The VirTualHAYDNcomPleTe Works For solo keyBoarD - PDF document

The VirTualHAYDNcomPleTe Works For solo keyBoarD Tom BeGhin www.naxos.comwww.TheVirtualhaydn.com ayDn’s comPleTe Works For solo keyBoarD n seven historical keyboards, specially built by four renowned master-artisans, some unheard since aydn's time. n nine virtual rooms, precisely mapped and recreated from settings in which aydn’s music would have been played. one of today’s most thoughtful, sensitive, and eloquent performers.onatas and klavierstücke orks for eyboardeyboardist/musicologist eghin, record producer artha de rancisco, and acoustical architect ieslaw oszczyk have joined forces to apply “virtual acoustics” for the �rst time to a commercial recording of this magnitude: a complete recording of aydn’s works for solo keyboard. ore than fourteen hours of music are performed in nine “virtual rooms.” hese are actual rooms where aydn or a typical player of his keyboard music would have performed. hey have been acoustically sampled, electronically mapped, then precisely recreated in the recording studio. eatured rooms range from the most private to the most public, from aydn’s own study in his isenstadt home to the olywell xford, urther enhancing this unique experience of the aydn repertoire are the seven historical keyboards on which the music is performed. ll seven instruments, from a 1760s clavichord to a nglish grand piano, were built for this project by today’s leading artisans. hree of these—a harpsichord with an idiomatic “short octave,” a Tafelklavier, and a fortepiano with an early-stossmechanik—are world premieres. odern audiences can now hear these instruments again in the acoustical environments for which they were originally aydn’s “rince onatas” (1774), for example, the team sampled and mapped the acoustics of szterháza astle’s eremonial oom, where aydn would have presented his patron with a copy of the published sonatas. ack in the laboratories of the entre for nterdisciplinary esearch in echnology of the chool of usic at niversity (ontreal, anada), enveloped in a “sphere” of twenty-four loudspeakers, eghin performs these sonatas on a fresh-from-the-workshop rench double manual harpsichord he is “in” the eremonial we are sitting in the rince’s own chair. y contrast, we experience aydn’s sonatas for rincess sterházy, played on a ober square piano, in the intimate setting of a Prunkraum of ienna’s lbertina. r we embrace the more public eighteenth-century concert experience of the acoustically accurate yet virtual concert hall for a performance on a ongman, lementi & o. piano of the two concert sonatas that aydn wrote for the celebrated herese Jansen. happens through instruments, in rooms, by people. no repertoire celebrates this experience more than aydn’s keyboard works. his revolutionary recording project stands as a tribute to the timeless appeal of a composer whose life and career revolved around similarly experimental interactions with technologies and audiences.The VirTualHAYDN he three “pure audio” lu-ray discs (BD, BD BD 3) may be played without the use of a television screen by selecting the following commands on the lu-ray remote control: reD for 5.0 surround, yelloW for stereo, and to skip tracks. ProGram courinG oBiliy, c. 1755 - 1769. arpsichord Johann eydecker ) by artin ühringer (). oom, szterháza (ertöd).ProGram TWoQualiy Time,c. 1750 - 1772. lavichord in axon tyle (c. 1760by Joris otvlieghe ). “ive,” aydn’s ProGram Treec. 1755 - 1767.arpsichord Johann eydecker ) by artin ühringer (). piegelsaal, alace (ProGram FourhayDn’s orksc. 1760 - 1771. lavichord in axon (c. 1760) by Joris otvlieghe (). tudy, aydn’s ProGram Fiour erene hiGness!”(“Prince onatas,” 1774arpsichord in rench tyle (c. ) by ves eaupré (). eremonial oom, szterháza (ertöd).ProGram ore776onatas,” 1776).afelklavier ) by ). alle de nantes, hâteau amezay (ontreal).ProGram ual The Finesasers”(“uenbrugger isters onatas,”ortepiano nton ) by ). usic oom, szterháza (ertöd).ProGram hTers o a Prinonatas,” 1784). afelklavier ) by ). runkraum, lbertina ProGram ineViennese culure,ortepiano nton alter (after) by ). estsaal, obkowitz (ProGram TenonDon ene,1794-95.ongman, lementi & o. ) by ). olywell xford).PlayinG Thoom: TakinG o Te Virual hayDna documentary film directed by obert J. itz and Jeremy ViDeo Perormancariccio in aJor,cht auschneider müssen seyn,” hob. ii1765 sa in aJor, hob. (publ. Fanasia (caricc) in c aJor,hob. iiDaGio rom a in laaJor,hob. lleGro rom a in laaJor,hob. rix: nDanal clok, . xix:10 on seven instruments, in nine rooms, for a total of combinationsGallery: photos of instruments and rooms BDPureauDioBDPureauDioBDPureauDioBDhDViDeo TaBlecoTeTs ProGram necourinG oBilic. 1755 - 1769iennese harpsichord, salon of a noble householdz, erckmeister iiia in c aJor,ob. x1760lleGre3:39nDan8:27enue / Trio 1:14cariccio in aJor, cht auschneider müssen seyn,” ob. xVii1765tuning: quarter-comma meantone moDera8:43a in aJor, ob. x (before 1765[no inDi6:30 menue / Trio 3:29a in laaJor, ob. x (c. 1762 moDera8:25 larGo 4:45 menueTrio 4:45a in aJor, ob. x (before 176510. anDan menueTrio 4:05Finale 2:10a in laaJor, ob. x (c. 1768 alleGromoDera8:21 aDaGio 9:3815.Finale:Pres4:47enDix aDaGio rom a in laaJor, ob. x, "as written" chorD ann eyDeker, ienna, , by artin ühringer, aslach, oom, száza, ertödarthélemy llivier,le thé à l’anglaise, dans le salon des quatre glaces, au Temple, avec toute la cour du prince de conti, écoutant le jeune mozart, oil on canvas, 1766ouvre, aris) ProGram TWoQualiy Time c. clavichord, music room of an upper middle-class householdz, adjusted irnberger iiia in c aJor, ob. x (c. 17.lleGro 3:04nDan3:4719.enueTrio 3:08a in aJor, ob. x (before 176020.lleGro 6:03inue / Trio 4:25DaGio 3:57Finale:lleGromol2:50a in aJor, ob. xVii (c. emaVar4:1225.enue0:5426.Finale 2:03a in aJor, ob. x176027.oDera5:03enueTrio 3:5329.Finale:Pres3:08a in laaJor, ob. x (c. 30.lleGro moDera8:39oDera10:02a in inor, ob. x (c. oDera9:34lleGre5:08clachorD in axon sTyle, c. 1760, by Joris otvlieghe, ollembeek, oom e,” hayDn’s house, ugust osmaesler, engraving in ranz eydelmann, sechs sonaten für zwo Personen auf einem claviereipzig, ProGram Treec. 1755 - 1767iennese harpsichord, private room of a noble householdz, erckmeister iiia in c aJor,ob. x (before 1760lleGro moDera1:3235.enue / Trio 3:03Finale: lleGro 1:41a in aJor,ob. x1760s)37. alleGro moDera7:33 menue / Trio 4:4039.(Finale):Pres3:44ariaions in aJor, ob. xVii (before 176740.enue) / Var. xx16:30a in aJor, ob. x (before 1760 alleGro 4:32inueo / Trio 2:58Finale:Pres2:17a in inor, ob. x (c. 1765 aDaGio 4:2645. alleGro 46.Finale: Temenue3:55a in laaJor, ob. x176647. moDera11:49 anDan6:2349.Finale: lleGro Di mol4:34 chorD ann eyDeker, ienna, , by artin ühringer, aslach, ieGelsaal, ázy Palae, ean-honoré Fragonard, la leçon de musiqueoil on canvas, 1765ouvre, aris) ProGram FourhayDn’s orksc. 1760 clavichord, aydn’s studyz, erckmeister iiia in c aJor,ob. x (before 176050.oDera3:39enue / Trio 3:29Finale: Pres3:05a in aJor,ob. x1767moDera8:51 anDan6:4355.Finale: lleGro assai 3:46ariaions in laaJor, ob. xVii moDerao / Var. xii13:52a in F aJor, ob. x (before 176057. alleGro 2:34 menuerio 3:1159. scherzo: (lleGro) 0:52a in aJor, ob. x (before 176060. alleGro 2:38 menue0:52 anDan1:15 alleGro 0:42a in c inor, ob. x moDera12:0365. anDanon mo7:35 alleGro 4:43 clachorD in axon sTyle, c. 1760, by Joris otvlieghe, ollembeek, uDy, hayDn’s house, uttenbrunn, Portrait of Joseph haydn, oil on canvas, aydn-aus, chorD in FrenchsTyle, c. , by ves eaupré, ontreal, ceremonial oom, száza, ertödnonymous, Portrait of Prince nicolaus esterházy i oil on canvas (aydn-aus, ProGram Four erene hiGness!” 1774double manual harpsichord, szterháza eremonial z, arca (as o Prinolaus ázy (urzBök, 1774a in c aJor, ob. xlleGro 10:18DaGio 6:29Finale: Pres3:17a in aJor,ob. x alleGro moDera8:35 anDan7:14Finale: Temenue3:57a in F aJor, ob. x[no inDi5:33 aDaGio 8:30Finale: Pres4:21a in aJor, ob. x10. alleGro 7:19 aDaGio 3:11Finale: Pres2:40a in laaJor, ob. x moDera7:25Temenue2:44a in aJor, ob. x15. alleGro moDera11:03 menueio / Trio [al 2:5017.Finale: Pres0:56enDi aDaGio rom a in F aJor, ob. x), without repeats4:2419. menueio – Trio [al rom a in aJor, ob. x, “prima vista”1:5720. iDem, “techno”1:28 Taelklaier oBer, ienna, , by aene, uiselede, es, ceau amezay, ontrealFigures from The Gallery of Fashion vol. ictoria and lbert useum, ProGram ore 1776square piano, “far away” locationz, as nno 776a in aJor,ob. x1776 before)lleGro on Brio6:20enue / Trio4:49Finale: Pres3:22a in laaJor,ob. x1776 before)lleGro moDera7:4025. menue / Trio5:0326.Finale: Pres3:57a in F aJor, ob. x177427. moDera9:32 aDaGio29.Temenue4:24a in aJor, ob. x1776 before)30. alleGro6:01 aDaGio1:28Temenue: canaBile / Var. – V7:36a in aJor, ob. x1776 before) moDera alleGre3:1335.Finale: Pres2:36a in minor, ob. x1776 before) alleGro moDera7:2137. menue / Trio4:22Finale: Pres3:45 ProGram ual The Finesasers” iennese fortepiano with “stoss”-action, formal salonz, as Tharina anD arianna uenBruGGer (aria, a in c aJor, ob. x39.lleGro on Brio6:2140.DaGioFinale: lleGro3:08a in c-sinor,ob. xmoDera8:33 scherzanDo: lleGro on Brio3:45 menue: oDeraa in aJor, ob. x45. alleGro on Brio4:2846. larGo e sosenu2:5347.Finale: Preso ma non ro3:27a in laaJor, ob. x alleGro moDera8:2249. aDaGio4:1650.Finale: lleGro3:45a in aJor, ob. x alleGro on Brio5:07 aDaGio8:07Presissimo3:23a in c inor, ob. x alleGro moDera12:2955. anDanon mo4:08Finale: lleGro4:47 ForsToss), ienna, , by aene, uiselede, oom, száza, ertödFrançois equevauviller, l'assemblée au concertcolored etching and engraving after a painting by niklas afrensen the ounger, late century ProGram hTers o a Princ. square piano, private salon of a noblewomanz, Variaions in c aJor,ob. xViiema: nDane / Var. - V7:00a in minob. x (c. Pres aDaGioe mol(innocentemente)3:22Three as riness marie esázy (Bossler, a in aJor, ob. x alleGreo e inno8:11Pres3:25a in laaJor, ob. x alleGro6:39 alleGro Di mol2:39a in aJor, ob. x anDanressione9:4410.e assai3:08enDix alleGreo e innorom a in aJor, ob. x, “prima vista”8:19sinGleiea in D aJor, ob. x (c. 1772-73lavichord in axon tyle, c. , by Joris otvlieghe, ollembeek, - “ive,” aydn's ouse, alleGro 7:13 aDaGio 4:53Temenue4:04 Taelklaier oBer, ienna, , by aene, uiselede, Prunkraum, lBerina, ngelica auffmann, Das lesende mächen, drawing, erdinandeum, ProGram nineViennese culure iennese fortepiano with “prell”-action, formal music salonz, Fanasia (“cariccio”) in c aJor,ob.xVii15.res7:08a in laaJor,ob. x for arianne von Genzinger ( alleGro10:2017. aDaGio e aBile8:39Finale: Teminue4:15Variaa”) in F inor, ob. xVii for arbara von loyer (19. anDana in laaJor, ob. x for agdalena von urzböck (rtaria, tuning: quasi-equal, 20. alleGro9:22 aDaGio7:19Finale:Pres6:40sinGleiea in c aJor, ob. xreitkopf, ortepiano nton alter, c. , by aene, (from the collection of niversity) - alle de nantes, hâteau amezay, ontreal anDanressione 8:48onDo: Pres4:18 Forer (Prell),ienna, after , by aene, uiselede, saal, Palais oBkoWiz, carl chütz, ansicht des kohlmarkts, colored etching and engraving, rtaria, arlsplatz, ProGram TonDon ene nglish grand piano, concert hall and drawing roomz, PreluDe in c aJor, from appendix to the Fifth edition of clementi’s introduction to the art of Playing on the Piano Fortep. 