Becoming a complete Kapellmeister: Haydn and Mattheson's "Der vollkommene Capellmeister"

Author(s): David Wyn Jones

Source: Studia Musicologica, Vol. 51, No. 1/2, HAYDN 2009: A BICENTENARY CONFERENCE PART
I (March 2010), pp. 29-40
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
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 Becoming a completeKapellmeister:
Haydn and Mattheson's
Der vollkommene Capellmeister

David Wyn Jones

School ofMusic
Cardiff University
Corbett Road, Cardiff CF10 3EB, United Kingdom
E-mail: JonesDW@Cardiff.ac.uk

(Received: September2009; accepted: September2009)

Abstract: Both Griesinger and Dies identifyJohannMattheson's treatise,Der voll

kommeneCapellmeister (1739), as an importantinfluenceon Haydn's musical devel
opment in his youth. Perhaps because Griesinger then gives more emphasis to Fux
thanMattheson, and Dies reportssome disparaging remarkson the treatiseby theaged
Haydn, the range and nature ofMattheson's likely influence on the young musician
have not been fullyexplored. Several authorshave alluded to the relevance ofMatthe
son's comments on aesthetic matters but, in a more behavioural mode, the treatise lays
emphasis too on the duties and expectations of a being a successful Kapellmeister,
qualities thatwere to be exemplified inHaydn's long career.The essay documents this
wider, formativerole, includingMattheson's enthusiasm for all thingsEnglish. Con
siderationofMattheson's influence leads to a more nuanced understandingofHaydn's
and musical education, or Bildung to a use a later concept.
personal

Keywords: JosephHaydn, JohannMattheson, Die Sch?pfung, JohnMilton

StudiaMusicologica 51/1-2, 2010, pp. 29-40

DOI: 10.1556/SMUS.51.2010.1-2.3
1788-6244/$ 20.00 ? 2010 Akad?miai Kiad?, Budapest

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 30 David Wyn Jones

In theirbiographiesofHaydn bothGeorg August Griesinger andAlbert Chris

toph Dies draw attention toMattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister as a
treatise that the composer read in his youth, and both link itwith the contempo
raneous study of a second treatise, Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum. Griesinger
places detailed studyduringHaydn's years as a choirboyinSt Stephen's,writing
succinctly 'He also came to know Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister
and Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum Dies placed the reading of both treatises
slightly later, the early tomid-1750s, when Haydn was in his early twenties and,
as is often the case, this author gives more information: 'He found the exercises
in this book nothing new for him, certainly, but good. The worked-out examples,
however, were dry and tasteless. Haydn undertook for practice the task of work
ing out all the examples in this book. He kept thewhole skeleton, even the same
number of notes, and invented new melodies to it'.2At his death Haydn's library
contained both the Fux and theMattheson3 and it is reasonable to assume that he
had owned the treatises throughout his adult life. Fux's celebrated treatise,
Gradus ad Parnassum, has always attracted the sympathetic attention of com
mentators: itwas the product of Haydn's environment as a youth, sacred musical
life in the imperial-royalcity ofVienna, writtenby a venerated figurewhose
music have sung on countless occasions and who had taughtmany indi
he would
viduals thatwere, in their turn, prominent inAustrian musical life. Fux's legacy
as a theoretician and pedagogue lasted well into the nineteenth century, and
Haydn was typicalofmany inusing it inhis own teaching,to theextentthathe
wrote annotations in his own copy.4 Mattheson's treatise, on the other hand, was
the product of a completely different part of the Holy Roman Empire, the free
imperial city of Hamburg inGermany, the northern Baroque musical tradition of
Bach, Buxtehude and Telemann, and, in sacred music, the demands of the
Lutheran liturgy rather than those of the Catholic liturgy.Given this background
and the dismissive remarks that Dies made, it is not surprising thatDer voll
kommeneCapellmeister has oftenbeen ignoredbyHaydn scholarshipand, by
implication, regarded as peripheral to the composer's development. Only in the

