The DSQ Gazette
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The DSQ Gazette Issue 2 The Official Publication of the Diderot String Quartet February 5, 2015 SPECIAL ISSUE: THE RAZOR Haydn’s Pursuit of the Perfect Shave The Razor: A Timeline Barter at the Barber’s: Manuscript for a Clean Shave ca. 18,000 BC first razor-like objects ESTERHAZA, 1789 – “I will give my made from bronze and obsidian best string quartet for a good razor!” It ca. 3,000 BC razors made from copper was on an especially hectic morning when 4th century BC Alexander the Great celebrity composer Franz Joseph Haydn instructs his soldiers to shave in order to yelled out these words, frustrated at how avoid beard-grabbing in combat long it was taking to shave. As luck may have it, publisher John Bland was visiting 1732 Haydn born from England, heard the plea – or was it 1764 Some of Haydn's symphonies and really an offer? – and hurried back to his very first string quartets published inn to procure some of the finest English in Paris razors Franz Joseph had ever expe- rienced. Haydn indeed kept his promise, 1766 Haydn appointed Kapellmeister at and thus an autograph copy of Opus 55/ Esterháza No. 2 came into the hands of the lucky 1776 Jadin and United States of America publisher. born (Haydn is 44) While none of our correspondents 1785 Jadin's first work published at the DSQ Gazette were able to verify 1786 Haydn's "Paris" symphonies first this potentially apocryphal tale, the performed in Paris, with wild nickname for the quartet has stuck: The six quartets, known today also as the first success Razor. What we do know is that in 1788, a previous manuscript of The Razor, along set of “Tost” quartets, were enthusiasti- 1788 Haydn writes Op. 55 quartets with the other two quartets of Opus 55, cally received in Paris. 1789 Jadin makes his piano concerto and the three quartets of Opus 54, Haydn's music had been making quite a debut in Paris at age 13 traveled to Paris – something that Haydn splash in Paris for decades. Starting 1790 Haydn travels to London himself never managed to do in his around 1764, many of his symphonies 1795/6 Jadin writes Op. 1 & 2 quartets lifetime. It was Johann Tost, violinist in and string quartets were published there, 1800 Jadin dies at age 24 (Haydn is 68) the Esterházy orchestra for five years primarily as bootlegs that failed to earn (1783-1788), who picked up and left for Haydn cash and violated the composer's 1809 Haydn dies at age 77 after attack France with these six quartets in his distribution-prohibiting contract at the by French army on Vienna luggage, along with the publishing rights Esterházy court. 1928 Electric razor is born (Haydn is 196) he had secured from Haydn himself. The Continued on Reverse. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Left: A Good Shave Among !Friends. From: Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Paris, 1771), under the heading "Perruquier, barbier, baigneur- étuviste” (“Wig- maker, barber, bath-keeper”). Haydn in France: Hyacinthe Jadin (1776-1800) String Quartet ‘Skillful Harmonist and Elegant Composer’ Op. 55/2, “Razor” continued from front page dedicated Opus 1 String Quartets to Haydn Nonetheless, Haydn's music was VERSAILLES, 1800 – While Papa music that he must have heard some of making a mark on the French metropolis. Haydn hardly requires any introduction, those Haydn symphonies and quartets that On January 1, 1779, Haydn signed a new the lesser-told tale is that of Hyacinthe had surreptitiously made their way to Paris contract that granted him the freedom to Jadin, the composer of the first and final during Jadin’s teenage years. Jadin pieces on tonight’s program. publish his music abroad. Wasting no dedicated his Opus 1, a set of three string time, Haydn began to send music to Jadin was born in 1776, the son of quartets, of which you will hear the first, to French publishers in 1782, starting with a bassoonist in the royal orchestra at Haydn on the cover page. At times, the some of his symphonies. The Parisians Versailles. Hyacinthe studied piano with music sounds like some of those famous were thirsty for the celebrity composer's Nicolas Hüllmandel, a student of C.P.E. Haydn-quartets we know, perhaps slightly sweet musical nectar, and Haydn Bach. As the French Revolution unfolded, more youthful and romantic. Hüllmandel was among the many musi- delivered. The composer soon received a From the final