HAYDN PAPERS at the 2020 AMS-SMT Annual Meeting: A Report
Written by Bruce C. MacIntyre (Prof. Emeritus in Music, Brooklyn College/CUNY)
Due to the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 joint AMS-SMT Annual Meeting was held virtually on four days, over two weekends (Nov. 7-8 and Nov. 14-15). The presenters’ 20-minute papers were pre-recorded and made available starting on Friday, October 30, via the AMS Meeting “platform” produced by Pathable.co. Each of the assigned “live” session times had a chairperson and lasted just 50 minutes, allowing each presenter just 3-5 minutes to give a short summary of their pre-recorded paper, followed by 30-40 minutes of Q&A and discussion with registered attendees who were “in” the virtual room (via Pathable or, alternatively, Zoom). With both Pathable and the Zoom “Chat” boxes in operation, multi-tasking viewers could simultaneously read and hear additional comments/questions during these live sessions. All times were listed according to U.S. Central Time (CT) because the annual meeting had originally been scheduled to take place in Minneapolis, MN.
There were six papers relating to Haydn spread over the four days – three for AMS and three for SMT. Interesting was how the three SMT papers elucidated the ways in which Haydn’s music -- be it his piano sonatas, keyboard trios, or symphonies -- veered away from theoretical “norms” through inventive approaches to form, texture, harmony, and phrase rhythm. The three AMS musicological papers, on the other hand, offered new perspectives on Haydn’s music in terms of performance venue (i.e. London’s pleasure gardens in the 1780s and 1790s), Haydn’s reputation (i.e. reception of the cantata Arianna during his first visit to London in 1791), and disability studies (i.e. the elderly Haydn’s challenges in completing his last two oratorios).
The six papers will here be summarized, in the order of their chronological discussions. Abstracts of the papers are appended to this report.
[1] First, there was an SMT “Poster Session on Form,” where Joseph Chi Sing Siu (Lecturer in Music Theory at the University of Maryland Baltimore County) presented data from his 2020 University of Rochester Ph.D. dissertation entitled “Phrase-Rhythm Norms in Haydn’s and Mozart’s Piano Sonata Expositions.” In his corpus study, Dr. Siu closely analyzed the rhythmic phrasing and hypermeter in first movements of 59 sonatas: 41 by Haydn, 18 by Mozart (excluding movements not in sonata form or those that are spurious).
Dr. Siu focused upon phrase-rhythm because, for him, rhythm and meter were “two crucial parameters . . . not adequately recognized by [William E.] Caplin [1998] as among the possible criteria contributing to the tight or loose organization of Classical themes, or by Hepokoski and Darcy [2006] as among the background set of norms that inform Sonata Theory.” Dr. Siu has made a detailed statistical study of all the data parsed from the 59 sonata-form movements. The analyses were summarized in two statistical handout pages that showed: (a) the numbers of occurrences of regular and irregular phrase rhythm in the P, TR, S, and C (i.e. K) sections in Haydn and Mozart, and (b), using the Hepokoski/Darcy terminologies, the quantities of, and rhythmic placement of, various harmonic events (e.g., P-->TR; V-Lock, Medial Cadence, Medial Cadence to S theme, and the EEC or Essential Expositional Closure).
As Dr. Siu noted about his method: “The use of phrase-rhythmic loosening devices, such as non-quadruple hypermeasures (NQ), metrical reinterpretations (MR), and successive downbeats (SD), would create deviations from the norms and resulted in irregular phrase rhythm. These data were all presented as percentages, and some were also analyzed with chi-square tests to show statistical significance.” Interesting is Siu’s observation that in both Haydn and Mozart “the regularity in phrase rhythm decreased from primary themes [i.e. the P’s], to transitions [the TR’s], to secondary themes [the S’s], and then rebounded to a new form of regularity in closing zones [C or K sections].” In the comparative charts with their statistical analyses, the numbers then seem to reflect what our ears intuitively tell us about changes in phrase rhythm (e.g., when a “closing” section affirming the dominant key arrives, we all think “Aha” – breathing a knowing sigh of relief that the section’s end is indeed near).