25.lleGro0:21a in c aJor,ob. x (probably ) for herese Jansen26. alleGro8:3527. aDaGio5:52 alleGro mol2:42a in aJor, ob. x (probably ) possibly for alle de nantes, hâteau amezay, ontreal29.nDan5:0730.Finale:Pres1:56a in laaJor, ob. x) for herese Jansen alleGro9:30 aDaGio7:00Finale:Pres6:42aDaGio in aJor, ob. x (in or before aDaGio ma non rocoDaVariaions in aJor on “Gott, erhalte ranz den aiser!” ob. iii35.Poo aDaGio / Var. 6:36 onGman, clemeni & co., ondon, , by aene, uiselede, (from the collection of alcolm holyWell oom, xfordnton hickel, William Pitt addressing the house of commons (national ortrait Gallery, comPoser, hisDeDicaTeeherinsTr, Theirroomome �fteen years ago, when �rst planned to study and eventually record “the complete aydn keyboard sonatas” or “oboken x,” was very much a child of my times. s a graduate student at niversity during the ozart icentenary, watched my mentors plunge into similar “complete” recording projects. mbarking on one of my own, so thought, would not only be personally satisfying but would also earn the approval of a professional community to which aspired to belong. his was to be my “master work,” not in a romantic self-glorifying way, but in the eighteenth-century sense of being accepted to a guild. ith this lu-ray set submit my overdue report. f it weren’t for the aydn icentenary of , might still be contemplating the project’s concepts and definitions. ut as the ear approached, began collaborating with masters from other disciplines—researchers, professionals, craftsmen. t is with two of these—artha de rancisco and ieslaw oszczyk, both colleagues at niversity—that, in 2007, we finally recorded some fourteen hours of music over a marathon of four months.he project is still very much about aydn, but it has become about so much more. hese discs challenge all conventions of performing, recording, and listening, and introduce new paradigms. he most spectacular of these is “virtual acoustics,” the technological feat of transporting oneself to a different acoustic environment, turning the recording studio into the room of one’s choice. n addition, there are the historical instruments built especially for this project, some not heard or played since the eighteenth century; a fresh awareness of socio-cultural contexts and rhetoric, scholarship directly shaping live performances; and finally, recording and mixing techniques applied to a classical music commercial release with new and fascinating results.Per exemlum16, 20071:00 p.m. board the ferry in alais, bound for over. ragments of a letter from aydn to his dear friend arianne von Genzinger keep invading my thoughts:after attending holy mass, i boarded the ship, at 7:30 a.m. [on new ear’s ay , and at p.m., God be thanked!, i arrived safe and sound in Dover. […] During the entire passage i stayed on deck, so as to gaze my fill at that mighty animal, the sea. as long as there was no wind, i wasn’t afraid, but as the wind grew stronger and stronger, and i saw those frighteningly high waves slamming into the ship, a little fear took hold of me, along with a little nausea. But i survived it all without… you know, and arrived safely to shore. (January 8, 1791ike aydn, for most of the one-and-a-half-hour journey, too stayed on deck. he purpose of the trip: to bring a ongman, lementi & o. piano from its present elgium back to ngland, specifically to xford’s olywell oom, urope’s oldest concert hall.” ur task: to sample the room—that is, to take many acoustical snapshots of it—and make a reference recording of the instrument, positioned in recital-style, on the stage, lid up. he piece played was aydn’s “grand” -flat onata no. , written for the ondon-based, professionally trained pianist herese Jansen, pupil of the “ather of the (modern) iano,” lementi. o further transport myself into an appropriate concert mood, invited a few ritish guests, seated at an appropriate distance on built-in benches. (BD for a video recording of this event.)ith this information—digital data on our hard drives as well as vivid memories of the actual performance experience—our team flew back home to ontreal, anada. here, in the heart of the city, in a laboratory on the eighth floor of the chulich chool of usic, the new home of cGill’s entre for nterdisciplinary esearch in echnology (cirmmT), we replicated everything. hus, sitting at replica of the same ongman, lementi & o. grand, in a three-dimensional “dome” of twenty-four loudspeakers, play were in the olywell oom, ever so conscious of the acoustical spaciousness that surrounds me. s microphones pick up the sounds of the piano, the computer makes the fastest of calculations, sending reverberation responses identical to those in xford through the loudspeakers. ith the confidence expected of a recitalist, project those grand opening chords into a virtual hall (BD, track ). hen, as play those repetitions in the higher register, dropping silences in between, actively engage with the acoustical feedback, which complements those lazily dampened, resonant though somewhat muf�ed nglish tones amazingly well. hrough those moments of “staged” hesitation, assert my authority as a professional performer, at the nglish instrument, in a virtual concert space, with an imaginary audience.hTDeoloGyrguably no other classical “repertoire” has suffered more under the modern ideology of “musical works” than aydn’s works for solo keyboard. n spite of genuine efforts by individual scholars and performers these fifty-plus works have largely remained in the shadow of those by his younger colleagues ozart and eethoven. he one big exception is onata no. . hy?nowadays, when we speak of a “sonata by aydn,” we think first and foremost of a musical score to which we gain access through performing, listening, or, if one feels up to it, simply looking at it. ut none of these activities is considered an unfiltered, direct line to the true identity of the work, whose idealized “perfect” proportions dazzle us for reasons that keep warranting more study and interpretation. t is from this “imaginary museum of musical works” (ydia Goehr) that musicians borrow scores—reflections of “the work”—to be shared with their audiences. recent reviewer of a piano recital, which included no fewer than two aydn sonatas, describes the pianist as “turning to the audience with a smile after the final chord, as if to say, ‘Quite a masterpiece, don’t you agree?’” (ncidentally, the piece in question was not a aydn sonata, but one by ozart.) ll too often, the communication between performer and listener begins and ends with this tacit agreement.onsider the particulars of “aydn in ondon.” xford only because the anover quare ooms, whose acoustics aydn was intimately familiar with, simply don’t exist anymore. (aydn did, incidentally, make it to xford: he received his onorary octorate on July 8, 1791, just one block away from olywell treet in the heatre.) t �rst glance, we �nd ourselves relating to herese Jansen’s gratitude upon receiving a score from aydn (that great composer from ienna, that bastion of lassical usic), her eagerness to learn the piece (whether it’s the anover quare all, the only way to get there was and is through practice), and her ambition to deliver it on stage (every note exactly as written). ut, as we look closer, we begin to realize that, having traveled from ienna to ondon and now working for a new and unfamiliar market, aydn may have needed Jansen more than she needed him. aydn met herese, both lementi, two major �gures on the ondon scene, had already dedicated sonatas to her. ho better than la celebre signora Terese de (as aydn calls her in his manuscript) to advise the famous out-of-town guest on the possibilities of the nglish instruments (which were fundamentally different from the iennese ones) and to school him in the demands of a professional concert sonata (a design totally new to aydn)? aydn sonata is no. ajor, also for Jansen.fter composing the sonata in “expressly for rs. artolozzi” (herese went on to marry the engraver Gaetano artolozzi, an event to which aydn was an of�cial witness), aydn apparently succumbed to the temptation of making the score available to a wider continental public, offering it to his rtaria in Jansen quickly took steps to release her own edition in by ongman, lementi ondon. ut aydn had re-dedicated the iennese edition to von urzböck. “t speaks well for the lady named on the title page that the honorable aydn, who surely has no inclination nor time to give empty compliments, has intended such a sonata especially for her,” the German reviewer of the allgemeine musikalische zeitung wrote on ay 15, 1799. o who is the true dedicatee: mademoiselle kurzbekrs. artolozzi? oth, incidentally, had strikingly similar pro�les—they were both in their mid-to-late twenties, both were accomplished players, both had studied or were about to study with maestro lementi. aydn the two simply may have been interchangeable. aving returned from ondon a celebrity and having just written ustrian anthem, aydn may no longer have felt the constraints of social decorum when it came to his business as a composer. never mind herese or adeleine, it’s sonata. ith the ienna print, aydn indeed seems to have endorsed, for the �rst time, a conceptual separation of context and “work.” rom a larger historical perspective, it seems no coincidence that this double edition occurred at a time when from various sides—publishers, biographers, secretaries—he was encouraged to start thinking about his legacy.o we start our account with a paradox. n no. aydn very much showed himself the master-orator who, much more clearly than ever before, was able to tailor his composition to a speci�c pianist, a speci�c piano, and a speci�c city. ondon with its generous opportunities for public speaking and performing must have inspired aydn to write in grand, broadly oratorical gestures—but also unambiguous ones, simple enough to be understood and appreciated by many at the same time in the same large room. et, this summum of rhetorical writing transcended its contextual origins to become a “work” that asserts its place in the anon and became a “must” in every aspiring pianist’s repertoire. ronically, perhaps because no. happened to be the last sonata aydn wrote, it became emblematic of a “iennese” iano) tyle.he same reviewer for the allgemeine musikalische zeitung stressed the sonata’s “grand, rich, and dif�cult” aspects. hese particular epithets eventually contributed to aydn’s earlier keyboard works being overshadowed by most of ozart’s and all of eethoven’s. , however, “rich,” “dif�cult,” or “grand” were not value judgments: they described concrete and socio-culturally determined aspects of the music, different, as the reviewer rightly observed, from anything aydn had written before. ow then to assess the majority of aydn’s keyboard oeuvre? learly, the onus is on us—performer, recording engineer, and listener.ocTmüssen sein!e recorded onata no. twice: �rst, showcasing its nglish roots (BD, tracks), then, in its iennese appropriation (BD, tracks ). he tuning systems used for each performance re�ect a similar shift from the speci�c to the generic. ngland, we used a “well temperament” by oung, as submitted to the oyal ienna, we bet on the future with Johann nepomuk ummel’s “easy and convenient” quasi-equal temperament of . (aydn recommended successor at the ourt.) he shock of an equal temperament—which comes across as bland after extended exposure to the various colors of unequal tunings—reminds us of another cultural prejudice: it is perfectly possible that listeners used to modern tuning will �nd our earlier temperaments shocking. t the other end of the spectrum, near the top of the complete set (BD, track ), stands a unique apriccio on the folk tune “cht auschneider müssen sein,” ob. xVii1765). tandardization—whether it relates to tuning, instrument, notation, rhetoric, or performance—is de�nitely not the keyword here. aydn scholarship has long known that three of his keyboard pieces—the ariations in ob. xViiBD, track ), the onata in ob. xBD, track ), and this apriccio—are impossible to play on a “regular” (chromatic) keyboard. nstead, they require one with a so-called “iennese short octave,” meaning that certain keys in the lowest register are divided into two or even three smaller parts. (he idiomatic constellation may be gauged from �g.riginally this design was an ingenious solution to an instrument maker’s problem: how to allow for more strings to be plucked (resulting in more notes being produced) within the con�nes of an existing construction. ut an interesting bonus for the keyboardist was the ability to grasp wider chords with her left hand. his is exactly what aydn exploits in the three named pieces. ut what scholarship has long ignored is that harpsichords with such a “multiple broken octave” were the norm in eighteenth-century ienna until well into the s. he keyboards we now consider normal—the fully chromatic ones—were then considered exotic: they were called “rench.” n edited volume by lfons ) put the eighteenth-century ustrian harpsichord back on the map and a few years ago artin ühringer �nished the construction of such an instrument (modeled on a eydecker, presently in the Joanneum in Graz) for our recording project. e play two full programs on it, not just the three “extraordinary” pieces.t takes eight to castrate a boar: two in front, two in the back, two to hold, one to bind, and one to make the cut.” (, lit. pig cutter or castrator porcorum, typically from ungau—the region of alzburg—was a professional skilled in the castration of cattle, pigs, and horses. ith one or two assistants, he traveled on foot from village to village, offering his services to farmers.) ith each repeat of the song the group thins out. he second verse starts with “t takes seven .” t the end only one remains, and he does the holding, the binding, and �nally—success!