1.Haydn. Two contemporary portraits, trans, and ed. Vernon Gotwals (Madison: University ofWisconsin
Press, 1968), 10. 'Er lernte auch Matthesons vollkommenen Kapellmeister und Fuxens Gradus ad Parnas
sum ...' Georg August Griesinger, Biographische Notizen ?ber Joseph Haydn (Leipzig: Breitkopf und H?rtel,
1810), 10.
2. Gotwals, Haydn, 96. 'Er fand die Grunds?tze in diesem Werke zwar f?r ihn nicht mehr neu, dennoch
gut, aber die ausgearbeiteten Beispiele trocken und geschmacklos. Haydn unternahm zu seiner ?bung die Ar
beit, alle Beispiele des genannten Werkes umzuarbeiten. Er behielt das ganze Skelett, sogar die Anzahl der
Noten bei und erfand neue Melodien dazu.' Albert Christoph Dies, Biographische Nachrichten von Joseph
Haydn (Vienna: Camesinaische Buchhandlung, 1810); modern ed. Horst Seeger (Berlin: Henschelverlag,
1959), 41-42.
3. See the catalogue of Haydn's artistic effects transcribed inH. C. Robbins Landon, Haydn: Chronicle and
Works, vol. V: The Late Years 1801-1809 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 402^03.
4. Alfred Mann, 'Eine Textrevision von der Hand Joseph Haydns', Musik und Verlag. Karl V?tterle zum 65.
Geburtstag am 12. April 1968, ed. Richard Baum and Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel: B?renreiter, 1968), 433-437.

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 Becoming a complete Kapellmeister 31

area of music rhetoric has scholarship sought persuasive links between Matthe
son and Haydn.5
But a sympathetic reading of Mattheson's treatise reveals several, further
characteristics that chime with Haydn's outlook and even if some of them reflect
wider musical and social values their articulation in a volume that aimed to be
the comprehensive guide for any aspiring Kapellmeister would have provided a
constant source of re-assurance as well as opinion for someone who had a high

lydeveloped sense of duty.This essaywill look at some of thesecharacteristics

before, in the final section, considering how a re-evaluation ofMattheson's im
portance might challenge certain standard outlooks inHaydn biography.
Mattheson's treatise first appeared inHamburg in 1739, a year before Haydn
moved toVienna fromHainburg. Itwas readilyavailable inVienna, the first
knownadvertisementbeing in 1744,placed by thebooksellerPeterMonath who
sold it from his house in the Tuchlauben.6 The first edition consisted of 484
closely printed pages followed by an index of 15 pages, two pages of corrigenda,
a postscriptum of two pages, and a catalogue ofMattheson's printed works, main
ly prose but some music, too. Mattheson's first treatise on music had dated from
1713 and Der vollkommene Capellmeister was clearly regarded by the author as
a summation of a lifetime of experience and reflection.7 It consists of 50 chap
tersseparatedintothreeparts.Part 1 isdevoted to thegeneralmusical knowledge
Kapellmeister,Part 2 gives detailed observations
requiredby any self-respecting
onmelodywhichMattheson regardedas thebasis of good composition,and Part
3 is devoted to harmony or, as he puts it, 'the Combination of Different Melodies'
('von der Zusammenfa?ung verschiedener Melodien').8
Most of thedetailedcommentson thegeneralattributes
requiredby a working
Kapellmeister are contained inPart 2; ifHaydn ever sought to tick off these require
ments as they applied to himself the results would have been mixed. Mattheson's
comment that teaching youngsters by beating them was not only futile, but un

godly9 would have prompted a wry response from someone who said that he had
been beaten regularly by Franck, his teacher inHainburg, and who was regularly

5. For instance Haydn and thePerformance of Rhetoric, ed. Tom Beghin and Sander M. Goldberg (Chic
ago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); in particular two essays, Annette Richards 'Haydn's London Trios and
the Rhetoric of the Grotesque' (251-280) and Elaine Sisman, 'Rhetorical Truth in Haydn's Chamber Music:
Genre, Tertiary Rhetoric, and theOpus 76 Quartets' (281-326). A third essay in the same volume, by James Van
Horn Melton, draws attention toMattheson's acute awareness of a musical audience, similar to Haydn's well
developed sense of a public for his music ('School, Stage, Salon: Musical Cultures inHaydn's Vienna', 90-91).
6. Hannelore Gericke, Der Wiener Musikalienhandel von 1700 bis 1778 (Graz: Hermann B?hlaus Nachf,
1960), 40.
7. For a convenient summary of Mattheson's life and work see Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen and Klaus
Pietschmann, 'JohannMattheson', Die Musik inGeschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd edition, ed. Ludwig Finscher,
Personenteil, vol. 11, cols. 1332-1349 (Kassel: B?renreiter, 2004).
8. Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, a revised translation with critical commentary by
E. C. Harriss (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1981), 495; Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene
Capellmeister, facsimile edited by Margarete Reimann (Kassel: B?renreiter, 1969), 245.
9. Mattheson/Harriss, 254-255; Mattheson/Reimann, 104.