This writer urged Dr. Siu to consider offering readers more specific musical examples and also to compare his 59 samples from Haydn and Mozart with the phrase-rhythm patterns in some sonatas by a few of their contemporaries in Vienna and Salzburg. In this way, Siu could perhaps deduce some hidden stylistic “fingerprints” that might assist future authenticity studies trying to verify an attribution to Haydn or another composer.
[2] Next, in an SMT session on Rotational Form (Hepokoski’s term), Carl Burdick (PhD candidate, Department of Music Theory, University of Cincinnati) gave a fascinating overview and analysis of Haydn’s use of the sonata-fugue hybrid in some dozen early symphonies, citing in particular the finales of Symphony nos. 3 and 40 (in G and F, of 1759/60 and 1763) in order to demonstrate how the continuous elements and imitative techniques of fugue work together with the regularly cadenced style of the “sonata form.” Among the things noted by Burdick talk were: a) Haydn regularly utilized the device of stretto at the moment of recapitulation; and b) the continuous one-theme approach of fugue was clearly a foundation for Haydn’s characteristic “monothematicism.”
As Burdick’s abstract notes: “The tension between fugue and sonata concerns expectations for formal continuity and the closing effect of cadences.” He adds: “The sonata-fugue hybrid finales of Haydn’s Symphonies no. 3 (G) and 40 (F) adopt fugal continuity by mitigating cadential closure, but also engage sonata form’s characteristic rotational patterns. These divergences fall outside the norms postulated by Hepokoski and Darcy (2006).” As the abstract also notes: “By integrating fugue into the sonata process, Haydn began to develop sonata-form procedures drawing on fugal techniques. Though some of these strategies fell into disuse, others became hallmarks of Haydn’s sonata style and deserve a more prominent role in our narrative of sonata form.”
[3] Then, in an AMS session on “Music and Class in London and Manchester,” Ashley Greathouse (Ph.D. candidate in Musicology at the College Conservatory of the University of Cincinnati) presented a fascinating paper “Aristocratic Pleasure or the ‘Middle Sort’: Franz Joseph Haydn’s ‘Hunt’ Symphony (Hob. I: 73) at London’s Vauxhall Gardens.” Her paper examined London’s eighteenth-century pleasure gardens and the ca. 6 performances of Haydn’s “Hunt” Symphony no. 73 in D (ca. 1781) that took place at Vauxhall Gardens from 1786 to 1795.
As Greathouse noted, the pleasure gardens offered Londoners of various classes some “rural pleasures” and “a pastoral escape” in the middle of that great city. She reported that the most performed composers at Vauxhall included the gardens’ music director James Hook, with 196 works performed, Handel with 167 works, and Haydn with 152 works programmed.
It is certainly amusing to think of Haydn’s Symphony no. 73 as, in Greathouse’s words, “a soundtrack” for the amorous pursuits (i.e. “hunts”) that often occurred among the myriad visitors to the gardens. Ashley also told us about the various rules for properly (and legally) hunting foxes and showed various notated hunting-horn calls from eighteenth-century printed sources, some of whose tunes resemble the hunting “topoi” in Symphony no. 73’s finale. Greathouse is building upon earlier repertoire studies and topics researches by
Raymond Monelle, Simon McVeigh, and others. (In June 2020 she had also presented on this topic at SECM’s online “dissertations-in-progress” online session.)
Among one of the more amusing and memorable factoids observed at the AMS virtual conference (where one could replay the talks and enlarge slides) was in a slide where Greathouse showed the penalties for breaking England’s strict laws of hunting. For one particularly grievous infraction in 1776 the penalty was: “transportation to America for 7 years.”
[4] Next, in an AMS session on “Music and Critical Disability,” Rena Roussin (doctoral candidate in musicology, University of Toronto) spoke in the online Q&A about her compelling and innovative paper “Cripping Haydn Studies: The Final Decade and Disabled Narrative in the Late Oratorios.” This was an engaging contribution to the “burgeoning field of music and disability studies” that entered musicology around 2004 and to which many have contributed (e.g., Joseph N. Strauss, Stephanie Jensen-Moulton, and others). Rena’s dissertation is currently titled “Intersecting Haydn: Disability, Gender, and the Late Oratorios." Following the challenges set forth by Sarah Day-O’Connell, Rena addresses a gap in scholarly discourse by “contextualizing Haydn’s biography and late oratorios through the lens and language of disability studies.”