—the cutting. aydn’s apriccio it is quite possible to make the count: excluding the G ajor presentation of the tune at the outset, as well as two reminders of this home key through the course of the piece, there are exactly eight new beginnings. ur castrating adventures read as follows. t’s a narrator who �rst announces them in the home key of 00:00). e begin in a con�dent 00:35) but as we move up the circle of �fths, not towards major keys but to (01:28), (02:05), and 03:40), the dif�culties pile up, provoking some sarcastic comments by the narrator (03:08). e’re �ghting the devil, so it seems. (he remarkable chromatic sequence in 03:52 – 04:29, where voices move away from one another by just the smallest of steps, was known in music theory as Teufelsmühle or “devil’s mill.”) no point in trying any longer: we call a time-out in 04:29). s we change our tactics (triplets in the left hand, 04:32), we regain our con�dence. heered on by distinctive horn calls in a combative ), we slowly but steadily gain ground. ill we make it? narrator drops the question (06:08). leverness rather than force may be necessary: 06:20-�at 06:52). e now return to G 07:21) for the grand �nale. fter a few deep breaths the last remaining makes his move… gotcha! 08:06)! hen.… t this point invite the reader to look at the videotaped performance on BD. Just ask yourself the following question: if you were the player/composer and you had to choose a key on the keyboard (in the sense of the mechanical part) to represent... well, you know, something that needs to be cut, which would it be?his is slap-stick of the “purest” kind: aydn as r. ean—can it be? comic genius Joseph urz in ienna, aydn had once had to overcome his own inhibitions. ) tells us that, after trying out several ways to portray the “rising and falling waves of a storm, aydn became desperate and started to bang his hands mid-range on the keyboard and to move them up and down, fast and glissando.” aydn wasn’t so sure but “ernardon [as urz was known on the stage] was delighted and embraced him,” exclaiming “hat’s it, that’s it!” n another occasion aydn couldn’t keep his eyes off urz’ “studying” in front of a large mirror. e was “making all kinds of faces and contorting his hands and feet in the most ridiculous positions.” n the apriccio, suggest that we are the ones now observing aydn exercise in front of his mirror, practicing his old skills as a comic theater scorer. he connection through urz with the iennese tradition of answurst (the presence on stage of a character like r. ean) is more than tangential. Joseph tranitzky, urz’ godfather (both spiritually and in actual life), had copyrighted the �rst answurst as a alzburg peasant �rst worked my way through the apriccio on the new eydecker harpsichord, felt both silly and frustrated. he �rst verse—with the wide tenths in the bass—gave me lots of con�dence and pride, especially since ’d never tasted this kind of power on the keyboard before. ut increasingly, and culminating in a passage where my left hand is forced down over and over towards ever elusive octaves, felt painfully inadequate. hat happened? become one of those poor , an unsuspecting FiGure 1. Viennese mulTiPle-Broken cTahorT cTa F B CFGAG d f cdef bystander suddenly entangled in a busker’s act on some street corner of r, continued to analyze and practice my own bodily contortions over the next days, months, and years, did eventually turn the short octave “handicap” into an asset, thus becoming a stage-worthy answurst myself? his tension—a “before” and “after,” if you will—has informed many if not all interpretations on these discs. he dif�culty is this: often the recognition that aydn is taking us in—he’s the master-puppeteer—gives meaning to the very performance one is engaged in. nder the pressures of the modern concert stage (or the compact disc) this “meaning” often simply evaporates, unless (and this is a big unless) one �nds a way to hold on to it, even amplify it, and exploit it in a theatrical sense.o give another example: with the minuet “al rovescio” in onata no. 26BD, tracks aydn asks the performer to “read backwards” the very lines printed on the page. delightful task, in the privacy of one’s own music or living room, to be shared, even, with one or two household members who lean over your shoulder, comparing text and execution, but much more awkward when you’ve got some hundred concertgoers staring at you. o give meaning to such a speci�cally rhetorical moment requires the theatrical talent to “pretend” amusement or bewilderment (track ). r, one can take the matter one level deeper by carefully rehearsing an even more sophisticated rendition in which one’s ornaments (added by the performer) can also be executed backwards (track ). inally, we couldn’t resist putting aydn’s contrapuntal game to a sound-technology test: on track it is the computer that plays the sound �le of the minuet backwards, literally note-by-note.or the apriccio, we deliberately chose to tune the harpsichord in a quarter-comma mean tone temperament. his tuning, though referred to as the “old” system, was still explained in an iennese tuning manual. ertain extant organs or fretted clavichords con�rm that the temperament was used well into the eighteenth century. he unavoidable “wolf’s �fth” in our tuning is between -�at and G-sharp. he pain, as play my �rst -sharp, is excruciating. t’s not the howling of a wolf, but (enough with decorum!) the squealing of a pig.hough extant in manuscript (with the full title of the folk song written in aydn’s hand on the cover), the piece was eventually �rst published as a simple “aprice” (without further speci�cation) by rtaria only in , revised to eliminate the need for a short octave keyboard, which by that time had become obsolete. Just one year later, aydn offered for print another apriccio in ob. xVii, composed, as he wrote to rtaria, “during a most cheerful session” (was he nostalgic of those sessions with nardon?), once more based on a folk song, this time about a farmer, his wife, her cat, and its mouse. nterestingly, con�rming our physical analysis of the 1765 apriccio, aydn wrote the new capriccio as he familiarized himself with his brand new fortepiano (see below). (oth the apriccio and this “antesia”—as rtaria dubbed it—are offered on BD, to be viewed up-close.) hayDn Thra vividly remember a crisis. was two-thirds through an extended cycle of concerts featuring the aydn. nearing the end, was supposed to feel energized, happy to �nally reach my goal of grasping a repertoire. felt regret and dissatisfaction. he typical two-part process for a performer of today—preparation in the practice room, consummation in the concert hall—clearly didn’t apply.ncreasingly less concerned with surveying the repertoire as a whole, became intrigued by the creative forces behind individual pieces. ( dutifully �nished the series, but audience members—those who noticed—must have been puzzled by my experiments.) henever learned a new sonata, found myself trying with ever greater determination to enter aydn’s mind: why am playing this particular statement; what does it mean; what do want to achieve; how can best do so? his is exactly what eighteenth-century sources tell me to do. he ideal of composer and performer as one persona is strongly present in most treatises on performance, and especially in those on playing the keyboard, where it is readily assumed by the listener that the player is also the composer. ven if one plays pieces by someone else, as . ) urges his readers (including aydn in his formative years), one is called upon to perform them as if one had composed them oneselfonata in ob. xhas a beautiful, heart-rending BD, track ). owards the end of this movement, the keyboardist breaks out of an interiorized, melancholy mode, veering off into something that resembles a cadenza, one �nal outburst of passion before wrapping up the movement. his observation is useful in itself. allows me to “loosen up” and play aydn’s notated bars in a free, quasi-improvising manner. may even be grateful, since in contrast to comparable slow movements ofearlier sonatas (nos. 6 in G ajor, ajor, or -�at ajor), where aydn, by way of a customary fermata sign, had left it up to the performer to improvise, here ’m provided with material that bears his direct approval. ut ’m also faced with a dilemma. f a cadenza, as Quantz () observed, is supposed to “surprise the unsuspected listener one �nal time at the end,” then what to do in the repeat? (he eighteenth-century expectation, especially from a pro�cient player, would be that she’d play “something different” the second time.) o repeat aydn’s written-out cadenza would be to undermine my credibility as a musical orator, and, by extension, aydn’s. would literally be taking the surprise out of the surprise.o sidestep this dilemma we recorded this particular movement twice: once in a version that bears my own approval as performer-composer, where “simplify” the �rst run-through, saving aydn’s cadenza for the repeat (track ); and once “as written,” without any repeat (track ). t is my belief that, had aydn not prepared the movement for engraving on copper plates but for digitalization as performance on a compact disc (the latter being the socio-cultural equivalent of the former—much like jazz or pop recordings), he would have endorsed version one rather than version two. onata no. is the third of the onatas dedicated to rince nicolaus 1774), the �rst opus ever to appear in a printed edition authorized by aydn, not just of keyboard music. his special event, carried out in collaboration with Joseph dler von urzböck, imperial printer in ienna and father of agdalena (who grew up to become iennese dedicatee of onata no. ), must have carried psychological weight. aydn meticulously prepared the scores, paying careful attention to the notation of ornaments, both essential (marked by shorthand notation) and arbitrary (to be added by the performer). his focus led him to combine his own performative skills with his compositional goals, which more critically than ever before were made to cohabitate a single medium, that of the printed page. ith wider and more prestigious distribution on the horizon (previous sonatas had been distributed in handwritten copies through less controlled channels) and having to prepare a whole opus of sonatas (instead of single ones as before), aydn’s reputation was at stake as an all-round musical orator. not only inventio had to co-exist (those being the three stages involved in the preparation of a text: �nding ideas, ordering them, clothing them in words), actio (delivery; the �fth stage, with or memorization as the fourth) now claimed room for itself too. n other words: whatever aydn had done previously or asked his students to do in performance, now needed to be �rmly imprinted on the written page. his special event was to be aydn’s compact disc: a testimony of what he was capable of offering his rince, whom he praises in the preface as a true connoisseur of music. e performs for xcellency, not in the magni�cent szterháza eremonial oom, but on typeset plates, for the whole world to see.his performance is an ideal one. never mind the repeats. aydn at his best, at the one and only run-through. ut which do we record? he “ideal” or the “factual” version? ith or without repeats? pting for a live performance in the szterháza eremonial oom, we have “reconstructed” less ornamented versions in several sonatas (nos. ajor, ajor, ajor, ajor) for our �rst run-through, keeping the printed ornaments for the repeat. ith these surgical procedures aware might offend those who believe in “the score and nothing but the score.” ut my allegiance here is to my rights and obligations as composer-performer.n the 776uenbrugger sets aydn gradually reconnected with a context of live performance, no longer featuring himself or selected students, but increasingly the generic keyboard player. (aydn’s renegotiated contract with the sterházy court of of�cially cleared the way for out-of-court publishing.) lowly he resolved problems like the “cadenza” of the second movement of no.. o it is that, when in the slow movement of the onata in G ob. x: of BD, track ), he prescribes a real fermata again for the �rst time since pre-, he unambiguously indicates the need for a cadenza. ut then, rather than expecting the performer to come up with an extended improvisation of her own, he interpolates one. hat to do in the repeat? n his �rst collaboration with rtaria, a new and promising �rm in ienna, whose specialized music publishing targeted a growing market of players, aydn resolves the dilemma before it ever becomes one: he simply removes the repeat sign. o far have introduced one collaborator and three dedicatees: urz/ernardon (ob. xVii), rince ob. x: 21-26), herese Jansen and agdalena von urzböck (competing for ob. x: ). have no trouble identifying myself, �rst, with aydn (practicing in front of his mirror or performing one-on-one for the rince) and, then, with Jansen/ürzbock (performing for a larger iennese audience). ut the search for a single performing persona becomes more complex in the sonatas written and published between , all dedicated to women.ere’s the problem. ’m a professional, twenty-�rst century