent in the composer’s earlier concertos.
PPT 10: Concerto in Eb, Weinmann IIb:Es1
Allegro moderato
Viewed alongside Concertos A1, Bb1 and D4, Eb1 immediately strikes one as out of place. This impression is created largely on account of the composer’s adoption of ‘modern’ alla breve-style notation in place of the fussy, eight-in-bar style which dominates the mid-century concerto. It is interesting, however, that this change of notational style has no impact on the tempo marking at the head of the movement: like the other three concertos, the tempo indication is given as Allegro moderato. The significance of the change lies elsewhere, notably in the shift to four-bar periodic construction which is commonplace in the symphony of the 1760s and 1770s but not uniformly so in chamber music or the concerto, and in the less rhythmically elaborate melodic lines. The earlier works frequently employ a hybrid style which employs a combination of additive constructions consisting of multiple, rhythmically active, short-breathed phrases with more expansive passages of fortspinnung that result in a preponderance of asymmetrical phrases. The opening ritornello of D4 illustrates the older style very well (Bb1 less so which possibly indicates a later date of composition), but Eb1, with its longer phrases and rhythmically simplified style, has a sense of almost leisurely expansiveness to it that is fundamentally new in the Viennese concerto although by no means unknown. The first movements of Haydn’s Horn Concerto in D, Hob VII:3 (1761) and Leopold Hofmann’s Harpsichord Concerto in D (Badley D1), advertised in Breitkopf Supplement IV 1769, both adopt alla breve notation, yet curiously both composers revert to the older style in their later works, invariably so in Hofmann’s case, and largely so in Haydn’s until the Piano Concerto in D, Hob.XVIII:11 which dates from the early 1780s.21 Alla breve notation, however, was commonplace elsewhere. The violin concertos of Saint-Georges, for example, which all date from the 1770s, adopt this notational convention as do the concertos composed in the same decade by Mozart whose works betray few influences from the Viennese concerto.
The notation style and greater expansiveness in the first movement of Eb1 mark it out as a later work than the previous examples we have considered. One of the other crucial chronological signifiers is also present: Ritornello III is now cast in the tonic and marks the beginning of the recapitulation. It is as if Wanhal, assuming he is the composer of Eb1, has been working towards this moment by experimenting in his earlier works with varied approaches to managing the process of retransition and recapitulation. It is interesting then to consider whether any of the stylistic details encountered in the other movements we have examined are also to be found in Eb1, and if they are, whether they have changed in any way.
In major-mode concertos of the period, the function of Solo II is to modulate from the dominant to the relative minor and, in concertos where the function of Ritornello III is recapitulatory, to encompass the process of retransition. How the section unfolds, the extent to which it might quote or develop thematic material from earlier in the movement, is largely irrelevant. Much of the section is given over to passage work, some of which might utilize recognizable motivic elements but very often this material is new and might even be described as athematic. This is certainly the case in Concerto D4 with its heavy reliance on sequential passage work – always useful in effecting the desired modulation – but we see a noticeable change in patterns with the arrival of the relative minor and later in highlighting the retransition with a further change in patterning and the addition of the expressive marking, dolce. As we have seen, this process might differ from that seen in A1 and Bb1, but they too can be considered atypical, but unlike D4, have rather better claims to authenticity.
Eb1 is, by comparison, altogether more orthodox in the sense that it is closer in style to the works we are more familiar with that date from the late eighteenth century. Solo I has a much clearer demarcation of P and S material. There are once again two distinct phases in the S section, the second of which is more highly virtuosic, but it features two prominent cadences in the dominant before a third resolves into Ritornello II in comparison with the single cadences seen in A1 and D4. Concerto Bb1, which is a little larger in scale than A1 and D4, has a third component in the S group, whose function is the same as S2 in Concertos A1 and Eb1: it too has just a single cadence before its dramatic plunge into Ritornello II.