Rena’s paper had three parts. She began with an introduction to critical disability studies and, attempting to “reclaim” what was once thought to be a derogatory term, she defined a “crip” as something which is not “normal” in a particular time period. She also clarified the distinction between “impairment” and “disability.”
In the second part of her paper, Rena focused upon Haydn’s final seven years and the increasing challenges he faced, including bouts of melancholy, a recurring nasal polyp, mobility impairments from continuing rheumatism, and leg swelling, along with periodic dizziness, fatigue, vertigo, and brain fever. Our standard, typical view of the elderly Haydn in his final years as a person of “modesty, religious fervor, and cheerfulness and good humor” is challenged by Roussin’s close-ups of Haydn’s infirmities of age and how they affected the amount and even quality of his musical output.
In the last part of the paper, Rena elucidated how a “disability narrative” of Haydn’s frail health in his final years connects with his music. According to Joseph Strauss, “narrative prosthesis” has a trajectory that includes four stages: 1) identifying the deviance; 2) marking the deviance as a problem; 3) bringing it from the periphery to the center; and 4) repairing it (e.g., by a cure or even death). Rena related such a narrative to both The Seasons (1801) and The Creation (1798). She explained the so-called inverted “narrative prosthesis” that we witness – with the “spiritual gain” and “accommodation” noted in The Seasons (especially in no. 38’s recitative “Erblikke hier, betörter Mensch” and the following aria) and the elements of “overcoming” and “erasure” in The Creation. As Rena notes, the “premature” ending of The Creation – stopping before the temptation and “fall” of Adam and Eve – “’cures’ the Christian concept of original sin.”
These, then, were just some of Rena’s ways of exploring and elucidating “how Haydn appears to have mediated both his compositional process and aspects of his public persona through his increasing age and impaired corporeal state.”
[5] For the fifth Haydn paper, Jan Miyake (Associate Professor of Music Theory at Oberlin College) spoke in an SMT session on “Sonata Problems.” Her presentation “Formal Problems as Opportune Inconveniences in Haydn’s Late Piano Trios” discussed the challenges of interpreting form in the trios’ final movements, which often exhibit the composer’s masterful inventiveness by means of their hybrid nature – mixing aspects of binary form, sonata rondo, or ternary ABA form. As Dr Miyake noted in her abstract: “About half (18) of [Haydn’s 39] final keyboard-trio movements are described best as a type of sonata form and the other half (18) by either an ABACA or ABA [sectional] form. Two of this latter group, however, also display striking aspects of sonata form, and the construction of the lone sonata rondo from the former group [Trio no. 32, Hob. XV: 18 in A major] is atypical enough to make its categorization quite Procrustean.” That trio’s final movement opens as a sonata-rondo (with Refrain 1, Episode 1, and Refrain 2, at mm. 1ff., 29ff., and 70ff., respectively; and “S” material at m. 37ff.) before leaving the sonata-rondo path via an “abandoned sentence” and deceptive cadence at the end of Refrain 2 (mm. 90-98), from which a “mixed” Episode 2 emerges (m. 99ff.) -- “adopting and interweaving development and recapitulation functions.” In addition to these formal “inconveniences,” Haydn’s playful duple contradictions of the triple meter enhance the overall thrilling effect of the movement.
As Miyake’s abstract also notes: “Trios no. 32 (Hob. XV: 18 [A major]), no. 41 (Hob. XV: 31 [Eb minor, “Jacob’s Dream”]), and no. 42 (Hob. XV: 30 [Eb major]) each offer opportunities to consider how the compositional processes of sonata form pervade Haydn’s music, making a formal designation of these movements somewhat inconvenient. Theorists [such as Hepokoski and Darcy] created the tools that led to this situation, but rather than seeing it as problematic, perhaps works that are inconvenient to categorize provide an opportunity for new ideas. This paper describes how Haydn’s penchant for sonata-form processes impacts these last-movement forms and offers initial thoughts on a new way to organize Haydn’s approach to form.”
