{"id":6775,"date":"2022-06-20T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T06:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henle.de\/blog\/en\/?p=6775"},"modified":"2022-06-15T09:33:09","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T07:33:09","slug":"an-unknown-haydn-quote-by-brahms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.henle.de\/en\/2022\/06\/20\/an-unknown-haydn-quote-by-brahms\/","title":{"rendered":"An unknown Haydn quote by Brahms?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s a situation familiar to music lovers: By chance you hear a music piece, usually on the radio, but you just can\u2019t recall the composer. You\u2019re getting more frustrated: this can\u2019t be true, you can sing along with every note \u2013 and yet you simply can\u2019t place the piece. That\u2019s exactly what happened to me a few months ago, though as soon as I heard the simple duet accompanied by piano (on the car radio), I knew that something here \u201cjust couldn\u2019t be quite right\u201d. Although all too well I recognised the beautiful melody heard at the opening of the piece, but I had certainly never heard the piece itself before. So, the melody had to have come from another context \u2013 but from where, from where in the world? And who was the composer of the radio duet? Perhaps something by Mozart unknown to me (shame on me …)?<\/p>\n

The radio announcer solved the second riddle: it was Joseph Haydn\u2019s duet \u201cSaper vorrei se m\u2019ami\u201d Hob. XXVa:2. Listen to it here<\/a> \u2013 and agree with me: this love duet is just simply gorgeous! I quickly located it in the Henle catalogue. We offer \u201cSaper vorrei\u201d together with another Haydn duet as a slim Urtext edition<\/a>, its music text is taken from the Haydn Complete Edition (Series XXIX | volume 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But how did I know the lovely, tender opening melody? It\u2019s first heard at the beginning in the piano introduction, then the soprano enters with it alongside the piano\u2019s right hand: \u201cSaper vorrei se m\u2019ami\u201d (I would like to know if you love me).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Because the melodic line is very distinctive, I immediately started searching and entered the first eight notes (\u201cB-D-G-B-A-G-C-A\u201d) into the RISM-OPAC keyboard search engine (\u201cAdvanced Search\u201d<\/a>). I wondered whether RISM would \u201cspew out\u201d the piece that I knew? In fact, I even got two hits (as of 5 June 2022): though only the Haydn title I already knew from two sources (with, incidentally, the title of the two protagonists \u201cNisa [Soprano] et Tirsi [Tenore]\u201d). So, I had to extend the search and omit \u201cC-A\u201d: now RISM found 389 (!) titles with this specific triadic note sequence, including a lot of \u201cmisses\u201d, because the RISM search engine (alas!) doesn\u2019t distinguish octave positions in the melodic incipit entered. RISM spewed out 21 hits when I typed in the first seven notes of the Haydn piece. Again, \u201cour\u201d Haydn appears several times and also \u2013 very interesting! \u2013 a lovely piano minuet by Antonin Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, op. 28 no. 1<\/a>. To make a long story short: The music piece that the Haydn incipit so strongly reminded me of wasn\u2019t among them.[1]<\/a> I gave up in despair.<\/p>\n

Months passed and, as in \u201creal\u201d life, anguish gave way to gradual oblivion until I was sitting in the concert by the \u201cQuatuor \u00c9b\u00e8ne\u201d when they played \u2013 divinely beautiful \u2013 the second movement from Brahms’s String Quartet in B-flat major op. 67. A (hushed) outcry escaped me: there it was, the melody<\/a> I was looking for:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that really striking? 10 identical opening notes in a row, rhythmically slightly different, but composed in the style like siblings (that is, the emphasis on the high notes a2<\/sup><\/em> and b-flat2<\/sup><\/em>, as well as the strong leading note f2<\/sup><\/em>):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That solved the riddle. The Haydn duet heard on the car radio reminded me of one of my favourite string quartet movements. (Incidentally, I shared this \u201cfind\u201d with the \u00c9b\u00e8ne Quartet immediately after the concert \u2013 and they were immediately completely convinced of this so far completely undiscovered parallel).<\/p>\n

