Cellokonzerte haydn biography

Musical composition by Joseph Haydn

The Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb/1, by Joseph Haydn was composed around for longtime friend Joseph Franz Weigl, then the principal cellist of Prince Nicolaus's Esterházy Orchestra.

The work was presumed lost until , when musicologist Oldřich Pulkert discovered a copy of the score at the Prague National Museum. Though some doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the work, most experts believe that Haydn did compose this concerto.

Background

Although the full work was discovered in , Haydn had written the beginning of the principal theme of the first movement in his draft catalogue of This early work, nearly contemporaneous with symphonies 6, 7 and 8 and predating his D major cello concerto by around twenty years, already shows Haydn as a master of instrumental writing. The solo cello part is thoroughly idiomatic. The concerto reflects the ritornello form of the baroque concerto as well as the emerging structure of the sonata-allegro form. As in the baroque concerto grosso, the accompanying ensemble is small: strings, two oboes, and two horns. It is possible that Weigl was the only cellist in the Esterházy Orchestra when Haydn composed the concerto, since there is only one cello line in the score, marked alternately “solo” and “tutti.” There is also, however, a basso continuo line, that might have been played by another cellist, or by Haydn himself on the harpsichord, or by a string bass player.

Movements

1. Moderato
2. Adagio
3. Allegromolto

All three movements of this work are written in sonata form, unlike the second concerto, where rondo form is used in the second and third movements. This concerto is more related to Haydn's violin concerti than its follower, holding very close rese

Cello concerto by Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 2 in D Major, Hob. VIIb/2, Op. , was for many years thought to have been composed in for Antonín Kraft, a cellist of Prince Nikolaus's Esterházy Orchestra. New research, published in by Thomas Tolley and building on discoveries of Simon McVeigh, shows it was neither written for nor debuted by Kraft, an assertion that was made by Kraft's son to musicologist Gustav Schilling, and later repeated in Schilling's influential musical encyclopedias. However, original advertisements in the London press announced that ‘A new Concerto, Violoncello, Mr Cervetto, composed by Haydn’ had its premier on March 24, at Hannover Square. A second performance was advertised a week later as being a ‘Concerto Violoncello, Mr Cervetto, composed by Haydn’. The C major concerto, Haydn's only other cello concerto, was, at this point, more than twenty years old. The soloist of the premiere, James Cervetto (son of noted cellist Jacob Cervetto), was the principal cellist of the Italian Opera in London and one of England’s leading solo cellists. It is regarded as one of the greatest works for cello of the classical era.

The piece's authenticity was doubted for some time, and at one stage it was suggested that Kraft himself had written it, but most experts now believe that the work is indeed authentic after Haydn's autograph score was discovered in

Music

The concerto is structured in the usual three movements:

1. Allegromoderato
2. Adagio
3. Rondo (Allegro)

In the first movement of the D Major Concerto, the tone is leisurely and soothing. However, the piece soon enters the development phase, where another theme, building upon the opening theme, is discovered. Finally, the recapitulation