performer, trained in historical performance practices. ut a “master of music”—the historical equivalent of myself (or so wish)—would not have performed aydn sonatas; he (indeed masculine by overwhelming majority) might have been curious about them and studied them (at least those available to him, as they circulated through urope at a rate of three to six every three to �ve years), but his own merits as a professional would have been judged in the composition and performance of his own sonatas, or more prestigiously still, his concertos. ozart, teffan, or ozeluch come to mind as obvious examples. layers of aydn sonatas, by contrast, would have included students such as the nine-year-old artines or the ountesses orzin; his dear friend rau von Genzinger and nglish acquaintance ark; and dedicatees such as the accomplished von uenbrugger sisters (daughters of the well-known physician eopold von uenbrugger), the newly wed rincess sterházy, and Jansen/urzböck. rince nicolaus sterházy, the only male dedicatee, is excluded from this list: that aydn did not intend him as a player but as prime listener is clear from his preface, in which the kapellmeister praises his patron’s connoisseurship of music in general and his performing skills on the violin and the baryton in particular, but conspicuously not—for a set of keyboard sonatas—those on the keyboard. hus, apart from Jansen/urzböck (the only “professionals” in the list) and artines (the only child, who would grow up to become a master-composer herself), aydn’s clientele was overwhelmingly female, socially well-established (�nancially independent and with plenty of free time), and dilettante (the latter term applied here without pejorative ring but in the context of the general cultural and artistic development of a lady, which showed especially in her ability to play the keyboard).he model of “aydn the orator” needs re�nement. ometimes, aydn is not “orating,” but simply “communicating”—employing the rules of etiquette while interacting with people in real-life situations. (his is not to deny a personal or occasional element in the previous examples. n the contrary: what propose is to broaden the scope from oratory to rhetoric, the latter including the former but allowing for a much wider rangeof activities, both private and public.) ne of those people was the �fteen-year old rincess sterházy, née iechtenstein, recipient of three wonderful onatas ob. xprinted by . not long before, on 15, 1783, this youngest of the reigning iechtenstein family had wed the seventeen-year old nicolaus sterházy von Galantha, the future rince nicolaus ii and grandson of the reigning rince nicolaus . he title page of these “onatas” (�g. ) makes explicit reference to the wedding: the decorated oval at the bottom depicts an altarpiece with ceremonial �re, a sublimated version of the hearth. lmost certainly, the opus has to be understood as a wedding gift, a token of welcome by the kapellmeister (“your humble servant”) to a new member of the sterházy family. hereas the princely sonatas were announced in ian (the language of the music connoisseur), its title page suggesting the image of a cover of a learned book (�g. 2), those for the princess were presented in rench (the language of nobility, especially of women), with �owers and garlands adorning the frame of a painting, to be enjoyed rather than studied.ompare the opening of the onata in ob. xBD track ) and that of the onata in G ob. xBD, track ). eated at the most magni�cent harpsichord of the court (a rench double, perhaps, conforming to rince’s rench taste), aydn addresses rince with the utmost con�dence. e introduces his �rst thought, clear and logical, yet—conforming to the rules of oratory—in need of proof. e lifts his right hand as if asking his listener and himself: “s this true?” (00:07). switches to a different harmony (from tonic to dominant, 00:09), he sinks into a vast arpeggio, adopting an even graver tone of voice. he end of his opening statement, a deep four-voice chord 00:15), is spaced out in a most correct manner and punctuates a clear end of an equally clear period, the �rst of an assertive and learned three-movement oration, the second in a long series of six.now switch to a more intimate setting. ith eager anticipation, mother-in-law, governess, or music teacher by her side, the rincess puts her copy of sonatas on the desk of her delicate instrument (a iennese one, almost certainly a square). he starts playing. gentle flow of thoughts express themselves, on a tonic pedal, a touch of subdominant on a light part of the beat, a “je ne sais quoi”—is it a gentle look in the eye; a warm smile; a comforting, inviting gesture of the arm? he ideas are very simple—a three-voiced chord first opens up, then closes. arious melodic motifs—now slurred, then staccato, now with upbeat, then without—gently interact with one another to create an overall lilt of loosely punctuated commatadisarmingly innocent. larity is not at stake: in the fourth bar a pro-active left hand weakens a possibly clear mark of punctuation (00:09); towards the end of the first eight bars, the low in the bass reluctantly (but then graciously) gives in to what musical etiquette prescribes: closure on a half cadence (00:15hat we’re “reading,” suggest, is a musical letter, addressed to a lady-in-waiting, a reigning-princess-in-becoming. urious about arie’s personality (beyond well-known anecdotes about her public life at a later age, including her fond patronage of aydn), traveled to the rchives in udapest and found piles of largely unstudied documents: poems, musings, quasi-philosophical notes, abundant letters in her own hand as well as letters addressed to her. s read more—especially those letters directed to her close friend udovica eatrix, mpress and third wife of mperor ranz— was struck by similarities between Joseph’s sonata arie’s letters. ften arie’s letters start with a celebration of friendship—keen sentimental observations, having to do with the heart and emotion. hen, suddenly, without transition or logic, there’s a shift to an informative concluding part: a quick, upbeat, and gossipy report of some party or theater performance. his exact shift—from a long first part, twice involving variations, to a fast, short, and witty finale—we find in each of the sonatas. he model, clearly, is not that of a learned three-part oration, but the more private, conversational letter, a genre that women—as men readily acknowledged—excelled in. Judging by his own well-composed letters to female friends such as arianne von Genzigner, aydn had also mastered the genre.ut who’s speaking? s arie sterházy “imagining” Joseph aydn’s voice as she reads his letters, or is he lending his words to her, to be declaimed at some other occasion on her own terms? o find a possible answer, we must fast forward to the third and last sonata of the set, no. ajor. hile almost identical to ajor from a structural point of view, its tone and execution are much more “oratorical”—in the learned, public, indeed “male” sense—than . , is aydn perhaps setting an example? s he teaching his new pupil how to use to her advantage rehearsed oratorical principles and structures, skills that she might apply—however discreetly and with subtle humor—in her own public life as a rincess? ut if such master-pupil interactions exist through the course of this set of sonatas, how do “” show them in my “professional” rendition of them? o demonstrate my dilemma, yet again, ’ve recorded two versions of the llegretto e innocente of onata no. : a “professionalized” one, along the lines of aydn’s own example in no. (track ), and one “prima vista” (track ), literally “innocently,” as arie might have read aydn’s letter before learning from nos. FiGure 3. iTle aGe o marie sTerházy onaTas . xV:40-42), Bossler iTion, 1784FiGure 2. iTle aGe oicolaus sTerházy onaTas (. xV: 21-26), urzöck iTion, 1774 rumenctober 26, 1788,aydn writes to his publisher rtaria:in order to compose your clavier sonatas well ob. x, i was compelled to buy a new orte-piano. now, since you must have long been aware that from time to time even the learned are short of money, which is the case with me now, i must entreat you, sir, to pay gold ducats to herr Wenzl schanz, the organ and instrument maker, who lives on the leimgruben at the “Blauen schiff,” no. . i will repay these with thanks by the end of January next year aydn buying a new fortepiano to replace an older one, or is he �nally buying the new thing that everyone has been raving about? (lmost overnight, in the early s, ienna had become a center of fortepiano-building. good point of comparison, suggest, would be ilicon alley and the new personal computers of the hat exactly did he buy? hirty ducats would not have been nearly enough for a grand, but about right for a square. (he one ducat would have been for transportation, as ichard aunder revealed.)he traditional take is that of course aydn acquired a grand. he thought of the great composer being satis�ed with a square has never been seriously entertained. ut ’m not so sure. would not go as far as aunder who states that “almost certainly, aydn’s enzel chanz was a square,” would not be offended if it were. nterestingly, when it comes to identifying the “chanz fortepiano” that aydn advised his friend arianne von Genzinger to acquire, scholars have been more accepting of the fact that it might have been a square. his correspondence—of great signi�cance also for the premise of our recordings—has been widely discussed in the literature.fter sending the onata in -�at ob. xBD, tracks ) to rau von Genzinger, aydn explains, “ know ought to have arranged this sonata in accordance with your kind of keyboard [clavier; from a few sentences before it is clear that harpsichord is meant], but found this impossible because am no longer accustomed to it” (June 27, 1790). aydn bought a new piano in the fall of , celebrating his purchase arch of with a new antasy ob. xViiBD, track ), then it makes sense that he can’t go back. (nce computer literate, dusting off the old typewriter isn’t an option anymore.) ut aydn is clearly embarrassed. he etiquette of writing a piece for someone required taking into account the type of instrument the person owned. aydn’s quite drastic solution is to convince rau von Genzinger to buy a chanz herself. hat’s exactly what he tries, over and over, through his subsequent letters—and he succeeds. rince sterházy himself decides to donate a piano on aydn’s behalf, through eter von Genzinger, a physician at the sterházy court. he special triadic relationship of composer, dedicatee, and instrument was dissolving; it took aydn’s best diplomatic efforts to restore it. ut the question still remains: what instrument did aydn want her to have? Genzinger was not a professional like ozart, who bought his alter grand inthen used it in all his subsequent academies. quares were no less a status symbol than grands: in fact, as a piece of furniture, they were often more visibly expensive, with �ne inlays and elaborate decorations. hen, there’s acoustics. n her salon or music room, a square would have met the purpose of both her informal and formal music-making perfectly. n his letters, aydn hints at the “agreeable mechanism” and “lightness of touch” of a chanz, which “your beautiful hands deserve.” lmost certainly, he was referring to a stossmechanik, which by the early s would normally have been replaced by a Prellmechanik, but which remained exclusively used in squares well into the s. f von Genzinger’s instrument was a square, why would aydn’s have been different?s with the issue of the ideology of a canon, introduced at the outset of this essay, rather than the larger picture of “old” and “new” (in this case traditionally the harpsichord versus the piano) we’re interested in closer snapshots of tangents, hammers, plectra, hand stops, knee levers, striking points, actions, short octaves—technological features that together and in various combinations de�ned clavichords, harpsichords, and pianos. aydn and his dedicatees would have been well aware of this kaleidoscope of alternatives. n terms of performing and composing, instruments mattered. rguably more than ozart’s or . ach’s, aydn’s compositions re�ect his creative responses to technological realities, which often become an important part of the compositional “narrative” itself. he clearest examples, so convincingly based on organological parameters, are aydn’s nglish sonatas. ake the following hypothesis: “t the end of the eighteenth century, there existed two distinct schools in piano building, playing, and writing.” xperiment: “ake a iennese composer, transfer him to an nglish environment, and observe him: will he change his style?” he answer is a resounding yes, remarkably so for a -year old master, who had