[6] The sixth and final Haydn paper at the conference was also about late Haydn, in an AMS session entitled “Castrati in Context.” Katelyn Clark (Post Doctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver) presented an informative, well documented paper entitled “The Merit of Novelty: Castrato Pacchierotti as Haydn’s Princess Ariadne (London, 1791).” In February 1791, a month after Haydn had arrived in London, the immensely popular and highly regarded castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti [1740-1821] sang several performances of the composer’s highly expressive 1790 solo cantata Arianna a Naxos, (Hob. XXVIb: 2), with Haydn himself at the fortepiano. The first performance was at a Ladies’ Concert on 18 February 1791.
Dr. Clark reported on the terribly mixed reviews and pressure for “novel material” that Haydn had been receiving during the start of his first London visit in 1791, when there were critical comments like “no merit of novelty” and “very poor performer.” Dr. Clark then showed how Pacchierotti’s performances of Haydn’s Arianna were a positive turning point for Haydn and his reception in the British capital – leading to comments about Haydn’s Arianna such as its being so “exquisitely captivating in its larmoyant passages, that it touched and dissolved the audience.” In other words, the Arianna performances seem to have “helped revitalize Haydn’s positive reception in London.“ Another review (26 Feb. 1791) noted that Haydn’s “fancy and feeling are in a state of improved vigour” and also quoted Dr. Samuel Arnold as considering Haydn’s cantata “. . . one of the most learned, fanciful and delicious compositions that ever graced the harmonic sphere.” Dr. Clark’s paper thus showed the positive effect on Haydn’s reception because of his musical “alliance” with Pacchierotti, or as her abstract says, “the power of social networks to support – or dissolve – a musician’s success.”
† † †
It will be interesting to see how virtual conferences like AMS/SMT 2020 fare in future years. (A detailed survey about the conference was taken by AMS on November 18, 2020.) For sure, searching through the enormous, multifaceted program and abstracts in advance as well as hearing the pre-recorded papers and becoming accustomed to the online conference platforms do consume a lot of extra time. From this attendee’s perspective, however, virtual participants gain in several ways from such a conference format: a) people can read (and re-read) closely (even consulting additional relevant sources from home) and think about each paper in advance (several days before the discussion date), b) illustrations of music and charts can be viewed clearly and closely on one’s own computer screen, c) through advance “chat” comments, participants can be alerted beforehand about some of the outstanding aspects and approaches of the papers that will be discussed, and d) you can take advantage of the asynchronous nature of the conference platform and hear all papers (if you so wish) – including those that are scheduled to be discussed simultaneously.
As we have seen, more and more “business” of our eighteenth-century societies is already being conducted quite successfully through “Zoom” meetings. So why, then, will we not benefit from some more annual meetings occurring online, even after the pandemic subsides? Instead of time and money for the travel to the meetings, participants/attendees will just have to set aside more time in advance to hear the papers being read. As part of a “virtual enlightenment” ignited by the Covid-19 pandemic, then, well organized online meetings will probably continue to work well and benefit us all.
Bruce C. MacIntyre, Professor Emeritus of Music, Brooklyn College (CUNY) 30 December 2020
APPENDIX:
The six Haydn papers, in order of their appearance, were:
DAY 1, Saturday, November 7
[1] In an SMT POSTER SESSION on FORM: Joseph Chi-Sing Siu (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), “Phrase-Rhythm Norms in Classical Expositions: A Corpus Study of Haydn’s and Mozart’s Piano Sonatas.”
[2] In an SMT SESSION ON ROTATIONAL FORM: Carl Burdick, (Department of Music Theory, College-Conservatory, University of Cincinnati), “The Sonata-Fugue Hybrid in Haydn’s Early Symphonies.”
