Early Documents and Their Dissemination

The earliest substantive statement¹ concerning Haydn and Bach appeared in the October 1784 issue of the European Magazine and London Review, an influential publication among intellectual circles in England and on the Continent. This issue contained a biographical “Account” as well as a review of the Keyboard Sonatas Hob. XVI:21-32. The statements concerning Haydn and Bach included a reference to a feud between the two, which was subsequently denied by Bach in a letter published by a Hamburg newspaper. Although the reliability of the author (or authors) can therefore be questioned, the sketch and the review provide the earliest and most specific reference to a stylistic relationship:

With these advantages, it is no wonder if we now behold Haydn outstrip all his competitors. And as envy never fails to pursue merit, the masters in Germany were so jealous of his rising fame, that they entered into a combination against him in order to decry his works and ridicule his compositions; nay, they even carried it so far as to write against him; and many pamphlets in the German language appeared in print to depreciate him in the public esteem, alledging his works were too flighty, trifling, and wild, accusing him at the same time as the inventor of a new musical doctrine, and introducing a species of sounds totally unknown in that country. . . .

Amongst the number of professors who wrote against our rising author was Philip-Emanuel Bach of Hamburgh (formerly of Berlin); and the only notice Haydn took of their scurrility and abuse was, to publish lessons written in imitation of the several stiles of his enemies, in which their peculiarities were so closely copied, and their extraneous passages (particularly those of Bach of Hamburgh) so inimitably burlesqued, that they all felt the poignancy of his musical wit, confessed its truth, and were silent.

This anecdote will account for a number of strange passages that are here and there dispersed throughout several of the sonatas that have been reprinted in England from the German copies, of which we shall point out the few following passages by way of illustration. Among others, Six Sonatas for the Piano-Forte or Harpsichord, Opera 13 and 14, are expressly composed in order to ridicule Bach of Hamburgh. No one can peruse the second part of the second sonata in the thirteenth opera, and the whole of the third sonata in the same work, and believe Haydn in earnest, writing from his own natural genius, and committing his chaste and original thoughts upon paper. On the contrary, the stile of Bach is closely copied, without the passages being stolen, in which his capricious manner, odd breaks, whimsical modulations, and very often childish manner, mixed with an affectation of profound science, are finely hit off and burlesqued.²

The review, which is given in Essay II, specifically refers to the canonic minuet in Haydn’s Sonata Hob. XVI:25 as an imitation of Bach. While minuets in canon represent an important Viennese tradition, in Bach’s sonatas they are rarities, and canonic minuets are nonexistent.³

Although the origins of this account are unknown, its importance is not so much in its content as in the tradition it fostered. In the following year this essay was translated into German by Carl Friedrich Cramer and published in his Magazin der Musik for April 7. Cramer, a connoisseur of Haydn’s music, characterized the passages on C. P. E. Bach as “vile attacks . . . against one of the foremost German artists” and continued:

How ashamed Haydn must feel at heart to be extolled by a panegyrist at the expense of a man whose studies he, I know for certain, himself willingly thanks for a great part of his excellence, and who values him in return without envy or spite. . . . It need not be pointed out to us Germans that the historical reports of Bach’s hostility toward Haydn etc. are merely trumped-up tales, and that, with the exception of the passages which are meant to praise Haydn (yet how vague, how wishy-washy!), the entire essay is fiction.⁴

TABLE VII-1

This essay of false information, as Cramer termed it, probably only gained further attention through his publication. As can be seen in Table VII-1, the “Account” can be traced as a source for at least four English, another German, and one Swedish publication over the period of a century.

Although the influence of the European Magazine and London Review was widespread, Georg August Griesinger’s Biographische Notizen affected our image of the Haydn/Bach relationship more directly:

Haydn erhielt seine Entlassung aus dem Kapellhause im sechszehnten Jahr, weil seine Stimme gebrochen war; er konnte nicht die mindeste Unterstützung von seinen armen Eltern erwarten, und musste daher suchen, sich bios durch sein Talent fortzubringen. Er bezog in Wien ein armseliges Dachstübchen (im Hause Nr. 1220. am Michaelerplatze) ohne Of en, worin er kaum gegen den Regen geschützt war. Unbekannt mit den Annehmlichkeiten des Lebens war seine ganze Zeit zwischen Lektiongeben, dem Studium seiner Kunst, und praktischer Musik getheilt. Er spielte bey Nachtmusiken und in den Orchestern ums Geld mit, und er übte sich fleissig in der Komposition, denn “wenn ich an meinem alten, von Würmern zerfressenen Klavier sass, beneidete ich keinen König um sein Glück” Um diese Zeit fielen Haydn die sechs ersten Sonaten von Emanuel Bach in die Hände; “da kam ich nicht mehr von meinem Klavier hinweg, bis sie durchgespielt waren, und wer mich gründlich kennt, der muss finden, dass ich dem Emanuel Bach sehr vieles verdanke, dass ich ihn verstanden und fleissig studirt habe; Emanuel Bach liess mir auch selbst einmal ein Kompliment darüber machen.”

In demselben Hause, worin Joseph Haydn einquartiert war, wohnte auch der berühmte Dichter Metastasio. Dieser liess ein Fräulein Martinez erziehen, Haydn musste ihr Unterricht im Singen und Klavierspielen geben, und erhielt dafür drey Jahre lang die Kost umsonst.

Haydn received his dismissal from the choir school when he was sixteen because his voice had broken; he could not expect the least support from his poor parents and thus had to try to support himself by his talent alone. He moved into a miserable attic room in Vienna (in the house at No. 1220 in the Michaelerplatz) without a stove, where he was scarcely protected from the rain. Unacquainted with the comforts of life, his entire time was divided between giving lessons, studying his art, and performing. He played in serenades and in orchestras for money, and he practiced composing diligently, for “whenever I sat at my old worm-eaten Klavier, I didn’t envy any king his good fortune.” About this time Haydn got hold of the first six sonatas by Emanuel Bach: “I didn’t leave my Klavier at all until they were played through, and whoever knows me very well, must realize that I owe Emanuel Bach a great deal, and that I have understood and studied him diligently. Emanuel Bach even paid me a compliment about that once.”

