Haydn and Mozart

The so called Classical period lasted from 1750 to 1820. “Classical” implies balance, clarity, intelligence. like  a Greek temple. Don’t let’s confuse it with “Classical Music”, or “It’s a Classic”. It lies very much within the ambience of the Enlightenment which held sway from around 1685-1815, a movement searching for Freedom, Learning, Understanding, Happiness.

The Classical Style developed from the new popular, tuneful Galant Style of the 1720s. Just like the Baroque it was much used in the service of the Church and the Court. But it gradually drew in a more middle class concert audience. They wanted music they could understand, and dance to.  Haydn and Mozart wrote for all 3 audiences: the Church, the Court and (especially Haydn) the Bourgeoisie.

There’s a lot of demanding detail in this period. For a start we must expect a subtly different musical language. Spoken language changes over time (Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility refers to sensitivity not about being sensible), and so equally does musical language.

This music really can’t be treated as if it were Romantic or Modern. Performing it is one of our toughest challenges. Mahler is easier- everything there is specified. In the Classical period there are heaps of rules, but they’re not written in the score. It’s quite a  specialised world,- but we mustn’t  give it over to “academics”; we need to solve it ourselves.

Haydn and Mozart were fortunate to inherit two musical styles,- the Baroque and the new Galant. They enjoyed the melody-led freedom of the Galant,

but could also employ a whole armoury of rules and expectations of the Baroque. Here are some of them:

Pure Tone

Dance

Hierarchy of the bar

Good and bad notes

Rule of Down Bow

(“Noble” and “Vile”)

Slurs implying pairing

Gesture/Phrasing (eg upward cresc/downward dim)

Appoggiature on the beat,  (Half the note value or more)

(Required in Recits)

Acciaccature also on beat

Lazy trills, starting from Appoggs

Orchestra size

Split Violins

“Music must move the hearer”

Remember that all this information I give out Is just my personal collection, gathered form own use in the last 60 years. There are lots of heavy tomes which you can consult nowadays. Particularly useful is the book “Classical and Romantic Performing Practice, by Clive Brown. OUP.

Now let’s look at the Six Ss for the Classical Period

S for SOURCES

There are many sources, but Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule is absolutely primary. Published in the year of Mozart’s birth it shows us exactly how the young genius was taught the fiddle.

Notable are Leopold’s  comments on vibrato (only an occasional decoration), on lively bowing, and on deciding which notes are strong and which weak. We don’t need to know about the details of violin technique, but much else is about music. Do read it.

I was given a copy of the English translation when it came out in the1940s, and assumed it was distinctly out of date and irrelevant. Of course when I got interested in HIP I realised Leopold was pay gold.

S for SIZE

The biggest city opera houses had 8 Firsts and Seconds, 8 Wind, 4 Brass and Timpani. That was a standard “large” orchestra up to, and including, Brahms’ time.

But Haydn in Esterhaza for 30 years had only 3.3.1.1.1 Strings, with 2 Oboes, 2 Horns and a Bassoon. (No Harpsichord when Haydn was playing the violin).

Mozart in Salzburg had 6.6.2.2.3 strings with the same winds as Haydn plus a Flute. You can hear this small size in my most recent Violin Concertos recording with Francesca Dego and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

When Haydn came to London in 1791 he was no doubt delighted to find 8.8.6.4.4 strings, and pairs of winds (now including Clarinets),  2 Horns, 2 Trumpets,Timpani and a Fortepiano. This is what we today call a Chamber Orchestra.

Notice the balance of numbers of Firsts and Bass instruments in all formations. (often including the bassoon). 3-3, 6-6, 8-8.  Lots of bass sound.

And notice also the balance of strings and wind. With a larger string section than 8.8 the conductors (who were usually the composers) generally doubled the winds. At the first performance of Haydn’s Creation there were even triple winds, reduced course to single for arias. Mozart also occasionally employed double strings and double winds in his Vienna concerts. He wrote to his father on one occasion “C’était magnifique”).

A century later when the Vienna Philharmonic moved into the new Musikverein in 1870, they enlarged the strings from 8.8 to 12.12 and immediately doubled the winds.