DAY 2, Sunday, November 8
[3] In an AMS session “Music and Class in London and Manchester’: Ashley A. Greathouse (College-Conservatory, University of Cincinnati), “Aristocratic Pleasure or the ‘Middle Sort’: Franz Joseph Haydn’s ‘Hunt’ Symphony (Hob. I: 73) at London’s Vauxhall Gardens.”
DAY 3, Saturday, November 14
[4] In the AMS session “Music and Critical Disability Theory”: Rena Roussin (University of Toronto), “Cripping Haydn Studies: The Final Decade and Disabled Narrative in the Late Oratorios.”
[5] In the SMT session on “Sonata Problems”: Jan Miyake (Oberlin College, Conservatory of Music), “Formal Problems as Opportune Inconveniences in Haydn’s Late Piano Trios.”
DAY 4, Sunday, November 15 – CASTRATI IN CONTEXT (Webinar 4):
[6] In the AMS session “Castrati in Context”: Katelyn Clark (University of British Columbia), “The Merit of Novelty: Castrato Pacchierotti as Haydn’s Princess Ariadne (London, 1791).”
ABSTRACTS of the six Haydn papers appear below:
[1] Joseph Chi-Sing Siu (University of Maryland Baltimore County). “Phrase-Rhythmic Norms in Classical Expositions: A Corpus Study of Haydn’s and Mozart’s Piano Sonatas.”
Recent research in phrase rhythm and hypermeter have found that some phrase-rhythmic patterns, such as the end-accented “closing-theme schema,” appear regularly in certain parts of the Classical sonata exposition. These phrase-rhythmic norms can, therefore, be regarded as the first-level defaults according to the compositional preference hierarchy in Sonata Theory. However, besides the closing theme schema, there has been no systematic study to examine the phrase-rhythmic norms in the other locations of the sonata exposition. Therefore, this study aims to fill that research gap by conducting a corpus analysis of phrase-rhythmic usage in all the first-movement expositions of piano sonatas composed by Haydn and Mozart. This corpus study can then inform our understanding of phrase rhythmic default levels in Classical sonata form as well as any individual differences in the compositional styles of Haydn and Mozart. In Haydn’s and Mozart’s piano sonatas, phrase rhythm in the primary themes are generally regular, while the secondary themes are mostly irregular. However, in the transitions, Haydn and Mozart have different first-level defaults: regular phrase rhythm occurs more often in Haydn’s sonatas, whereas irregular phrase rhythm is the norm in Mozart. When irregular phrase rhythms do occur, Haydn’s sonatas demonstrate a strong preference to focus on a single loosening device, non-quadruple hypermeasures, while Mozart’s sonatas tend to also include the use of metrical reinterpretations and end-accented phrases. This study also reports on the phrase-rhythmic norms at the boundaries of the sonata formal sections and the hypermetric placements for the MCs (medial caesuras), the dominant-locks (e.g., a VA) , and the EECs (essential expositional closings).
[2] Carl Burdick (University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music). “The Sonata-Fugue Hybrid in Haydn’s Early Symphonies.”
Among Joseph Haydn’s earliest symphonies are thirteen sonata-form movements that incorporate fugal techniques, including two finales that integrate sonata and fugue. I document three strategies Haydn devises in service of the sonata-fugue hybrid. The dialogue surrounding these strategies represents a formative stage for his most characteristic techniques. The tension between fugue and sonata concerns expectations for formal continuity and the closing effect of cadences. Sonata form is in two parts delineated by cadential closure. On the other hand, fugue is continuous and should avoid conveying rest during its course. Formal expectations for fugue are otherwise flexible and enable it to adhere to the rotational process of sonata form. The sonata-fugue hybrid finales of Haydn’s Symphonies no. 3 and 40 adopt fugal continuity by mitigating cadential closure, but also engage sonata form’s characteristic rotational patterns. These divergences fall outside the norms postulated by Hepokoski and Darcy (2006). Indeed, scholars have criticized their portrayal of sonata form for marginalizing Haydn’s music (Ludwig 2012, 2014; Miyake 2009). But the techniques Haydn employs in these hybrid movements are consistent with his contemporaneous works. These include strategies for starting the exposition and recapitulation. Additionally, the use of fugal techniques contributes to both monothematic and continuous expositional strategies and to recapitulatory revisions. By integrating fugue into the sonata process, Haydn began to develop sonata-form procedures drawing on fugal techniques. Though some of these strategies fell into disuse, others became hallmarks of Haydn’s sonata style and deserve a more prominent role in our narrative of sonata form.