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 32 David Wyn Jones

poked intheribs and insultedinItalianbyPorpora inthemid-1750s.On knowledge

of languages other than German, Mattheson recommends that a Kapellmeister
should 'master Greek or at least Latin so he might understand the books on music
which arefrequently
writteninthoselanguages'('der griechischen,oderwenigstens
der lateinischen
Sprache in soweit da?
bem?chtige, er dieB?cher,welche h?ufig in
solchen Mund-Arten von derMusic
geschrieben sind, verstehen m?ge'); in addition,
in order, to cultivate a sensitivity to poetry and, from that, a sensitivity tomusical

setting a composer should know also French and especially Italian.10 Haydn never
learntGreek, but his Latin was competent enough and he did lace his conversation
with appropriate aphorisms in that language, 'sunt bona mixta malis', 'sed hoc inter
nos', 'nihil sine causa' and so on. His knowledge of French was rudimentary (he
onlyonce set thelanguage)but Italianwas an active second language,promotedby
Porpora in the 1750sand continuallyimproved by contactwith themany Italiansat
Eszterh?za in the 1770s and 1780s, not least his mistress Luigia Polzelli.
Mattheson stresses the importance of a composer having a fullworking knowl
edge of the principal instruments:
A composer must also apply himself to instrumental matters and, as much as

possible, must have command not only of his clavier or another principal
instrumentbut also the othermost common instruments,or at least know their
strengthsand weaknesses perfectly.11

These words find a direct echo inHaydn's comments to Griesinger:

Iwas a wizard on no instrument,but I knew the strengthsand theworking of

all. I was not a bad keyboard player or and could also play a concerto
singer,
on theviolin.12

As regards the demeanour of the Kapellmeister towards his performing col

leagues Mattheson lays great stress on affability, on the one hand, and authority
on the other:

He should in no way be offensive or scandalous in his living and conduct, for

commonly thegreatest contempt arises from that...
Affability is considered a most favoured and rewardingvirtue by people in all
ranks: a director, then, should strivefor it.13

10. Mattheson/Harriss, 249-251. Mattheson/Reimann, 100-101.

11.Mattheson/Harriss, 258. 'ein Componisi mu? sich auch des Spielens besteigen, und so viel m?glich,
nicht nur sein Ciavier, oder anders Haupt-Instrument, sondern auch andre gebrauchlichste Kling-Zeuge in der
Macht haben, oder weinigstens ihre St?rcke und Schw?che vollenkommen kennen.' Mattheson/Reimann, 105.
12. Gotwals, Haydn, 63. 'Ich war auf keinem Instrument ein Hexenmeister, aber ich kannte die Kraft and
die Wirkung aller; ich war kein schlechter Klavierspieler und S?nger, und konnte auch ein Konzert auf der
Violine vortragen.' Griesinger, Notizen, 119.
13. Mattheson/Harriss, 864. 'Er soll mit seinem Leben und Wandel keinerley Weise anst?ssig oder ?rger
lich fallen, weil daraus gemeiniglich die h?chste Geringachtung entstehet ... Die Freundlichkeit h?lt man in
allen St?nden f?r eine sehr beliebte und eintr?gliche Tugend: derselben soll sich denn auch ein Director aller
dings beflei?igen.' Matthesson/Reimann, 480.

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 Becoming a complete Kapellmeister 33

Affabilitywas continuallyevident inHaydn's dealingswith hismusicians at

the Esterh?zy court, his willingness to serve as a godparent, the circumstances
surrounding the composition of the 'Farewell' symphony, the acquisition of the
sobriquet Papa Haydn, and so on; while the latter, authority, was enshrined in the
third clause of his first contract which
emphasizes the need tomaintain some dis
tance between himself and his musicians:

... the said JosephHaydn shall abstain fromundue familiarity,fromeating and

drinking, and from other intercoursewith them so that theywill not lose the
respect that is his due but on the contrarypreserve it ...14

Diligence and a sense of duty are repeatedly stressed by Mattheson, culmi

natingon thevery lastpage of themain body of the treatiseina quotationfrom

Ecclesiasticus (fromtheApocrypha):A man, thoughhe has done his best, has
hardlybegun; and ifhe thinkshe has achieved it,thenthereis stilla longway to
go.'15 Haydn paraphrased these words, probably subconsciously, in a letter to