In the same house where Joseph Haydn lived, also lived the famous poet Metastasio. He was educating a Fräulein Martines. Haydn had to give her instruction in singing and Klavier playing and for three years received his board for doing it.⁵

Based on a series of visits to Haydn, Griesinger’s material was apparently rearranged into a chronological continuity. The question then is not whether Haydn had an encounter with C. P. E. Bach’s sonatas but when. If one compares Bertuch’s account of Haydn’s early years, originally published in 1805 in Journal des Luxus und der Moden—which Bertuch himself later confirmed as based on Griesinger’s not yet published material (indicated by the italicized passages in the Griesinger excerpts)—with the final presentation in 1809, one can hypothesize that the entire C. P. E. Bach episode was inserted by Griesinger at a later date:

Mit dem sechszehnten Jahre erhielt Haydn seine Entlassung von der Stephans-kirche, weil seine Stimme gebrochen war. Höchst kümmerlich musste er sich nun eine lange Reihe von Jahren hindurch in Wien fortbringen. Er wohnte in einem sechsten Stockwerke; seine Dachwohnung hatte weder Ofen noch Fenster, der Hauch fror des Winters auf seiner Bettdecke, und das Wasser, welches er sich des Morgens am Brunnen zum Waschen holte, war bei seiner Ankunft in den hoheren Regionen oft schon zum Eisklumpen verwandelt. Haydn gab Lectionen, er spielte in den Orchestern mit, wo es etwas zu verdienen gab, seine Armuth entfernte ihn von den Menschen, und er fand sein einziges Glück an einem alten, von würmern zerfressenen Klavier. Er komponirte wacker darauf los, sein Genius liess ihn nicht ruhen. Eine Fräulein Martini [sic], die mit Metastasio in Verbindung stand, unterrichtete er im Singen und Klavierspielen, und erhielt dagegen drei Jahre lang dort die Kost umsonst.

With his sixteenth year Haydn received his dismissal from St. Stephen’s Church because his voice had broken. In greatest need, he had to endure a succession of years in Vienna. He lived on the sixth floor; his attic room had neither stove nor window. In the winter his breath froze on his bedcovers, and the water that he fetched from the fountain for washing in the morning was often already changed into ice by the time he returned to those higher reaches. He gave lessons; he played in orchestras when there was something to be earned. His poverty separated him from people, and he found his only happiness at an old worm-eaten Klavier. He continued composing eagerly at it; his genius would not let him rest. To a Fräulein Martini [sic], who was connected with Metastasio, he gave lessons in singing and Klavier playing and for this received his board for three years.⁶

My hypothesis is that the portion of the paragraph ending with “whenever I sat at my old worm-eaten Klavier, I didn’t envy any king for his good fortune” and the following reference to C. P. E. Bach were not spoken by Haydn during a single conversation with Griesinger.⁷ Griesinger himself provides a caveat with the lead- in “About this time.” It must then be asked, how confining is “About this time,” when stated almost half a century after the fact?

Griesinger’s paragraph also raises some other questions of origin:the scenario of a protagonist in a Dachwohnung or other isolated room playing his heart out at an old Klavier turns up in the well-known novel Anton Reiser by Karl Phillip Moritz, from the second half of the 1780s:

He shut himself up in his room where he had repaired an old, dilapidated Klavier as well as he knew how and had tuned it with great trouble. He sat at this Klavier the whole day and, as he knew how to read music, he learned to sing and play almost all the arias from Die Jagd, Der Tod Abels, etc. by himself.⁸

Whether Griesinger knew this work cannot be ascertained, but certainly the similarity is a strong one. The same paragraph is also echoed in the Gazetteer [London] for February 1787 in a report from Gaetano Bartolozzi:

The Prince of Esterhagy [sic], to whom this great composer is Maitre de Chapelle, though he affects the highest admiration of the works of Haydn, who is constantly employed in his service, yet his only reward is a pittance which the most obscure fiddler in London would disdain to accept, together with a miserable apartment in the barracks, in which are his bed and an old spinnet, or clavichord.⁹

In addition we might question what is meant by “the first six sonatas of Emanuel Bach.” Pohl and nearly everyone after him have assumed that Haydn studied the first print of Bach’s keyboard works, the so-called Prussian Sonatas (Wq. 48).¹⁰ Since this set is not designated as Op. 1 on the title page, this hypothesis is slippery. Indeed, the only source that could have identified Bach’s first publication of sonatas would have been J. J. C. Bode’s German translation of Burney’s The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces. The translation, published in 1772-1773, replaced Burney’s first-hand reports with Bach’s autobiography:in the list of works, the “Prussian” sonata set (1742) is given as Bach’s first major publication.¹¹ If Haydn actually made reference to Bach’s “Opus 1,” three other prints that had “Opus 1” in their titles would be more plausible:an unauthorized 1761 print containing Wq. 62/8 and 13, 65/9–10, 8, and 22, titled Six Sonates . . . Oeuvre 1^er from Huberty in Paris; Six Sonates . . . l’usage des Dames (Wq. 54); and the first set of Kenner und Liebhaber Sonatas (Wq. 55). The first and third publications have special credibility. The Huberty print was available in Vienna through the Parisian publisher’s agent, Van Ghelen; his shop was in the Michaelerhaus, where Haydn lived, worked, and studied some time during the 1750s. Van Ghelen also sold a number of other publications that Haydn owned, works by Marpurg, Mattheson, Fux, and Kirnberger. The Kenner und Liebhaber sonatas published in 1779 were subscribed to in multiple copies by both Haydn’s friend Baron Gottfried van Swieten and his publisher, Artaria (see Table VII-2).

A final argument to discredit Griesinger’s reference to Bach is his possible regional chauvinism. Griesinger came to Vienna as Royal Councillor to the Saxon Legation, and some of his earliest meetings with Haydn in 1799 were at the instigation of Gottfried Härtel. His biographical notes were originally intended for the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, which was published by Breitkopf & Härtel of Leipzig. Thus, the Saxon/Leipzig background of Griesinger and his employer may have made Haydn’s connection with the most famous musical family of this geographical region a necessity for the potential audience.

Whereas many people read the London “Account” and even quoted it, Griesinger’s biography gained a distribution and public credibility through its 1809 publication in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung,¹² the most widely read and respected music journal of its day, and through a reprinting in book form under the aegis of Breitkopf & Härtel in 1810 and 1819 that should not be underestimated. It was read, translated, copied, and paraphrased; it served as the basis for nearly every biographical sketch and tribute after Haydn’s death:Le Breton (1810), Choron and Fayolle (1810), Gerber (1812),¹³ Baur (1816), English Musical Gazette (1819), Neujahrstück der Allgemeinen Musik Gesellschaft in Zürich (1830), Fétis (1839), and Wurzbach (1862), among many others.

In contrast, the impact of Albert Christoph Dies’s Biographische Nachrichten has been somewhat limited, even though it too is based on a series of visits to the aged composer. It received only one printing in 1810 and was not republished until 1959.¹⁴ The book may have been ignored because Dies, a landscape painter, did not have Griesinger’s important connections, and because the loquacity of the biography cast suspicion on his reliability.¹⁵ However, Dies’s book is the only authentic biographical source that refers to Haydn’s possession of Emanuel Bach’s Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen.

However, what interested him most was to make use of the important discovery that I mentioned above, and by a serious study of theory to be able to learn to bring order to his artistic creations (which, as we all know, he loves above all). He decided to buy a good book; but which one? He couldn’t answer, and he had his reasons for not asking someone’s advice. Since he didn’t know how to choose, he left it almost to chance, intending first to leaf around in a book a little to judge it before he spent, perhaps for nothing, a whole month’s income.