nothing to prove, but on the contrary had been invited to ondon on the strength of his existing reputation.n the same spirit of technological discovery, we have collaborated with no less than four distinguished keyboard makers. hese collaborations have resulted in a unique collection of instruments, all made speci�cally for this project and some for the very �rst time:Viennese chorD,ann eyDeker, ienna, by artin ühringer, aslach, ocation of original: andesmuseum Joanneum, Graz inscription on original: “Joann. eydecker k: k: hofforgelmacher fecit ,” in ink on the back of the nameboardase: walnut, tringing: brass/double throughout, two ’ ranks movable from inside the instrumentcale: 266 mm, eyboard: single manual; to f with “multiple-broken octave” (Wiener Baßoktav in the bass; naturals topped with ebony; sharps with bone (original: ivory)hree-octave span:his is a world premiere replica of an eighteenth-century iennese harpsichord. f ten extant wing-shaped harpsichords by ohemian) makers, seven have the feature of the multiple-broken octave, which appears to have been the norm from c. to the 1760s or later. aydn scholarship has long known that four pieces—ob. x, xVii, and the four-hand xVii—are physically impossible to play without such a short octave. e’re now able to experience the instrument as “normal,” also for those pieces where a short octave is not a must.he advantages are real. isten, for instance, to my left hand in onata in ajor ob. xBD, track 2:03) where navigate the figurations in the bass with more elegance than would otherwise have been possible. n the other hand, a peculiar and, from a modern perspective, totally unnecessary jump in the left hand in the third movement of the onata in -flat ob. xBD, track 15, 1:45makes sense only if one realizes that aydn’s harpsichord simply did not have an -flat in the bass.he two eight-foot ranks can be moved only from inside the instrument and only with difficulty, which suggests spare or calculated register changes. he instrument invites the player to “sing.” he touch is very pleasant. he option of almost “gliding” from one key to the other—thanks to a generally low key dip, especially noticeable when moving from a sharp key to a natural—is a great asset in realizing the short slurs and harmonic resolutions that we have long recognized as “iennese.” saxon-syle lachorD, c. 1760by Joris otvlieghe, ollembeek, case: rench walnut, tringing: brass/double throughoutcale: 274 mm, eyboard: unfretted, to f, naturals topped with ebony, sharps with bone hree-octave span: he expressive power of this big axon-style clavichord lends itself superbly to the dramatic, larger-scale sonatas of the late 1760s/early s, which aydn must have written for his own experimentation. (e do not know whether he had advanced students at this time.) he most famous of these “workshop-style sonatas” (ászló omfai) is the ob. xBD, tracks ). (aydn “recycled” it as the last of the uenbrugger onatas in . e recorded the piece twice, first on clavichord, then on fortepiano.) n addition, because of its “long octave,” we chose the clavichord for those pieces up to 1774 that cannot be played with a short octave. o be sure, one extant iennese clavichord does have a short octave, but our choice between a short-octave harpsichord and a long-octave clavichord happens to con�rm ichard aunder’s speculation that sonatas needing a fully chromatic keyboard (such as nos. ) “were written for an imported instrument of some kind.” ment, he continues, could have been a German �ve-octave clavichord.he variety of colors to be drawn from the clavichord is endless. here’s a closeness of touch, incomparable to any of the other keyboards. ince the tangent remains in touch with the string after a key has been activated, the player is able to influence the tone as the string continues to vibrate. aradoxically, as the softest of all earlier keyboards, the clavichord also has the widest dynamic range, allowing for innumerable “orchestral” effects. ohak clavichord (, presently in the oyal ollege of usic, ondon), on which aydn famously composed his reation, is the only authenticated aydn keyboard extant today. ut we opted for a “top of the bill” model contemporaneous with the music we had in mind.French-syle chorD, c. by ves eaupré, ontreal, c mahogony, stringing: brass () and iron (c – f mm, keyboard: two manuals, to f, naturals topped with ebony, sharps with bonehree-octave span:474 r two ’, one ’, buff stop, all to be engaged from the keyboardiennese harpsichords had one manual and two eight-foot registers—very much like talian counterparts. he question of whether a rench-style harpsichord, with two manuals and a wider spectrum of options for registration, is needed at all for aydn remains unresolved. or the rince onatas, however, with their �orid, court-like, and formal gestures, follow . rown, who argues that the rince’s rench taste—evident in the construction of szterháza in imitation of ersailles—surely resulted in the purchase of one or more rench harpsichords. ncidentally, this set of pieces requires a fully chromatic or “rench” octave (as it was ienna), as well as a full �ve-octave range, and occasionally bene�ts from a two-manual disposition, as for the intricate canon between left and right hands of the ifth onata’s second movement (BD, track ). he alternation between manuals adds a physical and visual dimension to one’s appreciation of aydn’s contrapuntal skills.he instrument, in its grandeur, demands total attention from listener and player. ecause of the wider registration possibilities (my own favorite is the dagio from onata no., BD, track ), more than for any other program, felt a need to carefully prepare myself in advance, and, for the audience with the rince, to put on a well-ironed shirt and tie. uare iano (Taelklaier), oBer,by aene, uiselede, location of original:unsthistorisches useum, “gnatz ober, ürg. rgel und nstrumentmacher […] in ien. eptember,” on a paper label on the soundboard case: spruce, brass/single , brass/double – d-sharp, iron/double e – f mm, eyboard: to f, naturals topped with ebony (with decorative bone inlays), hree-octave span: two knobs through the front side of the case, left to engage the moderator (single pieces of felt), right to raise all the dampers action: stosszungenmechanikncreasingly, aydn scholarship is coming to terms with the fact that the piano that aydn purchased for himself in from enzel chanz was “almost certainly” a square. (no instruments from enzel have survived, only those built by his younger brother Johann.) rom a socio-historical point of view, this type of instrument has been acknowledged as the domestic keyboard instrument par excellence mostly for women in the last decades of the eighteenth century. f we accept that aydn also owned one, the oft-quoted correspondence with rau von Genzinger, in which he comments on the light touch and agreeable mechanism of chanz’ pianos, which “your Grace’s beautiful hands” deserve, is in need of re-interpretation. or example, the type of action that aydn is referring to must be a stoss- and not a Prellmechanik, now commonly and misleadingly known as “the iennese action” (see infra, under ). he instrument has two hand stops: one to raise the damper block (on the right hand side, operated by pulling a knob through the front of the case) and another, on the left, to engage a moderator (single pieces of felt that slide between strings and hammers).his is the second modern-day copy of a iennese square. (he first, of the same model, was made by lexander anger and lbrecht zernin in 2001 and is housed in the echnisches useum in ienna.) he extremely light action nonetheless requires a minimum of speed and pressure to “push” the long hammers all the way to the strings. he hammers have narrow tops that are covered with the tiniest strips of leather. hey produce distinct but miniature gestures that closely follow one’s musical imagination, without much need for contemplation (as on the rench harpsichord) or exaggeration (as on the clavichord). he “pantalon” stop (by which all the dampers are raised, in imitation of a mallet-operated dulcimer) can be employed to great effect, both enchanting and dramatic. or an example of the former, listen to the middle movement of the onata in ob. xBD, track ); for the latter, witness the finale of the onata in ob. xBD, track “early” Viennese iano, 1782, stossmechanikby aene, uiselede, location of original: ozart’s Geburtshaus, alzburg inscription in original: none, but certainly by alter, probably ase: walnut, tringing: brass/double -sharp, iron/double , iron/triple a-sharp mm, eyboard: (original: ), naturals topped with ebony, sharps with bonehree-octave span: egisters: two hand stops on sides of keyboard, left and right, to raise the dampers; moderator (one long piece of felted cloth) to be operated by left knee (original: knob through nameboard) ction: stosszungenmechanik second world premiere, this instrument was inspired by the spectacular �ndings of ichael atcham, lfons uber et al. that the fortepiano long referred to as “ozart’s piano”—a true icon of the “classical” fortepiano—had been substantially altered after the composer’s death, almost certainly by nton alter, the original builder. he piano that ozart would have known since stossmechanik (or “pushing action”). ozart’s widow asked alter to “restore” the instrument, the latter may have used this opportunity to also “modernize” the instrument, turning what originally was a stossmechanik into a Prellmechanik and adding knee levers to supersede the original damper-raising hand stops. (e must remember that “restoring” and “modernizing” were not yet understood to be contradictory activities.)f alter succeeded in updating the instrument’s technology, then—to follow hris aene’s train of thought—it should be possible to go the other way. ithin the existing structural design of ozart’s alter, he reverse-engineered a stossmechanikand restored the original hand stops. hese technologies, as scholarship has since learned, would actually have been the norm in the fortepiano-building in ienna of s. hat they conform to the norms of square pianos, not just those of s but those built until after , adds another layer of continuity and insight.stosszunge pushes a hammer—which hangs in its own rail independently over the key—towards the string, “catapulting” it into free �ight. n contrast to an nglish action (cf. infra, under ), the hammer is turned towards the player. t a certain point, the hopper “escapes” its ascent, allowing the hammer to fall back. hough the action is light, a minimum of �nger pressure is required for the hammers to hit the strings at all (cf. supra, under ). ammers are covered with only one layer of leather. he resulting tones are either hard and harpsichord-like or disarmingly warm and tender, with surprisingly little in between. or the player, the choice is between hitting the string with wood (the actual hammer) or gently caressing it with leather (the hammer’s cap). his “early” alter is my instrument of choice for the uenbrugger onatas (rogram even), where exploit “forte” versus “piano.” ompare, for instance, the onata ob. xBD, tracks 45-47) with the onata in -�at ob. xBD, tracks 48-50). urthermore, throughout the program, use the damperless register in ways that are not possible with the later technology of knee levers. ere, it is not a matter of simply “on” or “off.” ne can choose to raise only the left (or bass) side of the damper block or only the right (or treble) side, to lift it all the way up or only halfway, or to lift it just a touch. he possibilities are endless.