Breitkopf in 1799, thoughtheirsentiments

may have been instilledby repeated
readingofMattheson over theyears: God, howmuch is stilltobe done in this
splendid art, even by such a man as I have been!'16
Haydn, the devout Catholic, would readily have agreed with Mattheson, the
devout Lutheran, on the central purpose of music, to honour and praise God;
Haydn's habitual heading of his scores with 'In nomine Domine' and concluding
them with 'Laus Deo' find their equivalent inMattheson's key statement in the
Foreword that 'The goal of music is to praise God in the highest, with word and
Within thisact of praiseMattheson empha
deed, throughsingingand playing.'17
sises the quality of joy and the fundamental necessity that sacred music be
allowed to promote it:

We rightly ought to seek thewidest use of trulyjoyous music (yetwithout

excluding permittedpleasures) in thepraise of God and in ever-jubilantgrati
tude forhis all-embracing and innumerableblessings... God will receive no sad
offeringsand cannot admonish his people sufficientlyto rejoice.18

14. wird er Joseph Heyden all-besondere Familiarit?t, gemeinschaffi in essen, trincken, und andern
Umgang vermeiden, um den ihme geb?hrenden Respect nicht zu vergeben, sondern auffrecht zu-erhalten ...'
Joseph Haydn. Gesammelte Briefe und Aufzeichnungen, ed. D?nes Bartha (Kassel: B?renreiter, 1965), 42.
15.Mattheson/Harriss, 871. Mensch, wenn er gleich sein bestes gethan hat, so ists doch kaum ange
fangen; und wenn er meint, er habe es vollendet, so fehlet es noch weit.' Mattheson/Reimann, 484.
16. Quoted by Griesinger in his biography. Gotwals, Haydn, 65. Gott, wie viele ist noch zu thun in
dieser herrlichen Kunst, auch schon von einem Manne, wie ich gewesen!' Griesinger, Notizen, 122.
17. Mattheson/Harriss, 55. 'Das Ziel der Musik nun ist, durch Gesang und Klang, Gott auf das sch?nste,
th?tlich und m?ndlich zu loben.' Mattheson/Reimann, 'Vorrede', 21.
18. Mattheson/Harriss, 107. 'Den grossesten Nutzen einer recht freudigen Music sollen wir billig (doch
ohne Ausschliessung erlaubter Erg?tztlichkeiten) im Lobe Gottes und im stets-frolockenden Dancken f?r seine
umbegreifliche und unzehliche Wolthaten suchen... Gott will gar keine traurige Opffer haben, und wei? seinem
Volcke die Fr?ligkeit nicht genug anzur?hmen.' Mattheson/Reimann, 17-18.

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34 David Wyn Jones

The concluding sentence of this passage, a paraphrase of words from the Old
Testament, is strikingly reminiscent of Haydn's well-known remarks toDies:

Iprayed toGod not like a miserable sinner indespair but calmly, slowly. In this
I felt thatan infiniteGod would surelyhave mercy on his finite creature,par
doning dust forbeing dust. These thoughtscheeredme up. I experienced a sure
joy so confident thatas Iwished to express thewords of theprayer, I could not
suppressmy joy, but gave vent tomy happy spirits and wrote above themis
erere, etc. Allegro.19

Mattheson, too, has firm views on thewider, moral function of music, casti
gating those composers whose vocal and instrumental music is written without
such a purpose:

But somany [composers and critics] fail here, in thatpeople do not know their
own desires, never examine theirplans, and in thatmost vocal and instrumen
tal pieces are writtenwithout purpose or moral and laudable intent,even by
masters who desire greatness ...20

moral principles
Haydn toldGriesingerandDies thathe had oftenportrayed
in his symphonies, drawing attention to one, unspecified symphony thatwas a

dialogue between God and an unrepentant sinner:

In one of theoldest,which, however,he could not accurately identify,

"the dom
inant idea is of God speakingwith an abandoned sinner,pleading with him to
reform.But the sinner inhis thoughtlessnesspays no heed to theadmonition".21

Mattheson's early career inHamburg was as a singer. He made his debut on the
stage at the age of nine and maintained an active career well into his twenties.22 Not
surprisingly, the pages of Der vollkommene Capellmeister continually emphasize
the importance of knowledge of singing, not only for itsown sake as a performance

