Johann Baptist Vanhal, Early Innovator of the Classical Style Johann Baptist Vanhal has emerged as one the most significant innovators in the development of what we now call the Classical or Viennese style. The most well-known exponents of the style today are, of course, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, but Vanhal deserves a place beside these masters as an original creator, especially in the early part of his career. Born into servitude in Nechanice in 1739, his gifts as a musician were recognized and developed from childhood. After achieving proficiency on the organ and violin, in 1760–61 he relocated to Vienna, and quickly enjoyed enough success in the city’s aristocratic circles as a teacher and performer to purchase his freedom from bondage. He also began a lengthy and lucrative relationship with the publishing house Huberty in Paris, which published his six Simphonies Quatuors, op. 1 in 1769. The Baron I. W. Riesch of Dresden undertook to continue Vanhal’s education by funding a tour of Italy from 1769–71. Although it was understood that he would become Riesch’s Kapellmeister at the end of the tour, Vanhal never took up that or any other court position, remaining instead in Vienna, developing a relationship with the patron Count Ladislaus Erdödy and building upon his success as a teacher and published composer. His tour of Italy was significant in a number of ways: it was there that he composed the pieces presented on this disc; he became acquainted with many composers, including his countrymen Christoph Wilibald Gluck and Florian Gassmann (with whom he returned to Vienna); he composed his only two operas (now lost); and he adopted and refined elements of the Italian style, which was the rage of the time. Gone were the periods of intricate counterpoint and involved harmonic schemes that marked his earliest works. He replaced those with lighter, infectiously inventive tunes and cleaner musical textures, all of which fit into an emerging harmonic language that embraced simpler, stronger and more clearly identifiable key relationships that are a hallmark of the Viennese style. All of the first and third movements of the pieces presented here are gems of the newly emerging sonata form (although that term was first used at least fifty years after the composition of these works). Vanhal’s success rested upon his considerable gifts as a composer and his willingness to adapt his skills to the current tastes. He also had the crucial good fortune to have developed relationships with several publishers (Huberty through the 1770s, and later various others in Berlin, Amsterdam, Leipzig and London) and the foresight to exploit those opportunities. Music publishing in Vienna really only begins in 1778; most of the transfer of written music until then was in the form handwritten manuscripts. In the decade from 1771–81 Vanhal was certainly the most widely published Viennese composer, far outstripping the elder Joseph Haydn or the young Mozart. In an obituary that appeared in the January 1814 edition of the Leipzig Allgemeine musicalishce Zeitung, Johann Friedrich Rochlitz wrote, “Wanhall was for a time, and especially until the works of J. Haydn and Mozart became more widely known and made deeper inroads, one of the most popular, indeed one of the most renowned instrumental composers in Germany. His sonatas, duets, trios, concertos and particularly his quartets and symphonies were heard everywhere…” In summation, Vanhal’s role as an innovator is considerable. He was the first composer to make a living free of a court or municipal position, a distinction often accorded Mozart. Over his lifetime, he was second only to Haydn in the number of string quartets and symphonies to his credit. He contributed materially, early in his career, to the development of the Viennese style. And, perhaps most importantly, the fact that his works enjoyed such wide dissemination helped propel the Viennese style from a local phenomenon to the international musical language that it had become by the time of his death in 1813. Three notes on the performance: • Our primary source is the set of parts published by Huberty in 1771, after Vanhal’s return from Italy. We also consulted two different sets of manuscript parts, one currently in the collection of UCLA and the other in the Czech Museum collection. Vanhal’s surname appears in several spellings, including Wanhall, Wanhal, Wańhal and Vanhall. • Today’s standard string quartet consists of 2 violins, viola and violoncello, which applies to the printed music and the institutions that we call string quartets. Many early quartet parts (including Haydn’s early works), whether published or in manuscript, call for violino primo, violino secondo, viola (or alto viola/tenor/tenor viola) and basso (or basse/bassetl or rarely violoncello). Today’s standard was largely in place by the mid-1780s. That said, there were no formed institutions with consistent performers called “string quartets” for many years to come — the music was intended as a private entertainment. Which poses the question: what instruments did the composer intend us to use? There rages a scholarly debate about whether the earliest pieces in this genre ought to be performed with the violone instead of the more familiar (to us) ‘cello on the lowest line. Arguing against that, there are at least a dozen places in the basso part of the present pieces that fall below the standard range of the violone, but fit the ‘cello perfectly. Yet, it was the standard practice of the day for violone players to transpose up an octave notes that were too low. We have approached this issue with the sage advice of the musicologist John Irving, who is very fond of the notion of the “contingent nature of performance in the Classical period.” If, like the Eybler Quartet, what you had to hand was a ‘cello rather than a violone, we can suppose that wouldn’t prevent a company of players from enjoying these works. • This is perhaps the cheeriest, happiest CD we will ever make (or that you might ever hear). There are no quartets in minor keys. In fact, there are no movements that do anything more than briefly visit that darker side. And yet, there is huge variety in expression. In our rehearsal and recording process, we quickly exhausted the words “charming”, “delightful” and “sweet”, reaching for “sunny”, “bright”, “friendly” and in one case, a made-up word “nostohedon” or nostalgia with pleasure in place of pain. We found moments of wistfulness, yearning and intensity. We also drew upon any number of characterizations, such as “kid’s party,” “slightly tipsy Maggie Smith sipping a Mimosa,” “gormless Prince Charming,” and my personal favourite for one of the Presto last movements, “ocelots on the loose!” www.eyblerquartet.com