“lae” Viennese iano, ienna, c. 1790, Prellmechanikby aene, uiselede, ocation, case, stringing, scale:eyboard:, naturals topped with bone, sharps with ebonyhree-octave span:egisters: two knee levers, left for moderator (one strip of felt), right for raising ction: Prellmechanikaene did not stop with a reverse-engineered “early” alter. e built a second action—Prellmechanik (“�ipping action”), identical to alter’s modernized version—to be used in one and the same instrument. ull one action out, replace it with the other, and the instrument is literally transformed from a s grand into one representative of the s. his is the “fortepiano”—with its “iennese” action and knee levers—that the evival has long been familiar with. kapsel that is attached to the key. hen the keyboardist’s �nger goes down, the hammer is pulled up at the back, the ascending hammer perfectly paralleling the descending motion of the �nger. here’s no dependence on “free �ight”: the keyboardist perfectly controls the movement of the hammer, slow or fast. he latter is now covered with three layers of leather. s a result, the dynamic focus shifts from the extremes to the many shades in between. his signi�cant gain in expressivity, however, comes with a loss in percussive bite and overall intimacy. he new action turns the instrument into one that is more expansive, more bel canto, more capable, indeed, of projecting in a larger room.e use the “modernized” rogram nine. t is the perfect instrument for the ariations ob. xViiBD, track ), with its “eethovenian” sublimations of sound and expression, impossible to pull off without the comfort of a knee lever. antasy in ob. xVii may be appreciated in two versions: on the “late” as part of rogram nine (BD, track ) and on the “early” counterpart as a videotaped performance on BD e GranD iano, onGman, clemeni & co.,ondon, by aene, uiselede, (from the collection of alcolm ocation of original: collection aene, uiselede, in restored conditionnscription in original: “new atent/loman, clemeTicomPcheaPsiDeondon”number of original: c mahogany triple throughoutcale: mm, eyboard: , naturals topped with bone (original: ivory), sharps topped with ebonyhree-octave span:ction: stossmechanik r two pedals with rods through the front legs, left for una cordadue corde(determined by the position of a slide in treble end block), right to raise the dampersaydn bought his �rst piano—his chanz—to create compositions that would please his publisher. ondon, these roles were reversed. aydn had published a number of works with roderip. o thank aydn for past services and to foster a continued business relationship, the �rm gave him a grand piano. aydn took it home and kept it until his death. he instrument we use is similar if not identical to aydn’s . , lementi having replaced roderip as principal shareholder of the company inow did the nglish instrument compare to a Prellmechanik, �rm wedge-shaped dampers, lighter hammers with fewer layers of leather, a thinner soundboard, unequal striking points, and knee levers; an lish piano had the heavier stossmechanik (with hammers facing away from the player, in contrast to the earlier iennese version of this “pushing action”), loose “feather-duster” dampers, heavier hammers with more layers of softer leather, a thicker soundboard, and equal striking points. iennese instrument allowed for greater control over nuanced shadings, immediate stopping of the sound after the release of a key, a crystal-clear attack, relatively quick decay of sound, and variety in register and tone color, whereas the nglish instrument produced a potentially louder tone, more after-ring, and a full but muf�ed, more resonant and homogeneous sound.aydn clearly knew how to exploit these differences. rogram en, listen to the grand, orchestral opening chords of the onata in -�at ob. xBD, track ), the drum bass at the beginning of its third movement (track ), the various pedal effects in the �rst movement of the onata in ob. x (track 26), the “romantic” textures of the onata in ob. x (track ), or witness the sheer pleasure of sound (rather than the conscientious articulation of words and phrases) in dagio from ob. x (track roomieslaw oszczyk approached me with the idea of “virtual acoustics,” was initially hesitant. y focus had been on aydn, his dedicatees, and their instruments. now also their rooms? hat about their clothes, also relevant for a specific composure at the keyboard? or reading a score.) or tuning.) uddenly, all the many traps of historical reconstruction felt wide open. e want to be inspired, not enslaved by history. e want to breathe life into scores, not because we feel a moral obligation to the past, but because we want them to speak to open-minded twenty-first-century audiences, making full use of present-day know-how and technology. had no antiquarian desire to record on various “authentic” instruments in museums. he newly built instruments are simply much better and much more reliable—just as the old ones were in their own time. hy chase nostalgia?y interest in instruments and oszczyk’s in rooms, however, quickly proved complementary. oszczyk was interested in a variety of rooms, not privileging one over another, but allowing each to highlight a different aspect of the music. uilding this collection of rooms, rather than making our story of aydn the rator more complex, ultimately proved to further validate it. (to put the verb back in music, following ethnomusicologist hristopher mall) happens through instruments, by people, in rooms. sing the plural for the first two precludes reverting to the singular (“the” recital hall or “the” recording studio) for the third.erception of a room, through headphones or through speakers, became an essential factor in my recorded performances. he damper-less effects in rogram even obtained by operating hand stops rather than knee levers mingled lusciously with the acoustics of the szterháza oom. found myself looking up to a virtual high ceiling, wondrously following the reverberations that came out of my self-created pantalon. he less-spectacular acoustics of smaller rooms featuring the square piano (rograms ix and ight) did not tempt me to make my gestures unnecessarily grand. not projecting my sound to some listener “out there,” felt encouraged to play solely for myself, perhaps with a special guest at my side, or a few household members behind me. rogram our, cast in the smallest room of all, the clavichord became almost a room unto itself, a most private space (with its own resonance, in the case itself) that treasured for free fantasizing and experimenting. t the other end of the spectrum, the olywell oom demanded a deliberate projection of sound to an audience: rogram en is the only one where we use the piano lid as a sound reflector in the modern way—away from the player, the instrument sideways (on stage), the audience on the player’s right.here are many more examples. verall, played better when the room was “on” than when it was “off.” sychologically aware of an actual acoustical environment, found myself literally “playing the room.” fter much planning, scouting, revisiting, and sampling, the following rooms eventually made it into our collection:hayDn’s sTuDy location:aydn’s house (1766-1778, presently aydn useum), isenstadt, (43 km south-east of cm long, cm wide, cm high (average of irregularmeasuring results)aterials: softwood �oor (planks of 16 or 19 cm wide), plastered brick walls and ceilingay 2, 1766aydn bought a house in isenstadt within walking distance of sterházy alace. few months before this purchase, following the death of Gregor erner, aydn had been promoted to full kapellmeister. e eventually sold the house on ctober 27, . he two front rooms on the �rst �oor are nearly identical. ne would have been his living room, the other his study. or practical reasons we selected the former to represent the latter. t is entirely possible that aydn composed his “workshop sonatas” in this room.oom Fiocation: cm long, cm wide, high (average)aterials:arked as “ive” in the useum’s catalogue, this spacious room—the largest of the house, with a view of a narrow courtyard—had, in aydn’s days, probably not yet been incorporated into the living quarters. e use it generically as a middle-class living room. s location:hâteau amezay, ontreal, Quebec, Dimensions: two adjacent rooms, the �rst cm long, cm wide, cm high, the second cm long, cm wide, cm high; total average: cm long, cm wide, aterials: hardwood �oor, walls entirely covered with carved mahogany panels, painted ceiling, six moderately sized mirrorsriginally the mansion of ontreal governor amezay (), who called it “undeniably the most beautiful house in anada,” the hâteau amezay changed hands a few times during the eighteenth century, from the ompagnie des ndes to the merican evolutionary rmy. (enjamin ranklin is said to have stayed in the house.) he alle de nantes—a most exquisite drawing room—has its own “virtual” feature: surrounding mahogany panels, carved with images of musical instruments, were imported from another eighteenth-century mansion in nantes, rance. hey were on display in the rench pavillion at the ontreal xpo, and subsequently acquired and permanently installed by the useum. e use the room as a “far away” location. he “” sonatas had already made it into print msterdam and erlin. urely a copy reached the faraway rovince of Quebec too. alBerina Prunkraum location:lbertina, ienna, cm long, cm wide, materials: parquet �oor largely covered with carpet, walls largely covered with silk, plastered ceiling with gilded bas-relief, two large windows with silk satin draperies, two high wooden rench doorsacing the imperial gardens (Burggarten) in the heart of ienna this absburg raum was once the reception room (empfangssalon) for the private apartments of rincess enriette of nassau-eilburg (1797–1829), the young wife of rchduke of ustria, uke of 1771–1847). hey married in. ne visitor declared that, “upon entering the apartment, one is greeted by great splendor and beauty.” ellow silk wall coverings, proudly restored in , as well as a large carpet on the expensive hardwood �oor, contribute to intimate acoustics de�ned by a heavy absorption of sound. ubstitute one young bride for another (iechtenstein was �fteen when she married nicolaus iisterházy) and imagine a young princess spending a private hour in exquisite surroundings: this is the theme of our rogram ight. sPieGelsaal, ázy Palaocation:alace, isenstadt, km south-east of cm long, wide, 6 m aterials: parquet �oor, plastered walls and curved ceiling, three windows with thick velvet curtains, four large mirrors, four rectangular textile-covered panelsaydn was hired as ice-kapellmeister of rince nton 1761he would have expected to spend most of his time in isenstadt, a urgenland town mapped around sterházy. efore and after the reign of nicolaus 1762–1790), alace was the principal residence of the sterházy family. entrally located at the front (outh) wing on the �rst �oor, the spiegelsaal once served as the main reception room of the rince. t features views of the courtly stables (built under rince nton, ) and the town below. rnamental bas-reliefs of musical instruments on the walls inspired us to use this room as a salon appropriate to the music lessons of a well-to-do countess. száza oomocation:szterháza, ertöd, ungary ( km south-east of cm long, cm wide, aterials: parquet �oor, plastered brick walls, plastered ceiling, gilded bas-reliefs t was rince nicolaus “agni�cent” () who converted a modest hunting lodge in the distant countryside into a brilliant center of courtly life. of szterháza was �nished in 1766. t took another eighteen years to complete the various surrounding buildings (including an opera house) and to landscape an immense park. visitor in called it “le petit ongrie.” he �rst �oor, directly accessible from outside by a double staircase, houses two central rooms, separated only by tall rench doors. he �rst of these, on the north side, would have been the oom. n almost exact cube, the room has extraordinarily luscious acoustics. the room as a generic salon of the high aristocracy. (hough entirely possible, there’s no evidence that solo keyboard was performed in this particular room during aydn’s service.) eszáza ceremonial oomocation: cm long, cm wide, aterials:., fresco on ceiling, six large mirrorsn size and magni�cence, the szterháza oom is surpassed by the adjoining eremonial oom, which the literature variously refers to as Prachtsaal, Prunksaal,Paradesaal, banquet hall, or simply “the famous salon.” “plendid” is the term that comes to mind when entering from the oom. all mirrors lining the walls—white offset by gold—reinforce incoming daylight and conspire in the conceit of glorifying who, riding his hariot of the un, adorns the richly painted ceiling. he artist of this recently restored fresco was the court painter Johann asilius Grundemann. llegorical statues of the four seasons guard each of the room’s corners. (hese had been removed for restoration in July at the time of our photo session.) he panoramic view of the park on the south side of the alace is stunning. loBkoWisaalocation:obkowitz, ienna, cm long, aterials: parquet �oor, marble walls, huge oil-painted canvas on curved ceilingollowing the attle of , ount von ietrichstein erected the city’s �rst signi�cant alais in baroque style. nder the ownership of the obkowitz family (since 1745) it became a “true residence and academy of music,” as observed by Johann eichardt in 1808. rom to the early s, the alais was famous for its participation concerts in which professional musicians and noble amateurs performed string quartets, piano trios, symphonies, or oratorios—both before and after supper. rince ranz Joseph aximilian, himself a big fan of aydn, played the violin and cello, and had a �ne bass voice. now known as the eroica-saal (after eethoven’s hird ymphony which premiered there in ), the Festsaal features a most impressive vaulted ceiling. f�xed by marou�age is a huge canvas