PPT 11 Concerto Eb1 Solo II
Although Eb1 has a greater sense of expansiveness to it, the medial Ritornello II consists of a single truncated and slightly modified statement of the closing thematic module from Ritornello I instead of utilising several interlinked modules. Solo II eschews obvious thematic links with earlier material and this is obvious from the outset. The section opens with twelve bars of new material in the dominant, which closes on its dominant curtesy of an imperfect cadence. With no modulation but playing on the tonal ambiguity of the previous bar, Wanhal announces the arrival of the relative minor in a section that unfolds in two discrete phases, the first of eight bars and the second of twelve, neatly mirroring the asymmetrical twelve-bar opening of Solo II. At this point, he startles the listener with a forte III7chord which, in the following bar, is revealed to have been V7/IV playing once again on the idea of tonal ambiguity; new figuration, beginning piano and now firmly in the subdominant, sets up the retransition. This time, however, eighteen bars of energetic passage work in which three dramatic cadences are heard, lead into a ten-bar codetta which contains allusions to but no direct quotation from ideas heard in Ritornello I and this completes the process of retransition. Rather than cadencing directly into Ritornello III and creating an elision between these two major structural sections, the dominant chord that ends the passage is separated from Ritornello III by two beats rest.
The greater complexity of this section and the change in function of Ritornello III conceal obvious similarities with its counterparts in the other concertos examined. These include the composer’s apparent reluctance to quote recognizable thematic material from Ritornello I or Solo I in the central phase of the movement; the notation of specific dynamic shifts in the solo part at critical structural moments such as the establishment of the relative minor, a practice that is less widely employed than one might expect; and finally, the approach to Ritornello III by a series of dramatic cadences that fall within a phase of extended virtuosity.
The remainder of movement is substantially different to anything we have seen in the other works. Ritornello III is barely present, consisting solely of the opening eights bars of the P theme which is continued by the soloist. Its extension is modified to deflect the tonality to the subdominant in order to set up the return of the S group in the tonic. S2 is extended to encompass a new and highly dramatic cadential passage which leads to a brief orchestral interjection culminating on I 6/4. Following the cadenza, the movement ends with the closing section from Ritornello I.
The recapitulatory function of Ritornello III and the double return of thematic material in Solo III are progressive traits that probably place the composition date of the work after 1780 but probably before Wanhal embarked on the composition of the concertos published later in the decade.
The four concertos we have looked at very briefly are all attractive and highly competent works with recurring structural and stylistic features that suggest they are the work of a single composer as the source material in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde indicates. And yet their authenticity rests on rather slight evidence and some of it is inevitably subjective. Could anybody else have composed these concertos? Certainly, and in the case of D4, a contra-attribution to Hofmann would have to be taken very seriously indeed. The difficulty that such works pose is that no two works by the same composer are ever wholly alike. Given a big enough sample size of a composer’s works in the relevant genre, it is possible to identify recurring stylistic fingerprints that can be helpful in establishing the possible authenticity of a work; however, in each case, the thematic material itself imposes its own influence on the way the movement unfolds which frequently undermines one’s confidence in the reliability of the stylistic signatures.
PPT12: Hofmann Concerto Bb1/III – Solo II
The two Hofmann concerto parts I alluded to earlier illustrate this problem very neatly and, by a fortuitous coincidence, were produced by the same individual who copied the four Wanhal parts. The authenticity of the concerto preserved under the signature IX 30903 is beyond reasonable doubt. In addition to its listing in Breitkopf Supplement VI 1771 and the solo part under discussion, there are two extant copies of the work in Seitenstetten, and a copy each in Prague and Zagreb.22 Bb1 shares common structural and stylistic elements not only with Hofmann’s six other extant violin concertos but also with his concertos for cello, flute and oboe. Nonetheless, the work also includes passages that are found far less commonly in his other concertos including a rare instance in the finale, of Ritornello III assuming a recapitulatory function.23
Another unusual feature of this movement is the comparative absence of thematic allusions in Solo II and, with the exception of the return of the P theme at the start of Solo III, no further recapitulation of material from Solo I. Hofmann treats the solo part in the first movement of Bb1 with similar freedom and it is one of the reasons the work is so attractive. However, if this concerto were known only from the incomplete source in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and lacking other external corroborative evidence, its attribution to Hofmann would be rather less certain. One other interesting and stylistically aberrant feature of Bb1 is that the opening of the P theme in the finale shares a subtle kinship with the beginning of the first movement theme, as if Hofmann were flirting with the idea of motivic metamorphosis.
