Dr Haydn's VI Original Canzonettas, for the Voice with an Accompaniment for the Piano-Forte, performed by James Griffett (voice), Bradford Tracey (fortepiano)
0:00 The Mermaid's Song
3:20 Recollection
9:34 A Pastoral Song
13:01 Despair
20:59 Pleasing Pain
23:17 Fidelity
Text for the third and fourth verses of Despair (not in the score):
Yet, if at eve you chance to stray
Where silent sleeps the peaceful dead,
Give to your kind compassion way,
Nor check the tears by pity shed.
Whene'er the precious dew drop falls
I ne'er can know, I ne'er can see,
And if sad thought my fate recalls,
A sigh may rise unheard by me.
Programme notes by Michael Jameson for AllMusic:
The first of Haydn's two sets of six "English" Canzonettas was published in June 1794. The texts, published anonymously, were in fact the work of Mrs. Anne Hunter, the dedicatee of these songs, and widow of a prominent surgeon whom Haydn had met during his first visit to London in 1791.
In these songs, writes Haydn scholar Professor H. C. Robbins Landon, "it seems clear that Haydn's intention was to compose technically easy songs which could be sung at sight by any educated music lover, and played at the piano prima vista by the average lady of musical inclination."
The sentiments expressed matched the predilections and tastes of late eighteenth-century English drawing room music, for which Haydn had a special empathy. It is by no means insignificant that, besides his last twelve symphonies, Haydn's London period brought many works - sonatas, trios, songs, etc. - which were aimed exclusively at the domestic market place. The English Canzonettas were hugely successful, and rank as some of Haydn's most enduringly popular small-scale vocal compositions, a fact reflected by their inclusion in the repertoires of many famous vocalists, among them Jenny Lind.
The opening number "The Mermaid's Song" features (quite unusually for this genre) an extended opening ritornello of 21 measures, in Haydn's favored triplet note-groupings, and the vocal part is largely independent from the piano's right hand.
The second song "Recollection", a dignified and poignant setting, used to bring tears to Haydn's eyes as he sang it, and its similarity to the minuet from his Symphony No. 97, the work which closed his first triumphant London season in 1792, cannot be mere coincidence.
Canzonetta III "A Pastoral Song", in simple strophic form, became universally famous, though there is evidence to suggest that the text originally fitted the Andante of a Pleyel keyboard sonata, an issue contested by Robbins Landon and other scholars. Robbins Landon adds "this is one of Haydn's few songs which has become immortal, partly because it was sung by all sorts of famous people in the nineteenth century such as Jenny Lind."
Canzonetta IV "Despair" has been described as "the best song Haydn ever wrote." Indeed, the declamatory and fully emancipated piano writing anticipates Schubert, and the key - E major - was reserved by Haydn for the expression of the deepest emotions.
The title "Pleasing Pains" was omitted from the manuscript of the British Museum's original copy in Haydn's own hand, however Canzonetta V again reflects the pastoral imagery of No. 1, in simple 6/8 time, though Haydn skillfully varies the piano accompaniment for the middle stanza.
The set ends with "Fidelity", according to Robbins Landon "the most original and forward-looking of the whole series," a quality clearly sensed in the way this song, whilst intended for the cultivated drawing rooms of London society, actually prefigures the world of German Romantic lieder. The piano writing too, suggests Robbins Landon, "has also become more independent, and less like a frustrated orchestra." Haydn begins in the Sturm und Drang key of F minor, and then modulates into F major/minor. Further innovative qualities are also apparent in the varied through-composed/strophic setting of the text. H. C. Robbins Landon concludes, "the final ritornello is full of the suspensions that show that Haydn's heart was completely attuned to the mood of this poem. It is certainly his greatest achievement in the song form to date and a real link to the enchanted world of Franz Schubert."
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