I’ve successfully used 12.12 and double winds for big Mozart symphonies. You can hear this in the last 4 symphonies in the SWR recordings. In passages marked piano I reduced to single wind and 8.8.6.4.4 strings. It makes a grand effect, and can be a real way forward for large symphony orchestras.

S for SEATING

Universal throughout Europe was Firsts and Seconds sitting opposite each other. In dialogue. This only began to change well into the 20th century. My teacher Adrian Boult always kept to the old way. I used to think he was rather old fashioned,- but of course he was right.

I always had Cellos next to the Firsts. (Like Toscanini); Firsts, Celli, Viole, Seconds. Hns to my left; Tpts and Timps to my right.

One interpretation of Haydn’s London layout  is a “Magic Circle” we developed in Stuttgart. The strings sat in a tight double circle and the wind and brass stood in another circle behind them. (You can see this formation on YouTube in the RSNO Eroica)

S for SOUND

Vibrato had always been known as a natural element in some human voices. the Vox Humana organ stop dates back to before 1600. Vibrato began to be employed as an expressive decoration, implying “passionate utterance”. Leopold Mozart, like other theorists is happy suggest it. But he says if used too much it would sound as if you had an fever. And that was for soloists. In orchestras it was seriously discouraged, along with all other decorations, as upsetting the harmonic unanimity of the group.

Fortunate singers have a natural  thrumming that doesn’t change pitch; the organ Vox Humana stop is the same. Unfortunate singers have to manufacture a vibrato if they want one. And this can so often lead to an embarrassing pitch wobble. The problem with instruments is that they can only do a similar pitch change vibrato, which upsets their natural harmonics, and their neighbours’!

Again, listen to my Mozart Violin Concertos, the orchestra using Pure Tone while the soloist uses occasional expressive vibrato only where suitable. I find that both attractive  and natural.

S for SPEED

By 1750 the Italian words (Andante, Allegro etc) are beginning to indicate speeds for the first time. (rather than simply adjustments of Tempi Ordinarii, or implying Character as in the Baroque).    

A catchphrase for me is: “There are no slow movements in Haydn and Mozart”. Presto means fast, but the word Lento (Slow) is never used by them.

Here are the speeds most used by Haydn and Mozart:

PRESTO (Fast)

ALLEGRO (Cheerful). It’s perhaps not very fast, considering the many words which can be attached: Molto, Assai (very, not rather), Con Brio, etc.

ALLEGRETTO (Somewhat cheerful).

ANDANTE (Going along). Some sources say it lies half way between fast and slow. Others that it “kisses the borders of Allegro”. It is NOT slow. Piu Andante in Mozart means faster, not slower.

ADAGIO (Easy} It’s the slowest tempo the two composers normally used; but it does not mean slow.

Here are some very rough metronome suggestions, drawn from a number of different sources and experiences:

ADAGIO: around 40-50 (per beat)

ANDANTE: around 60-70

ALLEGRETTO: around 90

ALLEGRO: around 110

PRESTO: around 70 (per bar)

MINUETS:

Menuetto c.92

Menuetto Allegretto c.124

Menuetto allegro c.162

(See my article on Minuets)

Very important:

ALLA BREVE twice, (or nearly) as fast.

HOW DO WE KNOW THE SPEEDS?

Of course we are sometimes guessing, BUT:

1. Minuets were dances known to all, and now to us. Though it has to be said that the dance slowed down during the 18th century, so care is needed.

2. Finales were often Contredances.

3. Dances and Marches were metronomised by dancing masters in the 17th and 18th centuries, using pendulums.

4. We can use the links between tempi in Symphonies, and

especially in opera.

Examples;

Susanna emerging from the cupboard in Act 2 Finale of Le Nozze di Figaro.

Mozart 39 opening

Posthorn first movement.

5. Hummel and Czerny metronomised all late Haydn and Mozart Symphs. 20 years late and hopeless for Minuets, but very relevant otherwise.

BEATING TME

C: Beat in 4, but often simplify to 2

Alla Breve: Double speed, but sometimes show 1

Important:

In 3/8, 6/8, 12/8, always beat 1, 2, 4,- the dotted quarter, never the eighth.