[3] Ashley Greathouse (College-Conservatory, University of Cincinnati), “Aristocratic Pleasure for the “Middle Sort”: Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Hunt” Symphony (Hob. I:73) at London’s Vauxhall Gardens.”
Pleasure gardens first came to prominence in early eighteenth-century London as venues where visitors from diverse social strata could promenade about the walks, enjoy entertainments, and see and be seen. Writing in 1709, Daniel Defoe distinguishes seven social classes in England, including a group he describes as "the middle sort . . . who live the best, and consume the most . . . and with whom the general wealth of this nation is found." Recognizing the potential to profit from the newfound wealth of the "middle sort," entrepreneurs marketed new leisure activities to them, including trips to London's three chief pleasure gardens: Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and Marylebone. Although garden refreshments were notoriously overpriced, the modest admission charge enabled even those from the poorer classes to attend at least occasionally. At the other end of the social spectrum, the attendance of royal family members enhanced the prestige of the gardens. Music presided over all, facilitating exchanges amongst the classes and providing unprecedented opportunities for social emulation--whereby the "middle sort" could imitate their social superiors, and could themselves be admired and imitated.
Per contemporary newspapers, Haydn was one of the most frequently featured composers in English pleasure garden performances during the second half of the eighteenth century. Although advertisements for instrumental pieces rarely referenced keys, titles, or other identifying characteristics, London's Vauxhall Gardens advertised performances of Haydn's Symphony "La Chasse" ("The Hunt") throughout the 1780s and 1790s. Taking Vauxhall performances of this symphony as its primary case study, this presentation will explore how sonic evocations of the hunt interfaced with the dynamic musical and social atmosphere of the pleasure gardens. While music on the continent functioned primarily as an instrument of the court and aristocracy, music in eighteenth-century England expressed and catered to the values of a broader public. Departing from extensive previous scholarship on the hunt as a musical and cultural topic on the continent, this presentation will consider the hunt's musical and cultural significance in an English context. Ultimately, Vauxhall performances of Haydn's symphony brought the hunt--an activity emblematic of social status--to the ears and minds of diverse audiences.
[4] Rena Roussin (University of Toronto), “Cripping Haydn Studies: The Final Decade and Disabled Narrative in the Late Oratorios.”
Since its inception in 2004, the burgeoning field of music and disability studies has led to numerous insights surrounding the lives, works, and social contexts of numerous composers. Recent paradigm shifting examples include Joseph N. Straus's work on modernism (2018) and Robin Wallace's revisiting of Beethoven's deafness and compositional practice (2018). Scholarship on Joseph Haydn has largely remained absent from this discourse, a surprising omission given that Haydn's rising international fame coincided with his increasing infirmity and physical impairment. While articles by Floyd Grave (2016) and Nancy November (2007) focus, respectively, on disabled narrative in the composer's late string quartets and melancholy in his English songs, scholarship has yet to fully engage with the ways disability characterized Haydn's life and oeuvre, as Sarah Day-O'Connell has noted (2019).
I address this gap in scholarly discourse by contextualizing Haydn's biography and late oratorios through the lens and language of disability studies. By analyzing primary documents, including Haydn's correspondence and Dies's and Griesinger's biographies, I demonstrate how Haydn appears to have mediated both his compositional process and aspects of his public persona through his increasing age and impaired corporeal state. Yet biographical studies from Haydn's lifetime through to the present show an ongoing trend of either overlooking or pathologizing his comments rather than critically evaluating them. This practice suggests the need for scholarship to reassess the role that disability played in his life and late works. In this presentation, I contribute to such a discussion by joining biographical research to a cripped reading of Haydn's late oratorios, noting how the two works' musical
and textual narratology shift from demonstrating a form of inverted narrative prosthesis in _The Creation_ (the premature ending of which 'cures' the Christian concept of original sin) to offering insights into disability gain in the "Winter" section of _The Seasons_. By considering Haydn's late
oratorios - works he knowingly wrote for posterity - alongside the composer's and his contemporaries' comments about his increasing impairment, we might glean stronger insight into how disability impacted Haydn's compositional work, and, in turn, how that compositional work reflects disability.