19. Gotwals, Haydn, 139; 'Ich bat die Gottheit nicht wie ein verworfener S?nder inVerzweiflung, sondern
ruhig, langsam. Dabei erwog ich, da? ein unendlicher Gott sich gewi? seines endlichen Gesch?pfes erbarmen,
dem Staube, da? er Staub ist, vergeben werde. Diese Gedanken heiterten mich auf, Ich empfand eine gewisse
Freude, die so zuversichtlich ward, da? ich,wie ich die Worte der Bitte aussprechen wollte, meine Freude nicht
unterdr?cken konnte, sondern meinem fr?hlichen Gem?te Luft machte und miserere etc. mit 'Allegro' ?ber
schrieb.' Dies, Nachrichten, 108.
20. Mattheson/Harriss, 111. 'Allein es fehlet hieran so viel, da? die Leute ihren eignen Willen nicht ken
nen, ihrVorhaben niemahls untersuchen, und da? die meisten Sing- und Spiel-Sachen, auch wohl bey gro?seyn
wollenden Meistern ... ohne Absicht, ohne moralische und l?bliche Absicht, hingeschrieben werden
Mattheson/Reimann, 20.
21. Gotwals, Haydn, 62; 'Er erz?hlte jedoch, da? er in seinen Symphonien ?fters moralische Charaktere
geschildert habe. In einer seiner ?ltesten, die er aber nich genau anzugeben wu?te, ist "die Idee herrschend, wie
Gott mit einem verstockten S?nder spricht, ihn bittet sich zu bessern, der S?nder aber in seinem Leichtsinn den
Ermahnungen nicht Geh?r giebt.'" Griesinger, Notizen, 117. The symphony in question has not been identified;
the slow movements of Nos. 26 and 28 are likely candidates; see Richard Will, 'When God met the sinner, and
other dramatic confrontations in eighteenth-century instrumentalmusic', Music and Letters 78 (1997), 194-196.
22. Hinrichsen and Pietschmann, 'Mattheson', col. 1333.

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 Becoming a complete Kapellmeister 35

art, but as something that fundamentally informs good composition. The following
quotations are representative ofmany that could be quoted. Two simple injunctions,
must singproperly'('Allesmu? geh?rig singen') and 'Allplaying is
'Everything
only an imitation and accompaniment of singing' ('Alles Spielen istnur eine Nach

ahmungundGeleite des Singens'),23and,at greaterlength:

ifa composer does not have a beautiful voice, he must nonetheless understand
thoroughlythenature and the truecharacter of singing and must always mod
ulate mentally when composing.24

Haydn's formative years, too, were dominated by singing, in the ritual of the
Catholic church at Hainburg, themore lavish one in St Stephen's inVienna, as a
pupil and assistant of Porpora and as a freelance singer at theHabsburg court and
St Stephen's. His contract with the Esterh?zy family required him to teach the
singers, a duty thatmust have been an almost daily one when opera dominated
his life from the late 1770s to 1790. Mattheson's treatise has several practical
hints thatHaydn himself might have employed as a performer and teacher: on
breath control, posture, dynamic control, optimum disposition of a choir (placing
thebest singersin themiddle, not at theside), thevirtuesof avoiding a midday
meal, the usefulness of fennel tea, and formen, but not women, recommending
moderate consumption of beer to increase the power of the voice.25
Like Mattheson,Haydn considered singingto be a key part of composition:
c. 1760 he advised his pupil Robert Kimmerling to studyGaluppi's opera //
mondo roversa 'on account of its good
alla lyricism' ('propter bonum canta
bile')26 and forty years later in a conversation reported by Griesinger comment
ed that 'so many musicians now composed who had never learned to sing.

"Singing must almost be counted among the lost arts, and instead of song they
let instruments dominate.'"27
Mattheson's coverage as a writer is a wide one, from tricks of theKapellmeis
ter's trade, through abstract musical theory to lengthy, often repetitive discussion
of theresponsibilitiesof thecompleteKapellmeister tohis art,and disquisitions
on the central purpose of music. He was a well-read, erudite man brought up in
the literatecultureofNorthGermany and had high expectations,even idealistic
ones, about the general education of a Kapellmeister:

23. Mattheson/Harriss, 82, 209; Mattheson/Reimann, 2, 82.

24. Mattheson/Harriss, 257. 'Indessen, wenn ein Componist eben keine sch?ne Stimme h?tte, so mu? er
doch nichts destoweniger die Natur und das rechteWesen des Singens gr?ndlich verstehen, umd allemahl beim
Setzen inGedancken moduliren.' Mattheson/Reimann, 105.
25. Mattheson/Harriss, 239-247; Mattheson/Reimann, 94-99.
26. Annotation by Kimmerling on the score. Robert N. Freeman, 'Robert Kimmerling: a Little-known
HaydnPupil',HaydnYearbook13 (1982), 147, 178.
27. Gotwals, Haydn, 61. 'Er tadelte es auch, da? jetzt so viele Tonmeister komponiren, die nie singen ge
lernt h?tten; "das Singen sey beynahe unter die verlornen K?nste zu rechnen, und anstatt des Gesanges lasse
man die Instrumente dominiren.'" Griesinger, Notizen, 114-115.