Haydn ventured to enter a bookstore and ask for a good theoretical text. The bookdealer named Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s writings the newest and best. Haydn wanted to see, to be convinced; he began to read, understood, found what he was looking for, paid for the book and carried it off, quite satisfied.

That Haydn tried to make Bach’s principles his own, that he studied them untiringly, is already to be noted in his youthful works from that time. At nineteen years of age, he wrote quartets which made him known as a well-versed genius to the lovers of music. So quickly had Haydn understood. In time he bought the later writings of Bach. In his judgment, Bach’s writings are the best, most fundamental, and most useful works that have ever appeared as textbooks.¹⁶

Even this reference to Haydn and C. P. E. Bach is not without confusion:the factuality of the statement on the early string quartets from Haydn’s nineteenth year has been questioned by both Finscher and Webster.¹⁷ However, the remainder of the statement seems clear:Haydn bought a book by C. P. E. Bach. A number of commentators have tried to place this incident during the 1750s, as the first part of the Versuch appeared in 1753. But Dies was referring to a theoretical work; while the first part of Bach’s treatise deals with problems of performance, both technical and interpretive, the second covers intervals, thorough bass accompaniment, and improvisation. It thus seems more likely that Haydn acquired Parts I and II, both of which were published by 1762.

The most troublesome aspect of this story is that neither part or their musical supplements were found in Haydn’s library, as known from the Haydn Bibliothek Verzeichnis (HBV), ca. 1804, and the Haydn Nachlass Verzeichnis (HNV), 1809. Although this discrepancy might be explained by the various fires that occurred in Haydn’s household during the 1760s and 1770s, this argument can be countered by the presence in the library of many of the other authors mentioned by the early biographers—Mattheson, Heinichen, and Fux.¹⁸

The most completely satisfying firsthand statements derive from Haydn’s friend Abbé Maximilian Stadler. His version of the Bach—Haydn relationship has been made known primarily through Friedrich Rochlitz’s introduction to an essay on Emanuel Bach.¹⁹ Stadler himself stated:

As a boy gifted with genius, [Haydn] had the opportunity to study singing and instruments. The learned masters, among them Reutter, Porpora, and the books of Fux, Mattheson, etc., willingly imparted instructions to this diligent pupil. He heard with interest the masterpieces of Holzbauer, Wagenseil, [and] Hasse, which then were improving the musical tastes of the time, and many other composers of Vienna who were, so to speak, his predecessors; he himself began to compose early, and whoever possesses and examines his first Klavier sonatas and violin divertimentos will easily see that he had modeled himself after Wagenseil and his kind. Later he took in hand the foreign “products” such as those of C. P. E. Bach, etc., studied them, and while remaining faithful to his own special tastes, through this study he still molded more and more the realization of his own ideas, among which his quartets with fugues can serve as examples.²⁰

Stadler gives the distinct impression that Haydn’s early stylistic development can be viewed in two phases:a period during which Haydn absorbed the style of his Viennese predecessors, including works by Holzbauer, Wagenseil, and others, which were models for his early keyboard sonatas and violin divertimentos; and a somewhat later period during which he studied the “products” of foreign composers, among them C. P. E. Bach. Stadler seems to be a reliable source, for he had known Haydn for many years and, unlike Dies and Griesinger, had gathered his information long before the composer’s mental faculties had begun to deteriorate. Stadler seems not to have had a special viewpoint to espouse; his comments reflect what we know of Haydn’s stylistic development from his works; and an evolution from local Viennese influences toward more Continental ones is logical for a developing talent.

TABLE VII-2

Publications of Bach’s Solo Keyboard Works: Availability in Vienna

The remaining important sources date from the London period. In the preface to A Selection of Sacred Music Christian Ignaz Latrobe wrote:

Bach, Charles Philip Emanuel. . . Haydn considers him as the author of all modern elegance and gracefulness in execution; and in conversation with me want [sic] so far as to say, with his usual modesty, that but for studying Bachs’ [sic] Works, he had himself been a clumsy Composer.²¹

Perhaps the most interesting statement concerning Haydn and Bach is found in a little-known encyclopedia article by Charles Burney, ca. 1800:

For the practice [of Music], [Haydn] studied with particular attention, the pieces of Emanuel Bach, whom he made his model in writing for keyed instruments, as he candidly confessed to us when in England, in the same manner as Pope had formed himself upon Dryden.²²

Since Burney was a member of the circle of the lexicographer and critic Samuel Johnson, the analogy of Dryden—Pope with Bach-Haydn as examples of stylistic parallels can be pursued from Johnson’s well-known essay on Pope. Burney seems to have had in mind the opening paragraph:

He [Pope] professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality.

Other statements by Johnson also seem uncanny:

Dryden’s page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and leveled by the roller.

If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden’s fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope’s the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.²³

Several questions arise as one consults other early sources in which one might expect mention of Haydn and C. P. E. Bach and yet finds none. For example, both composers are discussed but no relationship is drawn by Carl Ludwig Junker in his Zwanzig Componisten (Bern, 1776). Indeed, there are no sources before the 1780s that refer to a Bach—Haydn relationship. More significantly, Bach does not appear in Haydn’s autobiographical sketch of 1776, which otherwise seems to be one of the most explicit documents concerning his early years and in which Haydn mentions that Porpora taught him the fundamentals of composition. Instead, the seemingly firsthand reports of Haydn’s acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Bach first date from his London visits.²⁴ Were they a result of inquiries from Haydn’s English friends who knew of the 1784 “Account”? Did his friends jog his memory and cause Haydn to recall experiences from the 1750s and 1760s that he had forgotten when he wrote his autobiographical sketch in the 1770s, but later remembered somewhat confusedly in his conversations with Dies and Griesinger? Given the present state of documentation, it is impossible to resolve all these discrepancies.

The validity of the Bach-Haydn relationship can be pursued through more recent musicological literature, where it has grown far beyond the restraints of the early documents (and the constraints of historical method). The conclusions drawn from it can be tested against the known distribution of Emanuel Bach’s works in eighteenth-century Vienna. How well will the resulting distinct linkages between Haydn and Bach stand up to this additional scrutiny? Did Haydn play, study, and admire the keyboard sonatas of C. P. E. Bach? Did Haydn study the Versuch? Did Bach influence Haydn’s stylistic development as seen in the latter’s keyboard sonatas?

The Musicological
Literature of the Twentieth Century

The musicological literature of the present century is mostly concerned with the widely disseminated view that Emanuel Bach’s music had a significant and observable impact on Haydn. It has been marked by an unusual enthusiasm to find interactions among great men and plagued by errors of both judgment and fact. Unconvincing stylistic parallels have been used to conclude that Bach’s style was an ever-present factor in Haydn’s works, and there are errors of dating, chronology, and identification, as well as a regional chauvinism among non-Austrian German scholars. If these shortcomings were only isolated phenomena they could be overlooked; but they have originated from authoritative scholars and publishers and thus have created their own “traditions.”