with oil-painted allegorical representations of various sciences and arts—engineering, measuring, gardening, optics, geography, music, poetry—as well as a view of a workshop at the cademy for ainting and culpture. Jakob van chuppen, the �rst director of this newly founded cademy designed and executed the project in. t that time, the room may very well have functioned as the cademy’s of�cial eremonial olyWellmusiroomocation:olywell treet, xford, m long (curved back wall), cm wide, aterials: hardwood �oor, �xed wooden benches, plastered walls and ceilinghe oldest music room in urope” (as John enry ee dubbed it in), the well oom was, from the start, a public venture: funded by public subscription, conceived as a public music venue. esigned by amplin, then ice-rincipal of t all, olywell was probably the brainchild of ayes, then professor of music and choral conductor at xford niversity. “usic for the chamber” was performed there: sonatas, quartets, trios, concertos, symphonies, and andel oratorios. he room was restored to its original condition in , including the side seating on rows of benches. e use the room as an nglish concert hall with an impressive history. makinGDecisionsTenProGramsegardless of approach or ideology—past or modern—any project to record the “complete works of” had to be practical. xactly which pieces was to play? ore speci�cally: which of the pieces that aydn scholarship has labeled “doubtful” (because of their uncertain authenticity status) should be included? n studies of authenticity—i.e., establishing which works are genuinely by aydn—a distinction is made between “authentic” and “spurious,” with “doubtful” in between. o paraphrase James ebster, would go for “aydn and nothing but aydn,” risking that some genuine aydn would fall between the cracks, or would include the “doubtful” pieces, considerably raising the odds of my playing “the whole aydn” but surely adding a few works that are not his?y approach became pragmatic. n one hand, followed existing scholarship, speci�cally the newest work list by Georg eder in the new new Grove. hus, taking the scores of the authoritative Joseph haydn Werke (edited by the aydn-nstitut in my starting point, play all “authentic” and “probably authentic” works. ut the four “doubtful” ones (ob. x-�at ob. xajor, as well as JhW’s nos. ], the so-called “aigern onatas”) had to go, and apart from one sentimental moment (no. happens to be the �rst “aydn sonata” that played on the piano, when was twelve), have sensed no loss.he restriction “keyboard solo,” now taken for granted, was once pragmatic too. twelve volumes of aydn’s oeuvres complettesreitkopf & ärtel, ), intended as his complete works for keyboard, still included songs, trios, and additional violin parts. t was nthony von oboken who in 1957 provided us with a catalogue of neatly separated genres, each represented by a roman numeral. hus, these recordings are devoted to “x” (sonatas) and “xVii” (klavierstücke), the latter offering a welcome diversion to the former (though the famous “ariations” ob. xVii:6 might technically belong to group x, since aydn himself, as onja Gerlach has stressed, called them a “sonata”).he next question concerns ordering. ould we stress chronology and development, going piece-by-piece from the beginning to end, or would we zoom in on moments or occasions, creating self-contained sub-plots with chronology only as a backdrop? e opted for the latter and selected ten programs. ike every eighteenth-century publisher and composer, we embraced the number six. aydn’s own published sterházy, 776, uenbrugger), we start in a simple ajor, and, whenever possible and appropriate, end in a dramatic minor key. no key was to be repeated within one program. ike aydn, we also craved a variety of “shadow and light” (schatten und licht). wo onatas—no. ajor, written for publication by reitkopf in and no. ajor, published in , but clearly composed much earlier—stand apart as “single pieces.” he �rst pages of this booklet represent a menu. ach program comes with an image—a historical painting, engraving, or drawing—conveying some scene or theme. our recording sessions, these pictures have spoken thousands of words. hey have helped me strike what conceived as the proper tone. hey also helped artha de rancisco �nd corresponding microphone positions. ach of the programs explores a different way of performing and listening. xtremes of the spectrum are rogram (where the performer is the listener) and rogram en (where listener and performer are most clearly separated).oGram one:ourting nobility. e remove the lid of our iennese harpsichord, and, like the young ozart, try to impress the noble patrons informally gathered around us as they listen and enjoy their tea. he dimensions of rince de onti’s salon des quatre glaces, especially its high ceiling, remind us most strikingly of the szterháza in old age he liked telling the story of a time when, sitting at the keyboard, countess morzin leaned over in order to see the notes and the scarf around her neck came undone. haydn recalled that “it was the �rst time i’d ever seen such a sight; i got confused, my playing faltered, my �ngers stuck to the keys. – haydn, what are you doing? cried the countess; most respectfully i answered: But, countess, your grace, who would not lose his composure in such a situation?”Georg ugust Griesinger, Biographische notizen über Joseph haydn eipzig, oGram Wo:ime. he attentive listener is seated at the acoustical “sweet spot” of the room on the side of the clavichord’s soundboard.after dinner, which was eleganty served, and chearfully eaten, i prevailed upon him to sit down again to a clavichord, and he played, with little intermission, till near eleven o’clock at night.urney, on . ach, The Present state of music in Germany, the netherlands, and the united Provinces ondon, oGram reehe usic esson. aydn, in his young adult years, stands at the harpsichord, encouragingly nodding his approval. ur historical counterpart would have been a countess, a countess’ daughter, or the nine-year old artines. t is hard not to notice the cat in the foreground of the ragonard painting. t stares us in the eye, as if to remind us that a lesson is sometimes about more than just music.once again he started composing those little sonatas that had turned out so well before. The most beautiful of these fell in the hands of countess Thun, a noble woman with a passion for music. she found it charming and wished to know its composer. […] “every day you will give me harpsichord and singing lessons and i will make sure you won’t be deprived of anything.”nicolas Étienne ramery, notice sur Joseph haydn aris, oGram our:aydn’s orkshop. e focus on aydn’s portrait, entering the mind of the master at work: performer and listener are one. e sit at the clavichord and “fantasize.”i sat down [at the keyboard] and began to improvise [phantasiren], sad or happy, serious or playful, depending on my mood. once i got hold of an idea, my sole purpose was to execute and sustain it in keeping with the rules of art. That’s how i tried to work, and this is precisely how so many of our new composers don’t work; they string one little piece to the other, breaking off what they’ve barely started: but nothing sticks in the heart, after one has heard it.aydn quoted in Georg ugust Griesinger, Biographische notizen über Joseph haydn eipzig, oGram “ost erene ighness!” rince graciously receives us in his eremonial oom. is throne and our rench harpsichord are a respectful three meters apart. oth are positioned in the center of this most magni�cent space. he harpsichord’s lid has been removed for the full spatial experience.among the unique attributes and much noted qualities that adorn your most serene highness is a complete command of all music, not just of the violin and baryton. […] This knowledge […] compels me to dedicate this small portion of my talent to the superabundance of your worthiness. aydn, preface to the �rst edition of the “nicolaus onatas” (ienna, 1774oGram core. urious about the latest aydn publication, his “anno 776onatas,” we perform at the square piano in the drawing room of the house, one listener (mother, uncle, governess) on our side, standing or sitting.These sonatas, like the former set, are in many places intended to imitate the whimsical stiles of certain masters: and they are very well executed, for they abound with odd �ights, strange passages, and eccentrick harmonies.rnold, european magazine and london reviewctober oGram : qual to the inest asters.” ienna, . e’re attending a musical soirée held by the sisters von uenbrugger, daughters of the respected physician eopold von uenbrugger. he lid of the piano has once again been removed. etween sonatas the sisters engage in casual conversation with the salon guests. The approval of Freilen von auenbrugger is of the utmost importance to me, because their manner of performance and genuine insight in composition equals those of the greatest masters. Both deserve to be known in all of europe through the channels of public advertising.aydn to rtaria, ebruary oGram eiGhT: etters to a rincess. e eavesdrop on a rincess, who, in her dazzling apartment, is seated at a gorgeously decorated square piano. ppreciative of aydn’s special gift, she reads and learns from the kapellmeister’s sonatas.he had to take his place next to Princess esterházy. on the other side sat miss von kuzböck. […] haydn thought he felt a little draft. The ladies sitting near him noticed.Princess esterházy took her scarf and put it around him. several other ladies followed suit, and soon haydn was completely covered with scarves.lbert hristoph ies, on aydn’s last public appearance, Biographische nachrichten von Joseph haydn ienna, oGram nine:ulture. gain in ienna, now in the late s, at the obkowitz, we listen to the distinguished agdalena von urzböck. mong the pieces she decided to share, she brought aydn’s newest onata no. . ll scores may be purchased from rtaria at the ohlmarkt. he piano has been positioned at the far end of the room, lid removed, keyboard in the back, its tail facing the audience. (ere, go against common musicological belief that no record exists of formal performances of a piano sonata in ienna until the s. n fact, we do have evidence of a certain playing the piano at the obkowitz’s on 16, 1800, and Joseph osenbaum’s diary reports an academy in isenstadt on ctober 16, 1799 where “ölt played a piano sonata by aydn.”)Well—here i sit isolated—forsaken—like a poor orphan—almost without human contact [gesellschaft]—sad—full of memories of past precious days—yes past alas—and who knows when those agreeable days will come again? those beautiful gatherings [gesellschaften]? where an entire circle is [of] one heart, one soul—all those beautiful musical soirées—which can only be imagined, not described—where are those transporting moments?—they are gone—and gone for so long.aydn to arianne von Genzinger, ebruary , upon his return to szterháza from oGram Tcene. rogrammed between a symphony and an aria, we listen to a concert sonata. e paid dearly for our ticket. ut no regrets: we’re in awe of the performer, who’s a fully trained professional. he piano on stage has been turned sideways, its lid raised. (n a society with an emphasis on public speaking—in parliament, in court, or at ceremonies—we’re used to formality and soliloquy.) t another occasion, a dinner party at a cottage in the countryside, we discover aydn’s “little sonata” in , played most charmingly by the lady of the house.holding me by the arm, the entrepeneur drew me right through the middle of the hall to the front, all the way to the orchestra. i was gawked at and showered with a torrent of english compliments. […] yet i wished i could escape to Vienna even for a little while to �nd some peace and quiet to work. The noise from those shopkeepers in the streets is just intolerable.aydn to arianne von Genzinger, January , one week upon his arrival in here’s an epilogue. n my own studio in ontreal, on my favorite piano, perform the hymn “Gott, erhalte ranz den aiser!” along with aydn’s self-arranged variations from his mperor Quartet in ob. iii77.s the work for keyboard, voice, or string quartet? his personal thank-you note deliberately redirects all questions of genre and repertoire back to the person: “Gott, erhalte Joseph den usikus!” ut with this valediction and farewell we’ve purposely blurred another conceptual line. n all these discs, this is the only recording made in a “real” as opposed to a “virtual” room. t this point, though, one may begin to wonder: “real” or “virtual”—what’s the difference? irTacosTicsieslaw oszczyky interest in rooms comes from work in music and �lm recording, and from studies of musical instruments and electroacoustic transducers. t always amazes me how room can complement