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 36 David Wyn Jones

Now as indispensable as it is for a theologian, lawyer,doctor and philosopher

to know the events of the church, law,medicine, and government; it is just as
essential that an honourable Capellmeister who aspires for perfection knows
thehistory ofmusic thoroughly.28

Thetreatise itself amply demonstrates Mattheson's knowledge of music his

As
tory. well as drawing on first-hand experience of themusic of theNorth German
Baroque, Bach, Buxtehude, Handel and Telemann, he is familiar with themusic
of the French Baroque, Campra, Cl?rambault, Lully and Rameau, and the Italian
Baroque, Corelli andVivaldi. His knowledgeofwritingsonmusic is evenmore
impressive, quoting Aristotle, Cicero and Homer, Doni, Luther and Zarlino, as
well contemporary writers. Throughout he freely demonstrates his ability to read
inEnglish, French, Greek, Italian and Latin as well as his native German. In total,

during the course of the treatise Mattheson refers to over 250 authors.
All thismust have daunted theyoungHaydn, even if italso impressedhim.
His own general education was poor and he was never to acquire that command
ofmusic historythatMattheson thoughtappropriate;his own librarylistsonly 30
or so published itemson music, all fromtheeighteenthcentury.29At the same
time reading Mattheson's treatise would surely have made Haydn aware of a his
torical inheritance thatwas not only different from his own but much wider and

deeper, too.
Within this intellectual outlook, there is one aspect ofMattheson's personali
tyas revealed inDer vollkommeneCapellmeister thatwould have been of little
or no interest to the young Haydn inVienna, Eisenstadt and Eszterh?za but which
was to become central to his personality in the 1790s. Mattheson was a passion
ate Anglophile. In his mid-twenties, when he first suffered problems with his
hearing, he began to pursue a career as a teacher and secretary. He was engaged
by the English ambassador, JohnWich, as a tutor for his nine-year-old son, Cyril;
early in 1706 Mattheson became the ambassador's official secretary, a position
he was to hold until 1741. He regularly wrote diplomatic reports inEnglish, occa
sionally French, thatwere forwarded to the court of St James in England and, in
effect, he became the English ambassador's eyes and ears inHamburg. At the age
of 27 hemarried anEnglish girl,CatherineJennings.30
His knowledgeofEnglish
and England extended to some knowledge of itsmusic, in a way thatwas unusu
al in continental Europe. InDer vollkommene Capellmeister Mattheson describes
the characteristics of English Country Dances and what he calls Scottish region

28. Mattheson/Harriss, 122. 'So unentbehrlich nun einem Gottes- Rechts- Arzeney- und Welt-Gelehrten
ist,die Kirchen- Rechts- Heilungs- und Staats-Begebenheiten zu wissen; eben so unumg?nglich mu? ein recht
schaffender und vollenkommenseyn-wollender Capellmeister die Geschichte der Music inne haben/ Matthe
son/Reimann, 27.
29. See the catalogue of Haydn's music library transcribed in Landon, Haydn: The Late Years, 299-320.
30. Hinrichsen and Pietschmann, 'Mattheson', cols. 1333-1334. See also Melton, 'School, Stage, Salon', 89.

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 Becoming a complete Kapellmeister 37

al dances; the latter he describes as being available in 'whole books' ('ganze

B?cher'),31 a burgeoningfashionforall thingsScottishthat
Haydnwas toengage
with in the 1790s and early 1800s.
In the lengthy chapter on canon, over twenty pages, Mattheson quotes an
example attributed to the English Renaissance composer William Byrd, setting
the text 'Non nobis Domine'.32 Irmgard Becker-Glauch was the first to point out
that thismay have been Haydn's source for the text for his own a cappella set
ting, since it is virtually unknown in the Catholic liturgy of the time.33
Mattheson notes with approval thatWilliam Byrd had a university degree in
music, a Baccalaureus Musices, a long-standing feature of musical life in Eng
land that gave itsmusicians a certain social and intellectual standing, a feature
that the author admires, even envies. In the foreword toDer vollkommene Capell
meister Mattheson laments the fact that German universities no longer teach
music and floats the idea of endowing a musical professorship in Leipzig. He
details on universityeducation inEngland:
gives further
There is a Lector Musices at Cambridge, as well as at theGresham College in
London. InOxford, there is to thisday a Professor inordinary.The rankof doc
tor costs 100 pounds. D. Croft,D. Green, D. Pepusch, D. Turner etc. are well
known and famousmembers of thisorder.34