The infrequent use of actual musical examples to demonstrate parallels between Bach and Haydn immediately raises doubts about the viability of the espoused relationship; when examples have been cited, they appear to this author to be unconvincing or otherwise untenable. These problems begin as early as the “Account” and reviews that appeared in the 1784 European Magazine and London Review. Subsequent examples have been presented, albeit somewhat apologetically, by such scholars as E. F. Schmid, an authority on the music of both Haydn and Bach.²⁵ In 1932 he cited one pair of excerpts from Hob. XVI:22/2 and Wq. 78/1, measures whose parallels are not apparent to either eye or ear:the similarities of mode and, to a lesser extent, texture are of a most common type and certainly form no criterion on which to base an influence. Schmid explains that the sensitive/expressive aspect and Bach’s language in general are the important factors in the six measures shown.

More recently, H. C. R. Landon explained the similarities found in the third sonata from Bach’s Württemberg set and Haydn’s D-major Sonata, Hob. XVI:19:

In 1765, Haydn’s whole sonata technique has begun to change. There is now a real development section, a new sense of tension generated by the organised use of motifs. The development sections of the two works . . . show how much of the spirit if not the letter of the new anti-galant writing comes from C. P. E. Bach.²⁶

Hob. XVI:19 was first referred to in a 1915 article by Rudolf Steglich as one of the sonatas from Op. 13-14 reviewed in the October 1784 issue of the European Magazine and London Review;²⁷ it is now known that this sonata had no part in these opere. Landon was not the only one to perpetuate this error, for his distinguished company includes Schmid, Abert, Geiringer, and Finscher.²⁸

Geiringer tends to cite Bach’s influence whenever Haydn chose to compose anything out of the ordinary.

The second sonata shows some marks of the influence of Philipp Emanuel Bach, which was to assume much larger proportions in the years to come. The syncopations and unison passages, the passionate and quite personal character of the largo, with its sudden contrasts of mood, are unmistakably of north-German origin.

The closer we come to Haydn’s third period, the clearer become the indications of the influence of Philipp Emanuel Bach. Number 46, written between 1765 and 1768, contains a wide-contoured adagio in D-flat Major, testifying, with its pathos and sudden changes of mood, to the impact of the north-German master’s music on Prince Esterházy’s conductor. . . .

In the first movement [of Hob. XVI:20] the beginning of the development exhibits Haydn’s art as constituting a link between the music of P. E. Bach and that of Beethoven. . . . Haydn now wrote rondos in which, as in the works of Philipp Emanuel Bach, each entrance of the main theme displays new figuration. . . . The quartets of Op. 17 show how closely Haydn approached the art of P. E. Bach during this period.²⁹

Geiringer also cites the “sudden half-tone progressions” in the first movement of the Quartet Op. 55/2.³⁰ Perhaps most surprising is his assertion that the first movement of the Sonata Hob. XVI:52 “uses all of the devices of Bach’s style”;³¹ it has been more commonly thought that its boldness derived from the composer’s exposure to the music of the “London Pianoforte School.”³² Geiringer is not alone in the indiscriminate invoking of the North German composer’s name with regard to Haydn’s style; this practice is also found in widely read discussions by Philip Radcliffe³³ and Rosemary Hughes.³⁴ Many of the characteristics cited by Geiringer, Hughes, and Radcliffe can also be found in other compositions of the period from Viennese sources and other geographic areas on the Continent; half-step slips, sudden changes in mood, first movements of moderate pace, repeated notes, rolling sextuplets, and the like were hardly the exclusive properties of Bach’s or Haydn’s music.

One also suspects that regional chauvinism has colored scholarly views of the Haydn—Bach relationship. When Hermann Abert wrote his still valuable and important stylistic survey of Haydn’s solo sonatas, perhaps the professor from Kiel was being too much of a North German in suggesting that Haydn’s keyboard music of the 1760s represents a synthesis of North German and Viennese styles.³⁵ In a recent monograph, Ludwig Finscher cites Emanuel Bach frequently in his discussion of the history of the string quartet in relation to Haydn.³⁶ Most surprisingly, he suggests that the chamber music quality of opere 1 and 2 might have come from Bach’s trio sonata “Gespräch zwischen einem Sanguineo und Melancholico,” composed in 1749 and published two years later.³⁷ The idea that chamber music in Haydn derives from Bach not only is weak history but also minimizes the options available to one of the most resourceful of musical minds.

In establishing an interaction between one composer and another, complete control of the chronology is essential; Bach could not have influenced Haydn unless the works in question were available to Haydn before the modeled work was composed. Still one reads in the preface to Franz Eibner’s 1975 edition of Haydn’s Klavierstücke that the Capriccio in G major Hob. XVII:1 “adopts the characteristic Ph. E. Bach rondo, evolved from a single theme.”³⁸ While there is no question that Haydn had an opportunity to familiarize himself with the rondos from the third and fifth Kenner und Liebhaber collections, he could not have studied them before 1780, the year they appeared in printed form. Since Haydn’s G-major Capriccio dates from 1765 and Bach did not begin to compose rondos of this type until the late 1770s, even the possibility of Haydn’s seeing prepublication manuscript copies is excluded.³⁹

After this examination of the early documents and their striking embellishment in some of the more visible literature on Haydn’s music, one might be tempted to dismiss the entire concept of a Bach—Haydn connection. But in light of the variety of early independent sources that contain this idea—the anonymous writer in the European Magazine, Burney, Latrobe, Stadler, Dies, and Griesinger—there must be some basis for it. Therefore, let us look at the evidence for the availability of Bach’s works in Haydn’s surroundings.

Distribution of Emanuel Bach’s
Works in Vienna

The distribution of Emanuel Bach’s works in eighteenth-century Vienna⁴⁰ and the likelihood of their reaching Haydn or the circle of his acquaintances can be determined by advertisements in the Wienerisches Diarium/Wiener-Zeitung;⁴¹ extant copies of prints in Austrian archives, monasteries, and libraries; the catalogues of the Viennese music dealer Johann Traeg, first issued in 1799;⁴² the subscription lists for Bach’s works; and the catalogues of Haydn’s library, HBV and HNV (see Table VII-2). Because of the difficulties of identifying concertos and chamber works, only solo keyboard works have been included. Although such information has its limitations, it is certainly superior to approaches that do not even attempt to define the repertoire.

