Haydn, Joseph.

with musical quotations from "all the works I can remember from my eighteenth to seventy-third year", with an autograph presentation inscription to his friend, the composer and publisher Pleyel ("…Von Joseph Haydn[paraph per manu propr]ia Meinem Lieben Schüller Pleyel den 26ten July 1805")



The main text is in the hand of Haydn’s amanuensis Johann Elssler, written in brown ink on up to twelve staves per page, in a double or single column, the works listed by genre (see below), with musical incipits of each opening movement, title in passe-partout oval on title: "Verzeichniss aller derjenigen Compositionen welche ich mich beyläufig erinnere von meinem 18ten bis in das 73ste Jahr verfertiget zu haben", faint signature of Pleyel on half-title and some other pencil inscriptions



117 pages, plus two blank leaves, folio, (31x23.5cms), contemporary blue papered boards, modern fitted case and folder with gilt lettering: "catalogue raisonné manuscript des oeuvres de Joseph Haydn dedicacé par Haydn à Ignaz Pleyel", [Vienna], 26 July 1805], spine defective

J.P. Larsen, Drei Haydn Kataloge in Faksimile (Copenhagen, 1941)
E. Olleson, 'Georg August Griesinger's Correspondence with Breitkopf & Härtel, Haydn Yearbook III (1965)
H.C.R. Landon, Haydn. Chronicle and Works. V. The Late Years, 1801-1809 (London, 1977)

A major and extraordinary Haydn discovery. This new copy of Haydn’s thematic catalogue, which dates from 1805, would appear to be unknown to scholars and, containing as it does, differences from the other known drafts and copies, its emergence is a major event in Haydn studies. The importance of Haydn’s 1805 catalogue has been summed up by Larsen as "the firm foundation for research…for the central group of works composed in his maturity."

There is evidence to suggest that this represents Haydn’s earliest version of the completed catalogue, which was later amplified and expanded by the composer and his copyist in subsequent versions, now lost.

It has never been published in its entirety. A facsimile (ed. Larsen, Copenhagen, 1941) of a now-lost copy did not print the complete manuscript. Two copies of this catalogue were known to survive, one in the Breitkopf and Härtel archives, was apparently destroyed in the second world war (see Landon, p.294). The second, known in the Haydn literature as HV, the master-copy retained by Haydn, and from which the incomplete facsimile copy was made, disappeared from the Esterházy Archives, Budapest in 1945 (Landon, ibid). The present manuscript is a completely new and hitherto unsuspected version. It does not fully correspond to the Budapest copy (the Breitkopf copy appears never to have been fully described) and is of enormous importance. From the description of HV and partial facsimile, it would appear that the Pleyel copy differs from the lost manuscript in terms of layout, content and detail.

One other source needs to be mentioned: the so-called 'Entwurf-Katalog', a manuscript draft, predominantly autograph, which survives in Berlin (Staatsbibliothek Mus ms. Kat 607. This would appear to date mostly from the 1760s and 1770s with some later additions up to 1805. Part of this catalogue is in the hand of Joseph Elssler, the court copyist at Esterház and father of Johann Elssler. This Berlin manuscript appears to be Haydn’s working papers used for the completed catalogue. Landon records other lists of works made by Haydn and Elssler, which were evidently used in the preparation of the completed Thematic Catalogue (see especially pp.325-327).

The turn of the nineteenth century saw composers gradually emerging from aristocratic patronage towards a more independent existence reliant on the rising middle classes and the public concert. This also marked the ascendancy of printing as the most important way of disseminating music to cater for the expanding range of amateur at home and the professional musician in the concert hall. To a composer, an unpublished work gathered no income and it became expedient for musicians to take stock of their output in order to maximise the profit and market their music. Many composers in different ways kept tallies of their output in order ensure that no work might be lost to the wider public avid for new music. Mozart and Boccherini kept catalogues of their music as well as Haydn. Mozart’s seems to have been essentially a private record. Boccherini’s and Haydn’s had a commercial importance.

It was the time when the demand for music was so great that publishers contemplated printing complete works of a composer. André bought Mozart’s autographs from the composer’s widow Constanze around this time for that purpose and Breitkopf produced editions of Mozart’s and Haydn’s works with the title Oeuvres completes, begun before Haydn got round to considering a thematic catalogue. The rediscovery of the music of J.S.Bach essentially belongs to this effort to find and preserve the music of the past as a whole. The great monumental edition of the later nineteenth century are the results of this effort.