[5] Jan Miyake (Oberlin College, Conservatory of Music), “Formal Problems as Opportune Inconveniences in Haydn’s Late Piano Trios.”
In the last decade, our discipline has described how Haydn’s music is underserved by current theories of form (Burstein 2016; Duncan 2011; Fillion 2012; Korstvedt 2013; Ludwig 2012; Neuwirth 2011, 2013; Riley 2015). After analyzing final movements of the symphonies, keyboard sonatas, and keyboard trios, a group of trios stood out for the similarity of their formal ambiguities. About half (18) of the final keyboard trio movements are described best as a type of sonata form and the other half (18) by either an ABACA or ABA form. Two of this latter group, however, also display striking aspects of sonata form, and the construction of the lone sonata rondo from the former group is atypical enough to make its categorization quite Procrustean. Trios no. 32 (Hob. XV:18), no. 41 (Hob. XV:31), and no. 42 (Hob. XV:30) each offer opportunities to consider how the compositional processes of sonata form pervade Haydn’s music, making a formal designation of these movements somewhat inconvenient. Theorists created the tools that led to this situation, but rather than seeing it as problematic, perhaps works that are inconvenient to categorize provide an opportunity for new ideas. This paper describes how Haydn’s penchant for sonata-form processes impacts these last-movement forms and offers initial thoughts on a new way to organize Haydn’s approach to form.
[6] Katelyn Clark (University of British Columbia), “The Merit of Novelty: Castrato Pachierrotti as Haydn’s Princess Ariadne (London, 1791).”
Joseph Haydn arrived in England on 1 January 1791 and began the first of two London sojourns (1791– 92, 1794–95). Although fame garnered him a flattering entrée to the city, the musical world was quick to critique his skills. Reviews met Haydn with a mix of excitement and disenchantment; critics claimed that he "did not possess the merit of novelty" (_Morning Chronicle_) and that he was "but a poor performer" (_Gazetteer_). The strained reception itself was noted, and a reporter remarked on 13 January–less than two weeks into Haydn's visit–"Haydn, though a stranger and a sojourner, has become the butt of scurrility and detraction, and even his compositions, the object of a dashing _Critic's sport_" (_The World_). Evidently, Haydn was under some pressure to present novel material to maintain acceptance. This demand was met by a triumphant presentation of secular cantata _Arianna a Naxos_ (Hob XXVIb:2, Vienna 1789/90) on 18 February 1791 at the Ladies' Concert, performed by castrato Gaspere Pacchierotti as princess Ariadne, with Haydn himself accompanying at the pianoforte.
Pacchierotti was immensely popular in London, his unusual and delicate voice favoured by numerous members of the musical profession, including Charles and Susan Burney and violinist Giovanni Giornovichi. Pacchierotti's interpretation of Ariadne in Hob XXVIb:2 was highly affective, the cantata so "exquisitely captivating in its larmoyant passages, that it touched and dissolved the audience" (_Whitehall Evening Post_). His dramatic portrayal of the Cretan princess's abandonment on the island of Naxos helped to revitalize Haydn's positive reception in London, and is evidence of the castrato's popularity and
power in small and exclusive concert settings. In this paper, I examine the performance circumstances at the Ladies' Concert series in 1791 and offer a refreshed view of London's musical world through the success of Haydn's _Arianna_. Expanding upon work on the castrato (Feldman 2015; Freitas 2009) and on London concert life (McVeigh 2018; Brewer 2013), I consider the musical place of castrati in late eighteenth-century England, the political implications of opera and musical alliance for Haydn, and the power of social networks to support–or dissolve–a musician's success.