The largest single source in Vienna was the music dealer and publisher Johann Traeg (ca. 1747-1805), who offered the most comprehensive catalogue of music that could be purchased in the Imperial city. Traeg’s listing for Emanuel Bach includes ninety-six keyboard sonatas; six collections for Kenner und Liebhaber of sonatas, rondos, and fantasias; sixteen keyboard concertos, and various other chamber works. Since Traeg’s activities can be traced back only to 1782,⁴³ his list can give us but a glimmer of the works available in Vienna before his ascendancy. Haydn’s association with Traeg was an important one; it goes back to 1789, when Traeg served as Immanuel Breitkopf’s representative in Vienna, a role he was to retain until the end of Haydn’s creative life. Unfortunately, there is no documentary evidence of Haydn’s having acquired any music from him other than his own.

The dealers who advertised Bach’s works in the Wienerisches Diarium/Wiener-Zeitung give us some idea of which of the Hamburg Bach’s compositions Haydn had the possibility of seeing or acquiring before Traeg became active in 1782. Since the central portion of the city of Vienna was small, all these dealers would have been convenient to the two known residences of Haydn during the 1750s, in the Michaelerplatz and Seilerstadt, as well as to the Esterházy Palace on the Wallnerstrasse for the later decades.⁴⁴

It is obvious from Table VII-2 that nearly every major publication of solo keyboard music by Emanuel Bach was available in the Imperial capital. But only for Bach’s latest publications, the Kenner und Liebhaber volumes, do we have direct or highly plausible evidence that Haydn had opportunities to see the prints:all five sets were subscribed to by Haydn’s publisher Artaria and/or Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Baron von Braun, an excellent keyboardist himself, subscribed for three sets; his wife was Josephine von Braun, to whom Haydn dedicated the first Viennese edition of the F-minor Variations Hob. XVII:6.⁴⁵ Indeed, Haydn probably received his copies of the third and fifth installments of the Kenner und Liebhaber set from Artaria directly, as his letter of 16 February 1788 requests:“In addition, I ask that the 2 latest Clavier works by C. P. Emanuel Bach be sent to me.”⁴⁶

The inventories of his library show that Haydn acquired manuscript copies of the following solo and ensemble keyboard works by Emanuel Bach:

Freye Fantasie Wq. 67 (HBV 181, HNV 541)

Trio a Cembalo e Violino Wq. 80 (HBV 180, HNV 542)

Quartetto für Clavier, Flöte, und Bratsche Wq. 93 (HBV 178, HNV 543)

Quartetto für Clavier, Flöte, und Bratsche Wq. 94 (HBV 179, HNV 543)

Concerto [Two keyboards] Wq. 47 (HBV 177, HNV 544)

The copyists and papers of all are of German and not Austrian origin; Wq. 93 and 94 are by one scribe and Wq. 47, 67, and 80 by another. Since Wq. 47 was composed in 1788, Wq. 67 and 80 were probably acquired after this date. Wq. 93 and 94 contain the inscriptions “Mense. Jan:88” and “g[estochen] 27 Jan. 88” respectively.⁴⁷

Exactly when these copies came into Haydn’s possession cannot be determined. E. F Schmid believed that Haydn acquired some during his stopover in Hamburg on his return from London in 1795 and others, listed in HNV but not HBV, from the estate of Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who died in 1803.⁴⁸ Copies acquired on the latter occasion could not have had any influence on Haydn, since by 1803 he had already proclaimed the end of his creative career with the two movements for the Quartet Op. 103. It is difficult to believe, however, that if Haydn was at the sale of the Baron’s Nachlass, that he would not have recovered the autographs and other documents relating to The Creation and The Seasons, which were reportedly in the Baron’s possession.

Finally, the Abbe Maximilian Stadler leads us to conclude that the study of Emanuel Bach was not unfashionable in Vienna among Haydn’s circle. Stadler’s is especially revealing, as it mentions Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736–1809) and Robert Kimmerling (1737-1799), both of whom had important connections with the Benedictine Abbey at Melk, as did Stadler himself. According to Stadler, Albrechtsberger—one of Haydn’s friends for nearly half a century—“studied diligently the works of Sebastian and Philipp Bach”; while the Regens Chori at Melk, Kimmerling, who studied with Haydn around 1760 and later became one of his “trusted friends,” was “an excellent tenor and keyboard player [who] made himself familiar with Graun’s and Philipp Emanuel Bach’s works and studied them assiduously.” Today Kimmerling’s library survives at Melk with one work by Galuppi, in which Kimmerling inscribed that it was recommended to him by Haydn, and prints of C. P. E. Bach’s Sonatas Wq. 51, 54, and 55—none of which were available before 1760.⁴⁹

From Table VII-2 and the subsequent discussion we can draw the following conclusions concerning Haydn and a Viennese tradition for Bach’s music with obbligato keyboard:

1. Haydn owned Wq. 47, 57, 59, 67, 80, 93, and 94.

2. A strong tradition in Vienna—and within Haydn’s circle (e.g., copies at Melk and/or publications sold by Ghelen)—makes it plausible that Haydn could have additionally known Wq. 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62 (8, 13, 23, 24), and 65 (9, 10, 18, 22).

3. The following were also available in Vienna during Haydn’s creative life:Wq. 48, 49, 50, 52, 53b, 60, 62 (1, 3?, 4-6, 8–12, 16-21), 112, 113, and 114.

4. There is no evidence of the following being available in Vienna during Haydn’s creative life:Wq. 62 (2, 3, 7, 13, 15, 22).

Since some of the earliest documents and much of the literature on this topic have emphasized that Haydn learned of Bach’s music during the 1750s, the next task is to establish a chronological sequence of the availability in Vienna of this repertoire. Table VII-3 shows that little would have been available in Vienna during the 1750s, but that contact in the 1760s is quite plausible. Furthermore, the so-called Prussian and Württemberg Sonatas (Wq. 48 and 49), which are frequently mentioned in relation to Haydn, have a relatively weak tradition in the Imperial capital.⁵⁰ Irrefutable documentation of Haydn’s acquisition of Bach’s works exists only for the 1780s. Thus, one needs to be more cautious than has heretofore been the case with regard to the possibility that Bach’s musical creations influenced Haydn.

TABLE VII-3

Chronology for Available Published Solo Keyboard Works of C. P. E. Bach in Vienna

As for Haydn’s acquaintance with Bach’s Versuch, Dies mentions the book directly, but his anecdote can be questioned on the basis of its context. The treatise is not listed in the two catalogues of Haydn’s library (HBV and HNV). The first part was published in 1753, the second in 1762, but neither was advertised in the Wienerisches Diarium until 1763. It thus seems that neither part of Bach’s Versuch was generally available in the Imperial capital until after the appearance of Part II in 1762.