All that remains is the question (perhaps ultimately unimportant?) of whether here Brahms is actually \u201cquoting\u201d Haydn, consciously or unconsciously, or whether this melody is just \u201clying out there in the middle of the road\u201d, so to speak: that is, was perhaps being used by Haydn and Brahms, absolutely independent of each other. The Dvo\u0159\u00e1k example mentioned above may suggest this, also showing the same note sequence as in Haydn and Brahms. But, from experience, I remain sceptical, for in Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s work, the melody is played in lively, even, smooth eighth notes, whilst Brahms and Haydn, on the other hand, put it in the (almost identical) rhythm, thus actually making a \u201cmelody\u201d out of the mere note succession. Apart from that, Brahms could not have known the Dvo\u0159\u00e1k \u201cmelody\u201d at all for reasons of chronology.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Haydn, after all, as a model for quotation? We know how well Brahms knew, indeed loved, his Haydn. If that\u2019s news to you and you\u2019re looking for solid, stimulating information on this topic, you can access the excellently informative and wonderfully illustrated catalogue of the L\u00fcbeck Brahms Institute: \u201cKontinuit\u00e4ten? Symposium: Joseph Haydn im Wandel der Interpretationen – Ausstellung: Joseph Haydn und Johannes Brahms<\/a>\u201d (Continuities? Symposium: Joseph Haydn in Changing Interpretations \u2013 Exhibition: Joseph Haydn and Johannes Brahms). The question on my mind was whether, after all, Brahms was acquainted with the Haydn duet. So, I turned to one of the best specialists on both (!) composers. Otto Biba was kind enough to help me \u2013 Thank you very much, dear Dr Biba! He consulted all available music resources in Vienna\u2019s \u201cGesellschaft der Musikfreunde\u201d archives that could have given clues to an encounter between Brahms and the Haydn piece: [2]<\/a> Nada!<\/p>\n

So, the mystery remains for the time being, as to<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. whether Brahms anonymously \u201cquotes\u201d Haydn in the main theme of the Andante in op. 67,<\/li>\n
  2. or whether he was merely unconsciously inspired by Haydn\u2019s duet, perhaps because he had once held Haydn\u2019s music score in his hands or even attended a performance,<\/li>\n
  3. or whether it was simply a \u201cheavenly\u201d coincidence.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If we really want to assume a quotation \u2013 whether hidden or unconscious \u2013 the text of the Haydn duet would certainly make us prick up our ears: \u201cI would like to know if you love me\u201d. It would be facetious not to think immediately of Clara Schumann as the secret addressee. In the preface to our Urtext edition<\/a>, Clara Schumann\u2019s diary entry is quoted: \u201cThe Adagio [sic] (second movement) is to me not significant enough for Brahms\u201d, whereupon the Urtext editor speculates (probably rightly) that the drastic corrections in the autograph of the second movement could possibly be owing to Clara\u2019s dissatisfaction. The floodgates are hereby happily open to speculation….<\/p>\n

    But perhaps we should leave the uncertainty at that. And at least cherish Brahms’s wonderful (recurring) F major melody in the Andante of his String Quartet op. 67 as a love song. This can now be \u201cverified\u201d with certainty by the text of the beautiful Haydn duet. Anyone, however, having ears to hear would have known this even before my blog post today.<\/p>\n

    [1]<\/a> The IMSLP<\/a> melody search doesn\u2019t work. (To program SUCH a thing would be a real step forward for musical humanity, instead of just offering industrious music note copiers a platform for their sad everyday life). And even APPLE\u2019s two music-finding apps \u201cSound Hound\u201d and \u201cShazam\u201d could not identify Haydn or even \u201cmy\u201d search title.<\/p>\n

    [2]<\/a> See: Critical Report of the above-cited, pertinent volume of the Haydn Complete Edition, p. 103: [1] Early copyist\u2019s copy of Hob. XXVa:2 \u201cSaper vorrei\u2026\u201d, A-Wgm, shelfmark VI 6096\/2 (Q 5942); [2] early edition from Simrock (RISM H 2592); [3] early edition from Breitkopf & H\u00e4rtel, \u201c\u0152uvres completes\u201d volume VIII.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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