Fasch, Haydn, Kohaut, Hagen: Lute Concertos - Hopkinson Smith

After Italy in the sixteenth century, then France, where it became an emblematical instrument in the seventeenth century, the lute adopted the German-speaking countries as its new chosen land. There, poised at a crossroads with access to all the various musical cultures, it could not remain insensitive for long to the charms that were about to carry it far away from the elliptical style it had inherited from the French masters of the lute. Everywhere, from Vienna to Dresden and from Prague to Berlin, the craze for Italian opera was so great that the lutenists themselves went out of their way to render on their instrument the bel canto of the castrato Francesco Pistocchi or of the mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni. The choreographic miniatures of the 'suites' were gradually combined with sonata movements of unusual wealth and proportion. Finally, despite its relative lack of volume, the lute expressed its firm intention of standing on an equal footing with the other instruments when it came to 'intimate conversations' and even to the often bold 'sparring matches' that were to be found in concerted works. Vienna is generally thought of as being the initiator in that field through the publications of Hinterlethner (1699) and Radolt (1701); but those very first Lauten-Concerte were in fact little more than lute pieces with the high parts doubled by the violin and the low parts by the double bass. That increasingly popular instrumental formula nevertheless revealed new sound prospects and played an important part in giving the lute a harmonic mobility that is hardly a natural attribue of the instrument's genius. From 1720 onwards, lutenists demonstrated their familiarity with true concertante style, unhesitatingly appropriating, if need be, a repertoire that was alien to them and the performance of which seems to us problematical to say the least.

The pieces presented on this recording are taken from a very captivating, yet little-known period in the history of the instrument. Each work (which was either originally written for, or could well have been written for, the lute) is representative of the spirit that animated the lute until the dawn of Viennese classicism in the countries that were its final refuge.

The earliest of our composers, the Saxon Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) suffered for a long time from what he considered to be an imperfect musical education. Solitary, modest to the point of self-effacement, he was nevertheless regarded by his peers as one of the most original and most profound composers of his time. His many peregrinations took him in 1727 to the court in Dresden, for the famous orchestra of which he composed several works. It was probably through his acquaintance with Sylvius Leopold Weiss, who was at that time the jewel of Augustus the Strong's Kapelle, that the idea for this piece was born. No doubt in a hurry, Fasch chose to take up and freely reshape one of his oboe concertos, whose key of D minor was ideally suited to the new solo instrument. The autograph score, full of deletions, additions and alterations, shows that the composition was a matter of urgency; we also see his hesitations (the instrument was somewhat unfamiliar to him) and are enabled to follow, almost step by step, the various stages in the transmutation.

Based on the pattern of the Venetian concerto in three successive movements, fast-slow-fast, with its pounding themes, its ritornelli and its numerous virtuoso passages, the work is teeming with melodic and rhythmic strokes of inspiration. The lute – the lute part is written entirely in ordinary notation, rather than in tablature – acts in turn as soloist and as an accompanist. When it is not providing the bass in the tutti, it expresses itself as a purely melodic instrument by means of voluble figures somewhat reminiscent of those entrusted to the same instrument by Vivaldi. As a man skilled in courtly matters as well as an ingenious composer, Fasch gives the final minuet the appearance of a noble polonoise, obviously out of deference to Augustus the Strong, who ruled at that time over the 'Florence of the Elbe' and over neighbouring Poland.

The biography of the lutenist Bernhard Joachim Hagen (c. 1720-1787) is regrettably deficient. Presumably born in Hamburg, Hagen went to Bayreuth in his teens to study with the Kapellmeister there, Johann Pfeiffer. He spent more than thirty years as a violinist with the orchestra of the small Bavarian residence which had been raised to an exceptional standard of artistic cultivation by Wilhelmine, the wife of Margrave Friedrich. Although she was a fine composer and, on occasion, a very good lute player, the Margravine appears to have preferred the rather conventional works of the 'virtuosissimo' Adam Falckenhagen, her official lutenist, to the talents of the young Bernhard Joachim Hagen. Unlike the former, Hagen did not have the honour of having either his facial features or the fruits of his art immortalised by the engraver J. W. Stör. The manuscripts of twenty or so works for the lute (sonatas for solo lute, duos, trios and concertos) have come down to us, all of which have been sadly neglected by lutenists of the present day, and all of which are obviously the inspired work of a virtuoso, with a truly melodic vein, a sense of fullness of sound, original turns of phrase and a taste for changes of mood.

Hagen's Concerto a 5, dated 20 January 1759, is contemporaneous with the early symphonies and quartets of Haydn. As we listen to it, we can measure the headway that had been made since the genre came into being at the beginning of the century, particularly in the four-part discourse around the lute itself. That newly acquired independence, but also the irresistible vigour of the 'Slavonic-style' syncopations, the undulating play of the triplets, the artistically ornate reprises, and the original cadenzas which stimulate the verve of the performer, are among the charms of this miniature 'grand concerto'.

