The Australian Haydn Ensemble’s program of lesser-known, and even slightly odd works are no laughing matter.

In the year 1787 Captain Arthur Philip set sail from Portsmouth with the eleven ships of the First Fleet bound for Australia, and a Charter of Justice was signed enabling the establishment of the first New South Wales Courts of Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction. The United States Constitution was drafted and adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, and already Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratified to become the first three of the United States of America. Mont Blanc in France was conquered for the first time, William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, two of the moons of Uranus, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart premiered his Symphony No 38 and the opera Don Giovanni. In this global climate of discovery and dramatic geopolitical changes, classical music was thriving in all corners of Europe. It was in this year, in Madrid (Boccherini), Vienna (Mozart), and the swampy grounds of the Esterházy Palace in Hungary (Haydn), that three of the works on the Australian Haydn Ensemble’s upcoming program were composed. Despite his work not originating in 1787, that year also saw Paul Wranitzky become director of the Burgtheater in Vienna, thus securing him the high status that would lead Haydn to personally request his services to direct the 1799 and 1800 Viennese performances of The Creation.

This program, The Musical Joke, is the second in the Australian Haydn Ensemble’s exciting 2014 series and features unusual, lesser-known, even odd works by some of the greatest composers of the day; Boccherini’s Op. 3 No 3 Quintet for strings and double bass, Haydn’s Concerto No 1 for Two Lira Organizzata in C major and Mozart’s The Musical Joke, as well as an outstanding ‘amplification’ by Paul Wranitzky of Haydn’s Op. 71 No 2 string quartet for nonet. The product of intriguing circumstance, the intertwining lives of these great cultural figures and their inspired ingenuity and wit, the musical worth of these compositions is not to be undervalued.

Luigi Boccherini was one of great cellists of the 18th century who dramatically expanded the technical and expressive possibilities of the instrument through his numerous compositions which feature it so prominently. Boccherini composed some 113 quintets (of 125 in total) for string quartet with an additional cello, as well as many dozens of cello-centric quartets and twelve virtuosic concertos. Bucking the trend of the more traditional centres of London, Paris and Vienna for musicians of the period, Boccherini finally settled in Spain, and there are traces of the country’s music, as well as its warm air and clear skies, to be heard in many of his compositions. The three quintets of Op. 39 are a mysterious addition to Boccherini’s output of quintets, with the sudden emergence of a fine, independent double bass voice, possibly a salute to his late bassist father or taking advantage of the talents of two famous local bassists.

Largely forgotten today, Paul Wranitzky was once at the heart of musical life in Vienna, directing the orchestras at the city’s two major venues and composing coronation music for Leopold II and Franz II as well as several popular operas. Wranitzky was born and trained in Moravia before receiving his first major musical posting to the Esterházy family in Galantha, an offshoot of the main court seat at Eisenstadt where Joseph Haydn lived. While it is unclear whether Wranitzky studied with Haydn, the two remained close friends and collaborators. While not an official dedication, Wranitzky ‘amplifies’ Haydn’s Op. 71 and Op. 74 as divertimenti in his published version from the year 1800 for an ensemble of nine, making it one of the largest such examples of the period. This technique of ‘amplification’ or ‘reduction’ of a respectively smaller or larger chamber work not only refreshed the original for eager audiences but also made popular music more accessible and appropriate to a wider range of public and private venues.

Court composers, while blessed with a stable income and usually a band of skilled and loyal musicians to play their music, were often at the whim of their employer and the reigning monarch. Joseph Haydn was apparently happy to indulge Ferdinand IV, the King of Naples and ruler of Sicily and a compulsive collector, with five concertos for a pair of his beloved lira organizzatas. These oddities of the 18th century were a form of hybrid hurdy-gurdy, activated by a crank with organ pipes and bellows encased in the body of the instrument in addition to a set of gut strings which were played in the manner of a Vielle (renaissance violin). Unfamiliar to Haydn even as he wrote these works, the lira organizzata is equally hard to come by in the 21st century, and thus the solo voices are frequently performed by a combination of flute and oboe. While rendering this music slightly more conventional to a modern ear, the refreshingly simple and folky nature of this C major Haydn concerto is still apparent. Our own Melissa Farrow (flute) and special guest Amy Power (oboe) will perform the work in our program.

Undoubtedly the greatest oddity and the most mysterious work on our program is Mozart’s The Musical Joke. While deciphering a two-hundred year old joke written in musical notation might be difficult at the best of times, Mozart has left us with no clear indication as to the context of its composition. There are numerous theories (could it have been a dedication to his recently departed pet starling?), however it is clear that Mozart was deliberately satirising inept compositional practices. He employs wrong notes, irregular phrase lengths, faulty harmonic progressions, clumsy ornaments, difficult and unidiomatic instrumental writing, poorly matched melodic ideas, the ever-scorned consecutive fifths and octaves between voices, shockingly subtle (and non-so-subtle) dissonances as well as pure, unbridled polytonality. To put it simply, Mozart carefully messes with all the rules in the book to create a hilarious mockery of the high musical society in which he himself was firmly implanted. Reminiscent of the Masked Ball scene in Peter Schaeffer’s film Amadeus where Mozart ridicules Salieri, the real life’ Musical Joke’ pokes fun at C-grade composers & performers, lambasting them in a litany of musical faux pas.

Featuring:

Paul Wright (Guest Director & violin soloist)
Melissa Farrow (Flute soloist)
Amy Power (Guest oboe soloist)
Darryl Poulsen (Guest natural horn)
Carla Blackwood (Guest natural horn)

Concerts:

Canberra, ANU – Drill Hall Gallery, Thursday – July 17th, 7pm
Bowral, St Jude’s Church, Friday – July 18th, 7.30pm
Sydney, Sydney Opera House – Utzon Room, Saturday – July 19th, 8pm

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