The eighth note was not a unit of measure. Leopold says “It would be laughable if the Director were in 6/8 to show the 8th notes with his finger”

6/8 was a tempo much loved by Mozart.

NB Of course my suggested speed for Andante does not hold for these compound tempi. An Andante 3/8 at 70 would in effect be an Allegretto. Here read the half note inside these compounds; that’s the 70. And in fact it is the speed of the hemiola: ME-RI-CA!

Presto Always beat in 1

Minuets Mostly beat in 1  (Dancing Masters were trained to show this with their arms, violin in one hand, bow in the other.

Fermatas imply:

1. Pause
2. Diminuendo (Leopold “ We generally diminuendo at fermatas”). You may come to notice how often the fermata is followed by a piano.
3. No link to the next tempo.

S for STYLE

Almost all these details were inherited from the Baroque as I listed at the start of this section.

1. Learned and Light styles

Church and Court. Aristocratic and Bourgeois

2. Hierarchy within the bar. (STRONG, WEAK, WEAK ETC)

Off-beat stresses add piquancy.

3. Phraseing (We surely mean Gesture) is essential, to make music Dance, Speak, and Move people. At the smallest level the idea that a slur implies diminuendo is a start. Then the Hierarchy of the bar, I just mentioned, already makes a small phrase. Then it’s up to us to reveal the key structure with Harmonic Phrasing. Always look for where the music is heading. Crescendo to the strong point and fade after it.

Other standard formulae are:

1. An upwards movement can imply crescendo, and downwards diminuendo.

2. A repeated figure calls for either crescendo, or diminuendo.

3. Long notes can imply a crescendo.

(Because of my insistence on this my Stuttgart orchestra gave me a  T-shirt with < > on the front and > < on the back)

4. “Good” and “Bad” notes

Leopold “A good musician knows when to play strong or weak within a bar”.

This universal throughout Europe: Gute/Schlecht; Bon/Mauvais; Buoni/Mali.

5. Rule of down Bow

(eg Down, Up, Up: or Down, Down, Up as in the Baroque)

6. Dotted figures often used separate bows as in the Baroque. Down/Up/Down, not slurred in.

7. “Noble” and “Vile” Bowings

8. Note lengths:

Plain,   Strokes,   Portato

VERY IMPORTANT:

When the Neue Mozart Ausgabe was being published the editors didn’t yet understand that all the dots in Mozart are simply a shorthand for vertical strokes. They desperately tried to decide which was which. No point; there is no difference. It is how you play the strokes that is the question. Leopold called them “strongly accented strokes” Something about bow speed? Probably short?

But non-staccato must be smooth, on the string. And portato super smooth.

9. Slurs mean Diminuendo

In pairs the second note “softer and a little shorter”

10. DECORATION

Appoggiature “(Leaning”) always ON the beat

they can be quite long: “Half the value or more”

(Stronger than when merely written out.)

Acciaccature (“Crushing”) also ON beat

Short: Often shortens the main note too.

Gruppetti: On, or before beat.

Trills

Begin on long upper (or lower) note

Lazy, not industrial.

11. Opera and Oratorio

(especially in Recits)

Appoggs essential in falling and rising 3rds and 4ths

Simply Grammar. Wrong if not used.

As I explained in the Baroque talk, composers did not write the appoggiaturas as real notes, because the continuo would then harmonise the, thus cancelling the discord that the decoration calls for.

TIPS

“HIP is really all about Some notes being more important than others” 

Make the music dance

When phrasing think of the Harmonic Rhythm,

the propulsion of key.

Constantly look for local high and low points

Continuous rise and fall

Waves not lines

Decide where you are going.

Two possibilities:

1. Mark all the parts in advance.
2. Dictate at rehearsal. I remember spending twenty minutes just dictating he first movement dynamics of a Mozart symphony. When they played it back it was immediately perfect!

Natural crescendo possibilities are:

Repeated figures

Long notes

Rising pitch

SUM UP

All this detail aims to make the music sound more elegant, but also actually more NATURAL.

But it’s quite a challenge isn’t it?

RN

March 2024