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Double Bass Haydn Concerto Exposition

S

sibass89

Jan 29, 2006
355
0
37
Cincinnati, OH
#1
Well, I thought it would be good to start this thread up because I had mentioned it in another thread and it sparked some interest.

I contacted one of my teachers who is an Early Music specialist and he told me that they have the "Tutti" exposition of a concerto written by Franz Joseph Haydn. This is terrible that it is all that they have but at the same time it is great because if anybody ever finds the concerto we will know what it is because we have the exposition.

I'm currently looking for help to do some more research on this. Anybody with knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Here is some documentation I have found but I do not speak or read German:

Josef Focht: Der Wiener Kontrabass

Adolf Meier: Schriften Fuer Musik Band :: Kontrabassmusik in der Wiener Klassik

I hope this sparks some interest out there,
Nick
 
#2
thats interesting. i'd heard about the lost concerto and knew that some of it was still out there but i wasnt sure exactly what had been lost.

are they sure that it was lost? i mean, could the rest of it never have been written?

is just the bass part available? do they have the orchestrations also?

it'd be interesting if someone recorded what is available.
 
#4
Jake, music gets lost and rediscovered all the time. The Haydn C Major cello concerto wasn't discovered until the 1980's. There's a fantastic Vaughan-Williams piece for Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Piano that was discovered just two years ago (saw it performed last night with Ali Yazdanfar -- it's really beautiful).

My understanding of the Haydn bass concerto is that they know it existed because someone has an original copy of a catalogue of Haydn's works which include's the first two measures of each piece in piano reduction. In this catalogue there is a "Kontrabass Konzert" in D major. The piano reduction is essentially a descending D major scale. (I have absolutely no source for this information)

I'd speculate that it's either tucked away in someone's private library, or has long since been destroyed by weather, war, or time.
 
#7
Well the concerto is definately not dedicated to Bottesini as they are quite an amount of years apart. Plus the concerto was definately written for viennese violine, which is in a different tuning and the violine was pretty much gone by the time of Bottesini. I'm just curious if anybody has more information of this concerto because the only books I've been able to find are in German.

Thanks,
Nick
 
#9
sibass89 said:
Well the concerto is definately not dedicated to Bottesini as they are quite an amount of years apart. Plus the concerto was definately written for viennese violine, which is in a different tuning and the violine was pretty much gone by the time of Bottesini. I'm just curious if anybody has more information of this concerto because the only books I've been able to find are in German.

Thanks,
Nick
Click to expand...


My mistake maybe, but I was talking about the HECTOR BERLIOZ CONCERTO
 
#10
Beto said:
I read somewere that he wrote a concerto that it was dedicated (or something like that) to Bottesini.


And of course, it's lost!!!!:spit:
Click to expand...

I've read that Berlioz wrote a new movement to his piece Harold In Italy for Bottesini which was discarded. I don't know if this is true or not.
 
#13
Is the second measure suppose to be incomplete? there seems to be a missing dotted 16th rest worth of potential notes. Or is the dotted 16th in that measure suppose to be a dotted 8th, as in the measure before?

EDIT: in case anybody didn't know, I'm referencing the link to the PDF in post #11 by kontrabass. Maybe it's obvious, I don't know, I'm really really tired, hahaha.
 
#17
"It's missing. The only clue to its existance is the theme written in a catalog of Haydn's works. There was an article in either Double Bassist or ISB Journal a few years ago about a guy that was trying to find it and needed money.

I can't remember who, either Stohl or Trump at an ISB convention, publicised he had found the concert and was going to play it, but then played a concerto by Spohr and said he had just wanted people to show up for the
performance.

It was written for Haydn's bassist, Pichelsberger (sp?). It was probably for a 5-string bass with 3rd/4th tuning (Viennese Tuning)".
 
#18
"the autograph of the Haydn Concerto Hob.VIIc 1 was probably lost when Haydn's house in Eisenstadt burnt down in 1768 and 1776. The concerto was written for Johann Georg Schwenda, the double bassist at Eszterhazy orchestra from 1761-[min. 1765]. There is a sign of Haydn's copy-maker
(Hofkopist) Anton Adolph about his work from May to August 1763: "Deto ein Neües Concort vorn Schwenda auf den Violon." (= also a new concerto for Schwenda on the violon). It's possible, that there existed some copies of the work.
A copy was supposed in the estate of Johann Matthias
Sperger. There was an feature in "Double Bassist" about a man looking for it. But Sperger's estate kept in Schwerin (Germany) is well researched by Klaus Trumpf and it is not known, that Trumpf found the Haydn Concerto.
A second copy was probably owned by hungarian double
bassist Joseph Kaempfer, who played a Haydn concerto in Hamburg in 1780.
Kaempfer died around 1797 probably in Sweden, but his estate is not known.
 

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