Search - Franz Joseph Haydn, Peter Lukas, Tibor Parkanyi :: Hadyn Baryton Trios

Genteel Enlightenment

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 07/24/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) composed his 126 trios for baryton and other instruments expressly to gratify his patron Prince Miklos Esterhazy, who played the instrument himself. Esterhazy was one of the richest men in Europe in the 18th C, and one of the most lavish in his patronage of the arts. One has to imagine that Haydn wrote such music with two things in mind: the capabilities of his three players, one of them usually the Prince himself; and the proper 'affect' for music to suit a Prince of the Enlightenment. Thus the character of these pieces is as expressive of the milieu in which they were first heard as any paintings or poetry, costumes or architecture, or treatises on government and human society. In fact, these trios seem to me to be The Enlightenment made audible. They are stately, lovely, rational, symmetrical, dispassionate, and moderate. Neither emotional affect nor virtuosity is allowed to approach unseemly excess, since excess of any sort is tasteless and alarming to enlightened genteel ears.



The Enlightenment was principally an 'aristocratic' affair, you know. True, it eventually fostered the "Age of the Democratic Revolution" and the onset of Romanticism, and had 'enlightened gentlemen' like Miklos Esterhazy foreseen the course things would take, they might have preferred an 'Endarkenment'. Papa Haydn, of course, prowled the edges of the 'acceptable' throughout his musically adventuresome career. To associate him closely with 'Sturm und Drang' is highly misleading. Haydn's ideals of proportion and moderation are expressed in even his most innovative music, and it was the 'excessiveness' of the music of Beethoven and the onrushing romantics that distressed him. But if you want to experience the atmosphere of The Enlightenment, as enlightened gentlemen knew it, these hyper-elegant trios for baryton, viola, and cello will transport you there better than any time-machine.



The baryton itself was an instrument whose musical life-span was essentially limited to the Age of Enlightenment. You can see one in the photo on the cover of this CD. There are some thirty surviving barytons in museums around the world, most of them unplayable today; the actual baryton made for Esterhazy in 1750 exists in a museum in Hungary, in exceptionally good condition and playable on carefully selected occasions. Balazs Kakuk palys a modern reproduction on this CD. The baryton was essentially an extended viola da gamba, a fretted instrument played with bow. Typically it had seven or more gut strings to be bowed, but under those strings there were metal resonating strings, adding a distinctive timbre to the notes of the bowed strings. Resonating strings were the mark of the "d'amore" fiddles of all sizes, and have survived in the Hardanger fiddles of Norwegian folk music. In addition to the sympathetic strings, the baryton also had a set of strings under the neck of the instrument, which could be plucked by the thumb of the performer. That plucked-string sound, suggestive of a bass lute, is the special characteristic of compositions for baryton. The four trios selected for this CD all make ample and effective use of the plucked bass. In general, the baryton is the middle voice of these pieces; once you catch the unique sound it makes with its sympathetic resonance, you'll have no trouble distinguishing its lines from those of the cello.



Needless to say, there are not many career openings today for barytonists, however virtuosic, and thus not many really artful performers on the instrument. Ensembles that substitute a second viola or cello for the baryton are utterly misguided, and therefore really excellent recordings of these jewels of Haydn's oeuvre are rare. This CD, by three Hungarian musicians who might well be scions of the Habsburg Court, is one of the very best. Likewise, they've selected four of the most gorgeous of the trios, particularly #97 in D major, an ample masterwork of seven movements ending in a fugue. I recommend this CD especially to anyone who hasn't encountered Haydn's baryton music. But be careful! Baryton trios are addicting."