Haydn’s own autographs suggest a contact with Part I just at this time, for there is evidence that Bach’s advice for notating appoggiaturas was read by Haydn. In Part I of the Versuch Bach writes:

Because of the former circumstance [i.e., the variable value of some Vorschläge], these Vorschläge have quite recently begun to be indicated according to their true value, instead of all of them being marked with 8th-notes. Previously, Vorschläge of such variable length were not yet introduced. However, in today’s style, unable to rely on rules about their length, we cannot do without exact indication, since all kinds [of lengths] occur with all kinds of notes.⁵¹

Significantly, Haydn discontinued his practice of notating the Vorschläge with a small eighth note for the first time in 1762; beginning with Acide he followed Bach’s advice, i.e., notating the Vorschläge as half the value of the following note.⁵² Thus it seems that Dies’s reference to studying the Versuch has credence, although the incident did not occur in the 1750s, as his biography suggests, but in the next decade.

Haydn’s Music and Emanuel Bach

In surveying the sonatas of Emanuel Bach and of Haydn, one must ask in what kind of work by Bach can one identify style traits that might be found in Haydn. In his autobiography, Bach distinguishes two types of his own compositions:those written for others; and those composed for himself, which were “written with complete freedom.”⁵³ If any of his works had an ascertainable stylistic impact on another composer, they would have to belong to the second type. However, few of Emanuel Bach’s more original works were published, and those that reached distribution in Vienna—the Württemberg and Kenner und Liebhaber sets—either had a weak Viennese tradition or appeared long after Haydn’s keyboard style had reached relative maturity.

Instead of following the well-worn path in search of formal or thematic similarities among the works of Bach and Haydn,⁵⁴ let us turn to Bach’s Versuch, which is in many respects the strongest candidate for a Haydn connection. Two important concepts in the Versuch merit discussion in relation to Haydn’s output and style:the varied reprise; and the fantasia—which Bach believed to be the highest form of improvisation.

The idea of the varied reprise was promulgated by Bach not only in the Versuch but also in the Sechs Sonaten für Clavier mit veränderten Reprisen (Wq. 50), published in 1760 and distributed in Vienna by 1767 if not earlier. The latter contained an extensive introduction justifying the publication of works with written-out embellishments in the repetitions of the two parts of the sonata-form structure. While Haydn may have been influenced by this introduction and by Bach’s example in F major from his Probestücke (eighteen pieces in six sonatas, written to illustrate discussions in the Versuch), he seems to have avoided some of the hallmarks of Bach’s use of the principle:Bach varied movements in bipartite as well as tripartite binary structures; he used the variation idea as a large dimension device, i.e., he systematically varied the entire repeated section of a sonata form movement; he permitted changes in the bass line (Wq. 50/3); and he applied the practice to all movements of the cycle. In contrast, Haydn employed the varied reprise mainly in tripartite movements; left the bass line intact; for the most part used varied repetitions at the level of the phrase rather than of the section; and when employing Bach’s principle at the large dimension, restricted it mainly to slow movements, i.e., those that in eighteenth-century practice would probably have been varied in much the same fashion as an aria.

It is interesting to note that Haydn’s adaptation of the varied reprise to the large dimension of slow movements occurs in string quartets and duos composed after the time that Wq. 50 and the Versuch became available in Vienna:Quartets Op. 9/2 and 4 (1769-1770 [1766-1770]), Quartet Op. 17/4 (1771), Quartet Op. 20/6 (1772), Quartet Op. 33/3 (1781), String Duos Hob. VI:3 and 6 (ca. 1765–1775?).⁵⁵ There is only one instance in which Haydn obscures the structural downbeat of a first movement in the manner of Bach:the beginning of the recapitulation of the String Quartet Op. 9/1. However, this example has a totally different effect from that found in Bach; the musical idea does not lose its identity because the primary theme has a strong profile and because Haydn has applied the embellishment with care. The first occurrence in Haydn’s keyboard music of the varied reprise in Bach’s fashion is in the slow movement of Hob. XVI:38, composed during the mid-1770s. In movements other than slow ones, it is used more at the phrase level beginning in the late 1760s to early 1770s. It has been argued that the final sonata in one movement of Wq. 50, which has two varied restatements of a C-minor theme separated by two related couplets in C major, served as a model for Haydn’s “hybrid” or synthesized variations. However, works by Giovanni Martini and by Wagenseil use similar if not identical procedures, indicating that the practice was a Continental one that perhaps stemmed from an expected performance practice written out in only a few examples.⁵⁶ Haydn’s rondo finale of Hob. XVI:19, from 1767, varies the reprises of the rondo theme, a not unexpected occurrence; but in contrast to Bach, Haydn uses unrelated and contrasting episodes, thus excluding Wq. 50/6 as a meaningful model during the 1760s.

Since Haydn was always aware of the structural results when adding melodic variations to his sonata and part forms, once again a statement from the Versuch constitutes a more persuasive description of Haydn’s approach than anything found in Bach’s own compositions:

Not everything should be changed, or else it would become a new piece. . . . This [varying] must be done with no small consideration; there must be constant reference to preceding and following ideas. There must be a concept of the whole piece so that an even mixture of the brilliant and the simple, the fiery and the calm, the sad and the cheerful, the vocal and the instrumental, will be preserved. In Clavier pieces the bass may also be altered from what it was, as long as the harmony remains the same. Generally, despite the many [elaborate?] variations, which are now in fashion, the basic outlines of the piece, which allow the recognition of the affect, must, nonetheless, shine through.⁵⁷

Haydn’s concept of the Fantasia/Capriccio also seems to have been affected by Bach’s statements in the Versuch, which were adapted by Haydn to fit his own personal style. Bach describes the “Free Fantasia” in the tradition of the unmeasured prelude. Although Haydn never wrote a work in the tradition of the German toccata or the French prelude, elements and techniques discussed by Bach are found in a number of instrumental works composed by Haydn after 1762. Most of them have the generic titles Capriccio and Fantasia, which Haydn apparently used interchangeably, as evidenced by his correspondence with Artaria concerning the 1789 Fantasia Hob. XVII:4.⁵⁸ To the above group one should properly add “Chaos,” from The Creation, perhaps the capstone to Haydn’s career as an experimenter. Thus, the following works⁵⁹ or movements should be considered for discussion:

Hob. XV:35 can be eliminated from further comment, as its use of the Capriccio style relates to toccata-like movements found in cyclic works of Matthias Georg Monn (1717–1750).⁶⁰ Since the finale to Version A of Symphony No. 53 is stylistically questionable,⁶¹ it too should be excluded, even though it has some characteristics in common with Hob. XVII:1:e.g., they both exploit a single thematic idea within a larger-dimension repetition structure. In addition, neither Hob. XV:35 nor Hob. 1:53 is particularly remarkable for harmonic boldness, the hallmark of Bach’s concept of the Fantasia.