The first mention of the catalogue is in a letter from Haydn’s pupil Griesinger to the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel on 22 August 1804. Haydn, who was now living in retirement in had stopped work on his last composition, the incomplete string quartet Op.103 (autograph manuscript sold in these rooms 28 May 1993, lot 89). Griesinger pointed out that he had found a lot of works that were not included in the Oeuvres completes as well as music for which he only had the musical incipits. The work evidently proceeded slowly and was evidently incomplete by the time Pleyel arrived in Vienna on 16 June 1805, where the visitor found Haydn weak and aged, spending a lot of his time praying on a rosary. Evidently a copy was finished by 26 July for Haydn to present a copy to Pleyel. This copy lacks the Marionette operas which were listed in Haydn’s retained copy. As to the Breitkopf copy, Griesinger wrote to Breitkopf on 21 August 1805:

…[Haydn] is now finished with the Catalogue of everything which he recalls having composed from his 18^th to his 73^rd years, Just the incipits alone make a volume of 60 sheets…Haydn promised me yesterday that he would have it copied for you. Among his musical effects there are certainly things that are not printed; I asked him urgently to find something for you, but it takes quite a decision to get the good old dear out of his room, down the stairs and into the somewhat cooler temperature of a little room, where he can fuss about in his papers...[Olleson, Griesinger, p.49].

The Pleyel copy, which is unpaginated, contains the following items:

p.1 blank
pp.2-6.  Sinfonien, nos. 1-118
pp.7-12.   Divertimenti à tre per il Pariton, Viola e Violoncello, nos. 1-125
pp.12-15. Verschiedene Pariton Stücke für das Lieblinge Instroment des verstorbenen Fürsen Nicolaus Esterhaazi. Duetten (6), Sonaten per il Pariton col Violoncello (12), Cassation Stück (6), Mehrstimmige ab a 8to voce (11); Concerto Con Due Violini e Basso. In allen 163 (sic) Pariton Stück.
pp.16-17. Divertimenti auf Verschieden Instrumenten Theils 5.6.7.8. und Neunstimmig (20)
p.17. Marsch (2)
pp.18-19. Trio per due Violini è Violoncello (21)
p.19. Trio per due flauti e Violoncello (2)
p.20. Violino Solo mit Begleitung einer Viola (6)
pp.20-21. Concerto auf verschiedene Instrumenten: per il Violino (3);Violoncello (3);Contrabasso (1);Corno in D(1),2 Corni (1); Clarino (1); Flauto (1)
pp.21-23. Messen (14), Offertorium (4), Te Deum (1), Salve Regina (2), Chöre  (8)
pp.24-27. Quartetten (82)
pp.27-28. Concerto per l’organo (1), Concerto per il Clavie Cembalo(3)
pp.30-32. Divertimento per il Cembalo Col Violino, Due Corni e Basso (1); à Quattro mani (11);Cor, Pariton e Due Violini (1) (Pleyel remarks: “gravé dans le no 27”); Con Due Violini e Basso (4); 20 Variaz[ioni]
pp.32-37. Sonata pour le Piano Forte (15);Fantasia (1);Capriccio (1); Thema Con Variazioni (2)
Sonata pour le Piano forte avec un Violon et Violoncello (29)
pp.37-44. Lieder (42)
pp.44-50. Canons (39)
p.51. Italienische Opern (14), without incipits
p.51.Oratorien
pp.52-54. Drey und Vier-Stimmige Gesänge (13)
pp.54-117. A Selection of Original Scots Songs. The Harmony bey Dr Haydn (365) 1-201 with titles; 202-365 without titles.

It is difficult if not impossible to determine the structure of Haydn’s lost retained copy (HV) from Larsen’s incomplete facsimile. We must assume that it predates the Pleyel copy, but it was evidently added to, possibly even with replaced or additional leaves, after July 25 1805. HV lists 83 rather than Pleyel’s 82 string quartets, 15, rather than 14 incipits for the Masses. The D minor mass is given its soubriquet “Nelson”, absent in Pleyel’s. There are several passages in HV in which Elssler’s text is corrected by Haydn, such as the word “Salvatorem” in one of the Offertoriums. The correct title is present in Pleyel’s manuscript. The layout appears more spacious in HV, with 140 pages to 117 in the present manuscript. More spaces are left between the various sections allowing for additions. The marionette operas are not included in Pleyel and there are no incipits (or dates) for the operas and oratorios, unlike in HV.

Pleyel’s copy thus allows a snapshot view of the state of the catalogue at the end of July 1805 and of course, being now the only surviving copy, is of enormous importance. The more so, in that we now know the number of Scottish songs Haydn considered to be his own, even if Elssler did not complete many of the titles.

Haydn was close to his former pupil Pleyel and it is understandable that as the younger man was one of the most important publishers of music in Europe, Haydn would wish to present him with a copy of his catalogue. In 1802, Pleyel published what he considered to be the complete edition of Haydn’s string quartets, including the Op.3 set, evidently accepted by the composer, but now regarded as the work of the minor master Roman Hofstetter.

The emergence of this major bibliographical source will undoubtedly solve some of the problems of Haydn’s vast output and may certainly raise a few more. It must be regarded as one of the major discoveries in recent years.