Haydneum Concerts in Eszterháza – Trout Quintet in the palace

Although we are liable to view the end of the 18^th century as the era of Viennese Classicism in music history, this is a greatly simplified view of reality.  Not only because the so-called classicist style itself also emerged gradually by around the second half of the 1770s but also because beyond the widely exported composition style of the artists living around Vienna at the time, particularly Haydn, other tastes were also highly popular around Europe during this period.

Although similar on the surface, the style adopted by Boccherini, who enjoyed a successful career in the court of the Spanish king, was completely different when it came to details; his smoother and more melodic imagination reportedly prompted Giuseppe Maria Puppo, a violinist and composer, to call Boccherini ‘Haydn’s wife’ on one occasion. Although this remark is too witty to forget, Boccherini’s String Quintet in D major composed in Berlin in 1787 unambiguously deserves more than this stinging comment. Regardless, Haydn’s piano concerto from the early 1780s offers an interesting point of comparison with its similar tone but decidedly more modern style than what was typical of the Divertimento in C major, composed for the Baroque trio sonata setup that was popular in the 1760s. The programme will end on Schubert brilliant quintet, which got its nickname after the song Die Forelle. The composer adapted his earlier work into the fourth movement at Sylvester Paumgartner’s request.