The chronology of the remaining works remarkably corresponds to that of the documents. Haydn’s first encounter with Bach’s Versuch probably occurred during the 1760s, along with some other keyboard works then available in Vienna:these encounters are paralleled in Haydn’s Capriccio Hob. XVII:1 and in the second movement of Op. 20/2. A second phase came during the 1780s, after a thirteen year break, with the composition of the orchestral Capriccio in Symphony No. 86 and the keyboard Fantasia Hob. XVII:4, i.e., about the time of the appearance of the “Account” in the European Magazine and several years before reports of Haydn’s statements in England about his indebtedness to Emanuel Bach. After his return from England, Haydn produced the Op. 76 Quartet Fantasia and The Creation “Chaos” in close proximity. Did he restudy the Versuch periodically and use it as a textbook, as he had done with Fux’s Gradus?

Let us now look at each work in more detail, with emphasis on the keyboard works. The G-major Capriccio Hob. XVII:1 synthesizes the capriccio based on preexistent musical material with Bach’s description of the Fantasia. Here, the combination of the Austrian folk song “Acht Sauschneider müssen seyn”⁶² and its attendant simple harmonies provides a foil for elaborate tonal events. Certainly the folk song fulfills one of Bach’s basic ideas:the tonality must be firmly established before it can be departed from, and the more elaborate the excursion, the stronger must be the tonal confirmation.⁶³

Bach also emphasizes fashioning a bass out of descending and ascending scales, which can be rearranged and embellished with chromatic pitches, a prescription that derives from the Regola dell’Ottava,⁶⁴ Bach offers a large number of examples with figures and publishes two entire examples:the “Hamlet” Fantasia in C minor, as a part of the Probestücke, and a smaller work in D major at the end of the Versuch itself. A comparison of the bass line on which the D-major Fantasia is fashioned with its treatment in the Fantasia itself shows that Bach does not advocate treating all the pitches of the matrix with equal weight.⁶⁵

Haydn’s G-major Capriccio is formulated on similar principles (Example VII-1). At the large dimension, it begins by moving from G major through the circle of fifths to E minor, and then by means of the relative major (G) to C. After a rather weak tonic recapitulation, the key of B minor appears—i.e., the relative minor of the dominant—and with a lengthy chromatic descent, the piece lands on C major. The remainder of this section (to m. 352) also stresses fifth relationships as well as the related major to the tonic’s minor.

In concluding this Capriccio Haydn also followed Bach’s advice: “The organ points on the tonic suffice to establish the key at the beginning and the end. Before the closing, organ points on the dominant can also be used to good effect.”⁶⁶ Haydn dispensed with the initial organ point perhaps because of the strong tonal orientation of the folk material, but the close does use both dominant and tonic pedal points, which are enhanced by the surface rhythmic activity (mm. 352–53) and by references to the lowered leading tone. The interruption of the dominant pedal by the diminished seventh of B flat in m. 348 also seems to follow Bach’s Versuch (Example VII-2):

EXAMPLE VII-1. Hob. XVII:1.

It is felicitous in improvisation to appear to modulate to another key using a formal cadence, but then to take another turn. This and other deceptions make a fantasy good; only they must not happen all the time so that normal progressions are completely hidden by them.⁶⁷

Bach defined another aspect of the Fantasia/Capriccio:“A free fantasia consists of varied harmonic settings which can be expressed in all kinds of figures and motives.”⁶⁸ This sentence provides one of the stronger arguments for Haydn’s studying the Versuch rather than Bach’s music, since the two composers have such different approaches to keyboard figuration and sonority. Whereas Bach’s examples illustrate the French prelude and German toccata styles—the latter with its strong rhythmic contrasts—Haydn opts for a strong metric organization with graduated levels of rhythmic activity at both the large and small dimensions by employing various rhythmic resources:surface, harmonic, tonal, and textural rhythms.

EXAMPLE VII-2. Hob. XVII:1, mm. 347–55.

Hob. XVII:1, written in 1765, demonstrates this difference with its large- dimension rhythmic organization consisting of two parts of almost equal length. Part one, consisting of 189 bars of a total of 368, can be divided into three parallel subsections at mm. 1, 34, and 62. Each section is characterized by a rhythmic acceleration and the return of the Sauschneider tune, until the rhythmic relaxation of mm. 165–89. In the third section, after its initial statement, the tune is repeated four more times (mm. 85, 114, 133, 157), but with cadential articulations of diminished strength. This decrease in cadential strength, together with the slowing of the surface and harmonic rhythms beginning in m. 156, prepares for the otherwise incongruous nature of mm. 165–89.

In contrast, part two emphasizes in broad statements the stability of rhythm and texture that divide it into two large subsections and a coda. Each subsection is marked by three commencements of the Sauschneider tune, the third of which returns in the tonic, and to the rhythmic activity of the opening of the Capriccio. The tonic at the end of the first subsection, which changes mode in order to veer toward B flat, returns to the home key with a dominant pedal and is enhanced by a deception (VII₇₀ of G minor) before the final statement of the tune over an embellished dominant pedal.

The most distinctive section from the harmonic standpoint is the close of part one:it consists of the longest chromatic descent of the movement, which, when resolved to C major (m. 190), results in an unusual tonal color that affects one’s perception of the returns to the tonic that precede (m. 133) and follow (m. 265) (Example VII-3). Once again Haydn seems to have heeded Bach’s guidelines for the Fantasia:“those places which begin sections in a key somewhat remote from the established one, must be held onto longer than the others,”⁶⁹ for these measures contain the slowest and most regular harmonic rhythm of the entire Capriccio. Finally, the similarities between Bach’s prescriptions and Haydn’s music for mm. 165–89 seem inescapable in light of the following quotation:

Broken chords that repeat both the chord tones and neighboring ones are especially agreeable, since they provide more variations than a simple arpeggio, where the tones are repeated again and again just as they lie under the hand. In all broken triads or figures based on triads, it is possible to ornament each interval by adding the lower major or minor second, though without letting it sound through.⁷⁰

The second chronological example—the “Capriccio,” from the String Quartet Op. 20/2—also seems to follow the conceptual lines laid down by Emanuel Bach. One wonders, however, if by 1772 Haydn had not had an opportunity to study the “Hamlet” Fantasia, which served as the last piece in the Probestücke: both works are in C minor, and Haydn translates some of the rhythmic freedoms, expressive articulations, dynamics, and recitative/arioso sections of Bach’s keyboard examples to the idiom of the string quartet.

EXAMPLE VII-3. Hob. XVII:1, mm. 165–89.

After a break of some fourteen years, the next “Capriccio”—the slow movement of the “Paris” Symphony No. 86—is far removed in setting from the keyboard and string quartet idioms, even though the orchestra is treated with a chamberlike delicacy. Here the resemblance to Bach’s Versuch and the two Fantasias possibly known to Haydn (i.e., the “Hamlet” Fantasia and the D-major work printed in the Versuch) seems at best remote. Yet this movement contains the rhythmic surprises, striking harmonies, chromaticisms, and recitative/arioso styles associated with the Bachian concept. Structurally it consists of a series of events whose sequence is never predictable, a characteristic that was a hallmark of both men. Haydn’s opening statement, so regular at the beginning, with its three four-measure groups, only serves to emphasize the ensuing irregularities.