piece on the pro- cians who feared for their lives and fled high-profile commission, at a toothsome gram, Opus 2/No.1, it is quite apparent France. Seemingly unperturbed, the 13- fee, for six symphonies to be performed in that Jadin must have gotten his hands on year old Jadin debuted at the Concert Paris. These "Paris Symphonies", which some quartets by another Viennese com- Spirituel in Paris in 1789, performing some went live at the beginning of 1786, were poser, too: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. of his own compositions. Little more is chart-topping wonders. The opening Largo is too hauntingly known about his life: In 1795, Jadin It is no wonder, then, that Haydn’s reminiscent of the opening of Mozart’s became the instructor of the ladies’ piano Opus 54 and 55 string quartets were ‘Dissonance’ quartet, KV 465, for it to be class at the Conservatoire. He was immediately in high demand as the coincidence: the cello begins ominously personally relieved of his military duties by newest and most exciting music in town. pulsating while the top three voices weave Napoleon Bonaparte due to severe illness, Haydn had started composing them in in and out of the harmonically unsettling while overdue salary payments from the 1787, immediately following completion texture. Conservatoire left him increasingly of the Opus 50 “Prussian” quartets, and impoverished. Jadin died at age 24 of Hyacinthe Jadin’s last known public had finished them just as Tost was packing tuberculosis. For such a short life, he left appearance was on June 3, 1800 at his bags for France. Just a few years later behind a significant and forward-looking Versailles, where he played one of his own in 1790, Haydn would formally dedicate oeuvre. If Jadin had “lived to artistic piano concertos. An obituary signed M.L. another set of six string quartets, Opus 64, maturity,” Richard Fuller speculates, “his appeared in the Courrier des spectacles of to Tost as a gesture of gratitude for finding piano music would perhaps have 11 October 1800, describing him as ‘a him (lucrative) publishers abroad. approached that of Mozart or Beethoven in skillful harmonist and elegant composer, a However bizarre the circumstances scope and content.” good son and an excellent friend […] leading to the naming and publishing of mourned for both his moral qualities and There is no doubt that Jadin was The Razor may have been, the work lives his rare talents’. influenced in his string quartet writing – up to – no: defies – all expectations: it is like many generations of composers to With his respects paid to Papa Haydn, in cutting-edge and unusual. come – by Haydn, who markedly predated his words and music, Jadin took the The formal scheme is completely and outlived him, working comfortably at quartet genre into his own personal and unexpected. The opening movement is the court of Esterházy. While Jadin most charming directions. If only he had had not in sonata-form, but rather presents us likely never met Haydn, it is apparent in his much more time to do so! with an elaborate set of double variations, alternating between impassioned F minor and glorious F major. The idea is simple, the effect striking, as we continue to hear Thank You the back and forth between major and for Coming to minor, not certain of the formal structure until the end, if ever. The second Tonight’s Concert! movement sounds like what we may have expected at the opening, an energetic fast Please consider joining us for movement in which a single theme keeps these upcoming events with the reappearing in surprising keys. The Minuet – in major – introduces charming Diderot String Quartet: duets, first between viola and violin, then ! cello and violin, before Haydn brilliantly April 1 at Spectrum (121 Ludlow St) combines the concepts of polyphony and J.S. Bach: Art of the Fugue dance movement. The Presto finale, too, ! defies expectation, when unexpectedly it April 8 | 7:30 pm at Holy Trinity turns from a Rondo into another sonata- Bach & Mendelssohn allegro-form, all amidst “a riotous flurry of counterpoint and chromatics.” ! ! May 7 | 7:30 pm at Holy Trinity DSQ Representatives secured the Haydn & His Students “I would give my best performance rights for tonight’s concert ! from the composer during a recent visit to symphony for a dollop of June 12-13 Esterháza. good shaving cream!” Two Appearances on the BEMF Fringe Series in Boston – stay tuned!.