Haydn was immensely proud of the doctorate that he was awarded by Oxford
using thetitlefortherestof his life.Partof that
UniversityinJuly1791, regularly
satisfaction may have been that in this respect, at least, he had emulated the
learned Mattheson.
One furtherEnglish feature of the treatise would have caught Haydn's atten
tion in the 1790s.Mattheson's commandof theEnglish languagewas such that
he was an avid admirer of the poetry of JohnMilton, referring to him as 'incom

parable' ('unvergleichlichen'), an estimation that reflected his venerated status in

England, which exceeded that of Shakespeare at the time. In the section entitled
'The Origin of Song' ('Ursprung des Gesanges') Mattheson invokes Milton's
Paradise Lost to expound his central view of the divine nature of singing, the role
of the holy angels as musicians, and the perfect nature of such singing inParadise
before the Fall. This passage leads to two substantial quotes from Book V of
Paradise Lost, inMattheson's own German translation and with the original

English infootnotes:

31. Mattheson/Harriss, 223; Mattheson/Reimann, 92.

32. Mattheson/Harriss, 757; Mattheson/Reimann, 409.
33. Irmgard Becker-Glauch, 'Neue Forschungen zu Haydns Kirchenmusik', Haydn-Studien 2/3 (1970), 225.
34. Mattheson/Harriss, 67-68. 'Zu Cambridge ist ein Lector Musices, so wie imCollegio Greshamensi zu
Londen. In Oxford aber ein ordentlicher Professor bis diesen Tag. Die Doctor-W?rde kostet 100 Pfund. D.
Crofts, D. Green, D. Pepusch, D. Turner &c. sind bekannte und ber?hmte Glieder dieses Ordens.' Mattheson/
Reimann, 'Vorrede', 28.

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 38 David Wyn Jones

What prevents us from thinkingthat the firstmen, in the state of innocence,

praised God with singing and playing a thousand times better than after the
Fall? What prevents us from relatingwith Milton,
Lowly theybowed adoring, and began
Their Orisons, each Morning duly paid,
In various Style: forneither various Style
Nor holy Rapture wanted they to praise
Their maker. In fit Strains pronounced or sung,
Unmeditated, such promptEloquence
Flow'd from theirLips in Prose or numerousVerse,
More tuneable thanneeded Lute or Harp
To add more Sweetness. And they thusbegan &c
These are Milton's words ...

What wrong do we commit ifwe describe, with thiswriter, the holy celebra
tion of the seventh day, inwhich Adam surely participated, and the circum
stances ofwhich he must have known?
Now restingbless'd and hallow'd the seventhDay,
As restingon thatDay from all His Work.
But not in silence holyKept. The Harp
Had Work and rested not, the solemn Pipe
And Dulcimer, all Organs of sweet stop
All Sounds on Fret by String or goldenWire
Temper'd softTunings, intermixedwith Voice
Choral or unison. Of Incense Clouds
Fuming fromgolden Censers hid theMount,
Creation and the six Days Acts they sung:
Great are Jehova, infinite
thyWork,
Thy Power &c35

These observations lie at the very heart of the aesthetic of Haydn's Creation,
articulated in a way that the composer would have appreciated, not least be
cause they acknowledge the English inheritance of thework. Although the por

35. Mattheson/Harriss, 42. 'Was hindert uns denn zu dencken, da? die ersten Menschen, im Stande der
Unschuld, Gott weit mehr, und tausendmahl besser, mit Gesang und Klang gelobet haben, als nach dem Fall.
Was hindert uns mit Milton zu erzehlen, "wie man niedergekniet, angebetet, und alle Morgen das schuldige
Danckopffer, immer auf ver?nderte Art und Weise, dem Sch?pfer gebracht habe? wie es an dieser abwechseln
den Geschicklichkeit zu reden, zu singen, zu spielen eben so wenig, als an heiliger Entz?ckung und Begierde,
Gott aus allen Kr?ften zu preisen, gefehlet; wie alles, ohne vorher darauf zu sinnen, auf die beredteste Manier
ausgedruckt oder abgesungen worden; welche fertige und herzbewegende Harmonien aus den Lippen geflos
sen, sowol in gebundenen, als ungebundenen Worten, die so sch?n geklungen, und so lieblich erschallet, da?
Lauten und Harfen die Anmuth nicht vermerhren k?nnen?" Sind Miltons Worte ...
Welch Unrecht thun wir, wenn wir mit vorbesagtem Verfasser, die g?ttliche Feier des siebenden Tages,
woran Adam ganz gewi? Theil genommen, und deren Umst?nde gewust haben mu?, also beschreiben? "Da?
zwar der Sch?pfer an solchem Tage von allen seinen Wercken geruhet; aber ihn nicht mit Stillschweigen gehei
liget habe. Die Harffe hat m?ssen arbeiten, und nicht unbespielet bleiben; die pr?chtigsten mit g?ldnen Saiten
bezogene Instrumente, auch die vom Winde getriebene, als Orgeln, Fl?ten, Dulcianen, haben klingen, und einen
auserlesenen Sing-Chor begleiten m?ssen, der sich in folgenden Worten hat h?ren lassen: Gro? sind deine
Wercke, Jehova, unendlich ist deine Macht &c."' Mattheson/Reimann, 13.