When Haydn returned to the keyboard fantasia in 1789, Hob. XVII:4, like its 1765 counterpart, was based on a folk song. The tune “Do̊ Bäuren håt d’Kåtz valor’n” provides the primary melodic material, and the text itself serves as the basis for a character piece in which the farmer’s wife tries to capture her elusive cat. The hunting motifs, sudden changes in register, and rising chromatic scales are musical ideas that can easily be associated with the text.

In this Fantasia, however, the Bachian freedoms are no longer basic to Haydn’s concept of the genre as Haydn now moves from the less-stereotyped structures of the earlier works to a shape grounded in the fundamental principles of rondo and sonata form (Example VII-4). The first section is one of his most-specialized and best-articulated three-part expositions, i.e., P (primary material)-T (transitional material)-K (closing material). The remainder is essentially a series of harmonically stable and unstable areas in which developmental and recapitulatory activities interrupt one another at carefully graduated levels of emphasis. As for the middle dimension of the structure, the second return of primary material marks the beginning of a recapitulation in which both expository material and entire development sections return. The use of primary material to kick off a developmental area is an intensification of a common practice of the Classic period in general; that is, in many recapitulations the statement of the primary material is followed by a brief expansion. This habit brings to mind the 1765 Capriccio, in which the primary melodic material initiates a series of new sections.

EXAMPLE VII-4. Hob. XVII: 4.

EXAMPLE VII-5. Hob. XVII:4, mm. 191–98, 440–58.

By this time Haydn employed only isolated techniques suggested by Bach (Example VII-5):the slide of the dominant up a semitone at the return of the secondary material (mm. 192–95 and 302–305), the lengthy chromatic ascents in the approach to the primary material (mm. 114-24 and 445-53), the terminal pedal point (mm. 422–34), the strong deceptive resolution (mm. 444–45), and the chromatic and scalar bass line, which brings to mind the Regola dell’Ottava.⁷¹

The first measure of the great Fantasia from the Quartet in E-flat major Op. 76/6 immediately calls our attention to the special emphasis that is to be placed on tonal excursion. It is in B major, even though there is no key signature at the beginning. As in Bach’s ideal model, there is no question that a key has been established:⁷² the basic outline is to be found in the simple and symmetrical structure of the bass line, which includes a half-step “slip” (Bach’s semitonium modi) (Example VII-6). The similarities of this movement to the 1765 and 1789 keyboard pieces should not be overlooked. The 1765 Capriccio moves systematically downward through the circle of fifths, but both have a central section that restates the tonic and boldly departs from it before resuming the systematic plan. Op. 76/6 also recalls the 1789 Fantasia, as scale passages serve to connect the principal thematic material. Finally, all three examples use a pedal point to reaffirm the tonic tonality and the closing function.⁷³

EXAMPLE VII-6. String Quartet Op. 76/6/2.

The introduction to Haydn’s The Creation, “Chaos,” has been discussed from standpoints varying from the philosophy of the Enlightenment to Heinrich Schenker’s well-known analysis.⁷⁴ It can also be viewed from the standpoint of Haydn’s own theoretical studies, whether it be Fux’s Gradus or Bach’s Versuch. In this orchestral work a number of passages recall, more or less, Bach’s keyboard style in the Fantasia:the ascending triplets in mm. 10-13, the bassoon figures in mm. 21–24, the clarinet arpeggios in mm. 27–30 and the following glissando, the flute passages in mm. 36-39 and 45-47, the bassoon afterthought to m. 49, and the mysterious rhythm and articulation of the tutti chords in mm. 48-49. Most important, “Chaos” represents the most pervasive use of the Regola dell’Ottava: the three divisions of the movement—the exposition, development, and recapitulation—correspond to the descending, ascending, and descending scales (as shown by the asterisks in Example VII-7). As expected in an eighteenth-century structure, the first section is open, the middle is more active tonally, and it leads directly to the final section, which is closed.

EXAMPLE VII-7. “Chaos” from The Creation, mm. 1–58.

The above works were chosen for discussion as they belong to a category of composition for which Bach was especially revered and which the North German master dealt with at some length in the Versuch. However, many of the same techniques discussed by Bach can be found in other Haydn compositions whose dates seem to cluster around those of his Capriccios and Fantasias. For example, the deceptive cadence and the descending bass line of Haydn’s sonata form retransitions seem to become a significant characteristic during the mid-1760s.⁷⁵ An enharmonic modulation⁷⁶ is first found in the slow movement of the Symphony No. 45 (“The Farewell”), i.e., just after the composition of the Quartets Op. 20. Certain other techniques seem to be held in reserve until the 1780s, when they are exploited to their fullest:the semitonium modi⁷⁷ is seen in Op. 54/2/1, Op. 55/2/2, Hob. XVI:48/1, Hob. XV:27/1, and Op. 76/3/1 as well as in the Fantasia discussed above, while the enharmonic modulation seems to be used in epidemic proportions during the last two decades of the composer’s creative activities: Symphonies No. 93/2 and 102/2; Quartets Op. 50/2/1, Op. 71/3/1, Op. 76/1/4, Op. 76/6/2, Op. 77/2/1; Keyboard Trios Hob. XV:14/2, XV:7/3, XV:26/1, XV:27/2-3, XV:28/1, XV:30/2, XV:31/2; and the “Scena da Bernice.”

While the question of influence is always difficult to ascertain, when dealing with “secondary” masters echoes of other composers are often not so well hidden. However, in the case of personalities like Haydn and Bach, two of the most original composers of their century, the supposition that one could find passages in Bach’s works that served as obvious models for Haydn is absurd:in Haydn’s hands Bach’s sonatas would have undergone a complete metamorphosis.⁷⁸

The influence of a treatise, however, seems—at least in the case of Haydn—to be a defensible historical approach:few would question the importance of Fux’s Gradus for Haydn’s music.⁷⁹ Indeed, Haydn’s contrapuntal style evolves from Fux’s Gradus not unlike the way his Capriccios and Fantasias reflect Bach’s Versuch— from saturation during the 1760s and early 1770s to selectivity in later years. While the impact of Bach’s Versuch may not be as pervasive as that of Fux’s Gradus, the chain of evidence is strong:the anecdote offered by Dies, the known dates of availability of the Versuch in Vienna, the change in Haydn’s Vorschlag notation beginning in 1762, the use of the varied reprise (albeit in a different form) beginning in the late 1760s, and the composition of the 1765 Capriccio and later works of the Fantasia type. Finally, if we return to the quotations from Griesinger and Dies, both stress the idea of repeated study and understanding, concepts that in themselves seem most appropriate to a treatise such as Bach’s Versuch.