Carl Kohaut (1726-1784), who was born in Vienna, inherited from his father the rich tradition of the Bohemian lutenists who gathered around the tutelary figure of the famous Count Losy. His position as secretary of the imperial chancery brought him into contact with the music-loving aristocracy of Vienna and, in particular, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Prefect of the Imperial Library, who played a prominent role in the history of music. Under the latter's protection, Kohaut was able to study at leisure the original scores of Bach and Händel, both of whom the baron worshipped – an admiration he later shared with Mozart. Kohaut accompanied Chancellor Wenzel Anton, Count of Kaunitz, to France for the wedding of the Dauphin to Marie-Antoinette in 1764; there he was remembered as a 'sublime man when he plays the lute' (Grimm).

Kohaut's output contained many other works other than compositions for the lute, whose demise must have been well and truly on the way, judging by the number of symphonies, cantatas and chamber trios he wrote. Kohaut's present fame, however, rests entirely on the music he composed for the lute. His Divertimento Primo (1761), the only work that was published during his lifetime, appeared in the Breitkopf & Härtel catalogue until 1903 but does not seem to have aroused any interest other than archaeological. He wrote dozens of lute concertos and the one we hear now, composed in about 1760, is very representative of his elegant style and of the spirit of divertimento that propelled his contemporaries in Vienna. The opening allegro has certain turns of phrase in common with the previous work; these may seem commonplace in music of that time, but in this more attractive context they are never trivial. The discreet melancholy of the adagio in D minor (the reprises are ornamented by Hopkinson Smith) is soon dispelled by the Tempo di Minuetto, which brings this lively rather than virtuosic divertimento to a racy end.

There is always a great temptation to associate the name of an illustrious composer with the instrument one cherishes. That is the case with Haydn, whose 'lute works', like those of Bach, give rise to discussion that are often sectarian. Shall we ever know what dealings he had with the instrument? The picture painted (probably from memory) by John Francis Rigaud in about 1795, which is supposed to show him playing the lute, while Mozart [sic] composes at his table, has long since lost all credit. But what of the half dozen works including the lute that now aspire to legitimate recognition? As Karl Scheit pointed out not long ago, four of them are in fact arrangements which probably came into being in the entourage of the already mentioned Baron van Swieten, 'at whose residence the violinist Starzer and the lutenist Kohaut would often come together to play music by Haydn'. The Cassation in C was one of the set of ten string quartets composed in about 1757-1759 for Baron von Fürnberg – works which, indiscriminately entitled cassationes, divertimenti or notturni, immediately established the young musician's reputation. The author of this arrangement completely reshuffled the parts of the sixth string quartet of Opus 1, in the same key, and amputated the second minuet and trio. Some of the violin parts and the cello part are taken, an octave lower, by the liuto obbligato, while the violin takes the melodic episodes from the original score that are inaccessible to the lute. The omission of the viola part judiciously lightens the sound framework as a whole and makes up for the downward transposition for the lute. The resulting brightness of sound is admirably in keeping with the natural, cheerful character of this short serenade and gives it a delicate, nocturnal colouring in the adagio (violin con sordino over pizzicati), which is one of the most beautiful movements Haydn wrote during those early years.

Claude Chauvel

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758)
Concerto en ré mineur pour luth, 2 violons, alto et b. c.
1 Allegro moderato
2 Andante (Cadence de H. Smith)
3. Un poco allegro

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Cassation en ut Majeur pour luth obligé, violon et violoncelle (Hob. III:6)
4 Presto
5 Minuetto - Trio
6 Adagio
7 Finale. Presto

Carl Kohaut (1726-1784)
Concerto en fa Majeur pour luth, 2 violons et violoncelle
8 Allegro
9 Adagio
10 Tempo di minuetto

Bernhard Joachim Hagen (c. 1720-1787)
Concerto en la Majeur pour luth, 2 violons, alto et violoncelle (Cadences B. J. Hagen / H. Smith)
11 Allegro moderato
12 Largo
13 Allegro

Hopkinson Smith luth baroque 13 choeurs (Joël Van Lennep, Boston 1980)

Chiara Bianchi violon I (Nicola Amati, Cremona 1674)

David Plantier violon II (Anonyme tyrolien vers 1750)

David Courvoisier alto (Andrew Fairfax, Newark 1979)

Roel Dieltiens violoncelle piccolo (Anonyme français +-1770)

Le programme de cet enregistrement a été donné le 10 mai 1998 à la cité de la musique.
Enregistrement réalisé dans la salle de Châtonneyre (Suisse) du 18 au 21 avril 1998




Check my previous posts of lute / baroque guitar performed by Hopkinson Smith:
• Sylvius Leopold Weiss, Partitas pour luth
• John Dowland, A Dream
• Francisco Guerau, Poema harmónico
• Alonso Mudarra, Tres libros de musica
• François Dufaut, Manuscrits
• Albert de Rippe, Tabulature de Leut
• Kapsperger, Libro primo d’intavolatura di lauto
• Gaspar Sanz, Instrucción de música sobre la guitarra española
• Bach, Suites BWV 1010 & 1012 pour luth baroque
• Sylvius Leopold Weiss, Pièces de luth
• Robert de Visée, théorbe
• Charles Mouton
• Bach, Lute Works
• Ennemond Gaultier ("Le Vieux Gaultier")
• Jacques Gallot ("Le Vieux Gallot de Paris")