PPT 13 Hofmann Q2 /I, III
Turning our attention to the otherwise unknown concerto, there are several stylistic markers that are very persuasive. These include the presence of characteristic rhythmic figures including that first seen in the very first bar; the use of an unmodified double cadence at the end of Solos I and III; the dotted figure in the final bar of Ritornello III; and the prominence of the so-called ‘Cudworth’ cadential formula in the finale which is also employed in its counterpart in Bb1. None of these ideas is unique to Hofmann yet their presence in the same work strengthens the case for his authorship of the work. Nonetheless, there are other aspects that are less commonly encountered in his violin concertos that give one pause for thought. One of these is the extensive use of double-stopping which is not only central to the musical identity of S1 but is also employed even more extensively in the finale. In the first movement, the solo part also extends higher than is seen elsewhere in Hofmann’s violin concertos. Does this undermine the case for his authorship or merely advance the possibility that the work was tailored to exploit the strengths of a particular violinist? [PPT14]
The fact that it is the solo writing rather than structural or syntactical concerns that casts a pall of uncertainty over the authenticity of this concerto highlights a more general problem with concertos that does not typically apply to other instrumental genres: they are often personalized works, like arias, that were composed in the first instance for a specific performer. As such, the writing for the solo instrument can often differ markedly to that encountered in other works by the composer both in technical difficulty and detail. In Hofmann’s case, two of his eight cello concertos, C1 and D3, exploit the high register in a manner that his other concertos do not. Whoever these works were composed for was clearly an outstanding cellist with a mastery of thumb-position technique. As it turns out, Hofmann was acquainted with just such a cellist, Joseph Weigl, the cellist for whom Haydn composed his brilliant Concerto in C, Hob.VII:1 in ca 1765. Weigl, who moved to Vienna in 1769, later became a member of Hofmann’s orchestras at St Peter’s and at St Stephen’s Cathedral, and it possible, perhaps even probable, that Hofmann composed these two works specifically for Weigl or with him in mind as a performer.24
The four Wanhal concertos considered here tell a similar story. One work, D4, is noticeably less demanding than the other three making little use of the high tessitura or double-stopping. Bb1 also makes minimal use of double-stopping but is notable for its extensive use of high tessitura writing which extends as high as d4 which is not exceeded even in Concerto Eb1. The latter work, like A1, includes a substantial amount of double-stopping although it is confined largely to the finale. Complexity of solo writing does not necessarily imply a greater sophistication of the overall conception of the work: it is in a sense an isolated marker that is more likely associated with the work’s origins in a commission than a reflection of the composer’s development as an artist. The notable use of high register writing and extensive double-stopping in the second of the concertos attributed to Hofmann is very likely connected with its origins about which we know nothing. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that in a city the size of Vienna with its closely interconnected musical community, that two its most distinguished composers might have been commissioned to write works for the same violinist? I would not rule it out, and indeed this intersection of composer and performer might very well be one of the most obvious contributing factors to some of the more vexing questions of authenticity.
In investigating cases like these, as I hope this paper has demonstrated, there is no option but to progress from the known to the unknown and accept as a matter of principle that uncertainty is the most likely outcome.
- Samuel Johnson. A Dictionary of the English Language: in which words are deduced from their originals, and illustrated in their different significations by examples from the best writers… London, 1755, p.3.
- Allan Badley, ‘Chronological Signifiers in the Concertos of Johann Baptist Wanhal’, UDK 78-05 Baptist Wanhal, J. RADOVI Zavoda za znanstveni rad HAZU Varaždin. Varaždin, 2014, 169–198.
- Paul Bryan, Johann Wanhal, Viennese Symphonist. His Life and His Musical Environment. Stuyvestant, NY: Pendragon, 1997), 79
- Six of these works were advertised in Breitkopf Supplement II 1767 and two belong to the set of six advertised in Supplement VI 1771. Of the remaining two works, one is also listed in the Quartbuch (Concertino C3) and a further work (Concertino Eb1) is otherwise unknown. Two copies of Concertinos D1 and F2 are preserved in the same source although it is unclear why these duplicate copies were acquired. In both cases, the works belong to the 1767 set. See Allan Badley. ‘The Concertos of Leopold Hofmann’. PhD thesis, University of Auckland, 1986. Vol.2 (Catalogue).
- G. Cook Kimball. ‘The Symphonies of Leopold Hofmann (1738–1793)’. PhD thesis: Columbia University, 1985. Kimball’s thematic catalogue of Hofmann’s symphonies includes a substantial number of works that are patently not symphonies, but this does not invalidate his conclusions about the approximate date Hofmann ceased to compose symphonies. The evidence suggests that Hofmann replaced the symphony with the ensemble concertino and the emergence of this new and highly unusual genre must have piqued the interest of Clam Gallas.
- Richard Maunder. The Scoring of the Early Classical Concerto. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014.