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 Becoming a complete Kapellmeister 39

tions of Milton that are quoted by Mattheson do not feature in the text of The
Creation, they lie next to several inBook V of the epic poem that do surface in
the oratorio.
Haydn was notoriously vague about the origins of the libretto, attributing it to
a non-person called 'Lidley'36 and being apparently ignorant about its textual ori

gins inGenesis, Milton's Paradise Lost and the Psalms. If Haydn did glance at
Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister in the late 1790s and early 1800s it
is difficultto imaginethathe would not have recognized the similarity
between
the librettothathe had recentlyset so fervently
and thepassages ofMilton that
are quoted,inGerman and English, in the treatise.
Haydn's rather dismissive remarks toDies about the value ofMattheson's Der
vollkommene Capellmeister coupled with the fact that it reflects a musical her
itage, theNorth German Baroque, thatwas not that of the composer have allowed
commentators to restrict its significance to the area of music rhetoric. From this
survey it is clear that there are many aspects of the treatise, beyond rhetoric, that
would have appealed to the composer.As scholarshipcontinues to refine the
nature of Haydn's musicianship and how it developed over the years, reading
Mattheson's treatise raises two broad issues that deserve consideration.
The first is the author's emphasis on vocal music and, more generally, the
vocality of all music. Haydn as the father of instrumental music is an ail-too
familiar trope, and though it emerges during the composer's own lifetime, in the
writings of Charles Burney and in the early biographies of Griesinger, Dies and
Carpani, for instance, the composer himself never elevated his instrumental
music above his vocal music. Earlier, this essay referred toHaydn's activities as
a singer, teacher of singing and director of opera. The evidence is easily contin
ued: he thought highly of his operas, Lisola disabitata and Armida, regarded The
Creation as his greatest work and told Griesinger 'that instead of themany quar
tets, sonatas, and symphonies, he should have written more vocal music.'37 This

disjunction between Haydn's historical legacy and the course of his own life
needs to be negotiated sympathetically to produce a more nuanced and multi
faceted view of the composer's development.
There are clear reasons why Fux and C. P. E. Bach have been given priority
over Mattheson in discussions of Haydn's development; the first reflects Haydn's
immediate heritage, the second helps to explain how he became an instrumental
composerof astonishingoriginality.While prioritizingthese twoauthorsover a
Mattheson,
third, has a rationale,it is also theproductof thattendencyinHaydn
biography tominimize the composer's general educational development and his
awareness of musical things beyond those of immediate relevance. Haydn obvi
and, given thathe seems
ously readDer volfammeneCapellmeister thoroughly
36. Gotwals, Haydn, 37-38; Griesinger, Notizen, 66.
37. Gotwals, Haydn, 63; 'er h?tte, anstatt der vielen Quartetten, Sonaten und Symphonien, mehr Musik f?r
den Gesang schreiben sollen', Griesinger, Notizen, 118.

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40 David Wyn Jones

to have owned a copy throughout his life, he may have read some or all of it at
various stages of that life, not only during his formative years. Awareness of the
music of the North German Baroque, the names of Bach and Handel, Renais
sancemusic treatisesand thepoetryof JohnMilton may not have been much
more thanthatinHaydn's earlyyears but some of theseaspects,notablyHandel
and, vicariously, Milton, became more central in later life, part of themusical and
aesthetic make-up of the man. Johann Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capell
meister is a vital resource in producing a richer image of Joseph Haydn, eine voll
kommene Person to sit alongside the complete Kapellmeister.

Studia Musicologica 51, 2010

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