- Gottfried Johann Dlabacž, Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren und Schlesien, 3 vols. Prague: Gottlieb Haase, 1815, 324-331 1
- Op. Cit., 22
- Halvor K. Hosar. ‘The Conspicuous Absentee: Wanhal, Ditters and Von dem wienerischen Geschmack in der Musik’. In Bertil van Boer (ed.), SECM in Tallahassee 2018: The Political, Transnational and Exotic in Eighteenth-Century Musical Life. Ann Arbor: Steglein Publishing, 2022, 42–57
- Alexander Weinmann. Themen-Verzeichnis der Kompositionen von Johann Baptiste Wanhal. Wiener Archivstudien Band XI, Teil 1. Wien: Musikverlag Ludwig Krenn, 1988. The entry for one work, Concerto IIb:G4, reads: “Concertino a Violino concertato, Violoncello concert: Viola concert: Oboe concert: Violino concert: a Corno primo, Corno secondo da Sigr: Giovanni Wanhal”. This work is neither structurally nor stylistically a concerto. Bryan classified it as a symphony (G5) in his catalogue largely on the authority of its appearance in the Quartbuch and Jens Peter Larsen’s assumption that it was a symphony. However, like Hofmann’s ensemble concertinos, the work clearly belongs in neither category.
- Barry S Brook (ed). The Breitkopf Thematic Catalogue – The Six Parts and Sixteen Supplements 1762–1787. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1966, xiv.
- Den 12. August […] wird im Versatzamt […] die auserlesene Musikaliensammlung des sel. Herrn Grafen Ladislaus Erdödy, licitando verkauft: selbe bestehet in einigen hundert Sinfonien, Concertinen, Konzerten, Quintetten, Quartetten, deutsch und italienischen Opern Oratorien, Messen etc von den berühmtesten Meistern… Wiener Zeitung Nr.63 (6 August) 1788.
- Of these four works, Concerto C1 survives in a single copy; D2 is lost; three copies of A1 are extant, and four of Wanhal’s best-known violon concerto, Weinmann IIb:B1, the work Mozart performed in August in 1777. The copy HR-Zha XXXII.N (prov. Udina-Algarotti) dates from ca 1775 and is the closest known source to Mozart. See Allan Badley and Cliff Eisen. Johann Baptist Wanhal, Violin Concerto in Bb (Weinmann IIb: B1), Wellington: Artaria Editions, 2005.
- Shelley David. ‘H.C. Koch, the Classic Concerto, and the Sonata Form Retransition’. Journal of Musicology, 11/1 (1983), 45
- HR-Zha Zbirka Don Nikola Udina Algarotti XXXIII.N.
- Allan Badley and Cliff Eisen (eds). Johann Baptist Wanhal – Violin Concerto in Bb (Weinmann IIb:B1). Wellington: Artaria Editions, 2005
- A-SEI V 1225
- Matthew Riley. The Viennese Minor-Key Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Mozart. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
- David Wyn Jones. ‘The String Quartets of Johann Baptist Vaňhal’. PhD thesis, University of Wales, Cardiff, 1977.
- Halvor Hosar. ‘His Name Immortal. Five Studies in the Sacred Music of Johann Baptist Wanhal’. PhD thesis, University of Auckland, 2019.
- This stylistic dilemma is very apparent the concertos Haydn composed in the 1780s as can be seen in the contrasting use of the old style of notation in the Cello Concerto in D (Hob.VIIb:2) and the Piano Concerto in D (Hob.XVIII:11) which adopts the modern alla breve style. See Allan Badley, ‘Concerto’ in David Wyn Jones (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Haydn. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 41–51.
- A-SCH 43: tit. fict; A-SCH 521: “Concerto / Violino Principale / Violino 1mo et 2do / Viola / con Violone / Del Sigl: Leopoldo Hoffmann”; CZ-Pnm XLIX C 139: “Concerto in B / a / Violino Principale / Violino Primo / Violino Secondo / Viola / con / Basso / Del sig: Leopoldo Hoffmann”;
- Hofmann’s keyboard concerti, by comparison, largely adopt the modern recapitulatory function, and interesting functional dichotomy that perhaps reflects its different evolutionary path in Vienna. See Allan Badley (ed.). ‘Leopold Hofmann – Sechs Konzerte für Tasteninstrument’. Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, Bd.161. Wien: Hollitzer Verlag, 2019.
- Allan Badley. ‘Two Composers and a Cellist: Haydn. Hofmann and Joseph Weigl’. https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal/vol2/iss1/7/