the sound of a musical instrument and present it to the musician and the listener. he moment enter a room, am introduced to a unique new world of sound. irtual acoustics enables me to repeat and share this experience.or the aydn roject we created nine “virtual rooms.” virtual room is constructed in two essential steps: �rst, we measure in detail the impulse responses of a selected room; second, we replicate the sonic image of that room in the laboratory.oom ulse easuremene “excite” the real room through an -second logarithmic sine-sweep ranging from z to z. he signal is radiated through multiple loudspeakers distributed in the area of the room where we’ve decided the musician would be performing. hDirsoftware developed by ng. üro in Germany allows us to register the response in eight channels of high-resolution z/bit audio. ound sources of the sweep are to loudspeakers covering a full frequency range from to z. speakers, arranged to approximate the radiation pattern of a keyboard instrument’s soundboard, produce strong early re�ection and reverberation. ight high-quality, low-noise and wide-frequency microphones on a spaced array tree capture a cluster of impulse responses at three different heights of m, m, and m. n any selected room we measure responses, eight responses at each of the three heights. our of the microphones are omnidirectional, arranged in quare with two-meter spacing, and four microphones are bi-directional arranged as spaced crossed-pairs with ° angle. ow-noise external microphone preampli�ers built by Grace esign provide line level signals to the ireface digital interface connected to the irewire port of the laptop Pc. he microphone preamp levels are adjusted remotely allowing us to optimize the signal to noise ratio in each measurement.enDerinG o Virual ooms in ThaBoraoryontreal, in the mmersive resence aboratory of cirmmT, the key components for building our virtual room are twenty-four synchronized low-latency convolution engines and a semispherical loudspeaker array built with full-range ribbon drivers �at-panel arrays. his auditory display system consists of six low-frequency drivers (ranging from to mid- and high-frequency drivers (ranging from to 30,000z). he lower-frequency drivers are placed at standard locations for the six main speakers in surround sound reproduction. (he speaker angles in degrees ore elaborate versions of my arguments as well as references to primary and secondary literature may be found in my contributions to haydn and the Performance of rhetoric (ed. ander Goldberg, hicago ), The cambridge companion to haydn (ed. aryl lark, ambridge ), haydn-studien), and haydnWorld (ed. isman, rincetoneferences speci�c to these liner notes include ngermüller and lfons uber (eds.), mozartshammer�ügelalzburg ); artha, Joseph haydn: Gesammelte Briefe und aufzeichnungen assel ); enedik, lbertina: Das Palais und die habsburgischen Prunkräume ); . rown, Joseph haydn’s keyboard music: sources and style loomington ); Giuseppe arpani, haydine ovvero lettere sulla vita e le opere del celebre maestro Giuseppe haydn ); Georg eder (ed.), haydn: klaviersonaten ); onja Gerlach, haydn: klavierstücke ); ydia Goehr, The imaginary museum of musical Works xford ); lfons uber (ed.), Das österreichische cembalo ); ichard aunder, keyboard instruments in eighteenth-century Vienna xford ); ary orrow, concert life in haydn’s Vienna: aspects of a Developing musical and social institu(new ); adant, “iaries of Joseph )” in haydn yearbook); hristopher mall, musicking: The meanings of Performing and listening anover ); ászló omfai, The keyboard sonatas of Joseph haydn: instruments and Performance Practice, Genres and styleshicago ); James ebster, “xternal riteria for etermining the uthenticity of aydn’s usic” in Jens arsen et al., haydn studies (new ); ebster and Georg eder, The new Grove haydn ondon ); orst alter, “aydns laviere” in haydn-studien relative to the median plane are °, ±°, ±°, and he upper-frequency drivers are dipole radiating, full-range electro-dynamic ribbon transducers placed four units panels (two loudspeakers per audio channel, two channels per panel) in locations on the surface of an imaginary sphere of 4-meter diameter. here are six panels at extreme high elevation, and three planes of panels at elevation angles of –°, °, and +° relative to the horizontal plane. he height channels contribute to an increased sense of immersive presence, of being within the virtual acoustic environment.o ensure suf�cient processing power for real-time applications in music where latency must be negligible, our virtual room system employs a massive digital audio processor custom-designed by witzerland. ts ef�cient segmentation allows for fast convolution of eight impulse responses with 10ms latency, each up to seconds long, at z sampling frequency with -bit word-length resolution. channel uses two harc ega ords of fast dedicated onboard memory. loating point -bit architecture ensures suf�cient dynamic range for the most demanding applications and post-processing. host-internal -bit processor provides the control of and interface to external controllers via thernet, miDi, ard. he hardware allows for a maximum of eight input and output channels, however multiple units can be synchronized and used in parallel, with linked control using a common Gui interface. s a result, a large number of convolution channels can be used simultaneously. high-speed data interchange buss, furthermore, links all modules allowing for quick uploading of impulse responses for processing.ne can normally expect a risk of acoustic feedback between loudspeakers and microphones when the loudspeakers radiate ampli�ed sound captured in the same sound �eld by microphones. ur use of directional microphones and in some cases differential microphones proved suf�cient to protect us from feedback.orminG anD orDinG in Virual achere is a world of difference between performing with a reverb effect (as in playing an electric guitar with a everb ampli�er) and feeling immersed within the virtual ambience of a magni�cent sounding room. t �rst encounter, the acoustic presence of the virtual room is both astonishing and slightly disorienting as one’s auditory senses overpower all visual sense of the laboratory space. oon, however, the “room” becomes perceptually transparent and interactively attached to the sound production of the performer. his perfect illusion of music �owing in space is instantly crushed when the virtual room is turned off, causing great disappointment both for the listener and the performer: with the �ip of a switch, this rich sonic environment becomes suddenly and disturbingly dry, transformed from tropical garden to blasted desert. o achieve this immersiveness, the sound of the instrument is monitored via two or more close microphones, their signals convolved with impulse responses of the room. he resulting coordinated views of the room are radiated into the space that envelops the musician, reaching her from all directions. ny action of the musician is accompanied by a response of the room. nstrument and room thus become one animation under the artistic control of the performer, whose tempo, timing, dynamics, and articulation are determined by how well the room responds to her musical modulations. he room in effect becomes an extension in space of the instrument. t establishes a virtual reality in which the musician and the music live and where the music �ows like a river.hen measuring impulse responses in real rooms we focus on capturing early re�ections and diffused reverberation rather than direct sounds from the loudspeakers. direct sounds from the loudspeakers are in fact edited out from the impulse responses, since, once in the immersive lab, instrument and artist will take their place. onversely, during actual recording in the laboratory, microphone arrays are placed to capture mainly those earliest direct sounds of the instrument before any onset of room re�ection. he laboratory itself has to be non-reverberant since we do not want to confuse its acoustical characteristics with those of the virtual room.eghin commented that in a virtual room he does not perform for any audience. he listener is simply a silent witness to the acoustic dialogue between instrument and room, with the performer as moderator. n several occasions, a small audience was invited to sit in the virtual space during performance. om these moments of sharing his “private” virtual world with the audience were enormously satisfying. audience, for its part, was delighted to be intimately present with the artist, the music, and the acoustics.irtual spaces offer many previously unattainable possibilities for the performer. he environment can be adjusted to respond with vigor or subtlety, to bring out important tonal qualities of the instrument or voice, and to set the ambient mood for the performance. he adjustments are in the structure of the ambience, the architecture of sound reproduction, the position of the instrument, and in the microphone technique capturing the initial sound of the instrument or voice. hus, the impression of a virtual stage support can be developed and adjusted incrementally. hese adjustments can be made to serve not just solo performers but entire ensembles, each member receiving a speci�c level of acoustic support for hearing herself and the others, enabling each player to communicate with ease on the virtual stage. recorDinGThe VirThayDnartha de rancisco fairly futuristic image would have greeted visitors to the cirmmT labs of niversity during the recording of irtual aydn. hey would have found eghin seated at the keyboard, surrounded by a semisphere of loudspeakers designed to re-transmit the captured performance almost instantaneously through a digital processing system based on convolution and wave �eld synthesis. he performer interacted live with the recreated acoustics and kept control over his interpretation, which was being recorded in multiple channels in order to convey the sound-enveloped ambience in the richest possible way.he sound of any musical instrument is a combination of the direct sound from the instrument and the reaction that the surrounding walls, ceiling, and floor have on that sound. eflections bounce again and again against the surrounding surfaces until they lose energy and the diffuse sound, the reverberation, finally fades out. he challenge for irtual aydn was to isolate components of direct and reflected sound before putting these together again using the virtual acoustics of the selected historical rooms.n preparation for the recording, using that most precise of measuring instruments, the human ear, we followed an auditory scan around the instrument and positioned several microphone arrays of different polar patterns at varying distances from the instrument. en to fourteen microphones captured a whole collection of sounds with accents on different timbres and distances. hree-point stereo arrays of omni-directional microDPaTl, neumann ) were used as main microphones to capture a general sound picture, while two- or three-point arrays of cardioid, wide cardioid, and omni-directional microphones (neumann , , DPa) were placed in positions where different shades of de�ned sound could be found. the different microphone signals together in the right proportion, the resulting sound was rich, full and three-dimensional.o this direct sound, in itself multi-layered, we added yet new layers of convolution reverberation, aiming for a “natural” integration of the instrumental sound with its virtual surroundings. ut rather than just adding reverberation, we realized that the mix of the various layers of sound in the close range needed to be adjusted in very speci�c ways to the quality of the diffuse sound that we were mixing in. or instance, an increase of as little as one decibel of added reverberation, resulting in a more diffuse perspective, required a reduction in the prominences of certain qualities of the direct sound. adjustment of as little as half a decibel of the signal of the microphones usually restored a more natural sound perspective. n this way, an increased sense of realism was reached by �ne-tuning the different elements of the composed sound. etaining control over the individual components of the sound throughout the production process was essential. qually fundamental, though, was eghin’s commitment to adjusting his performance to the virtual acoustics that he had selected for a certain program. his raised the question of how we could isolate components for later assembly while providing the performer with a much-needed global impression. was both simple and bold. fter om practiced each program in the mmersive phere, exploring the new virtual surroundings in a free and uninhibited way, when time came for the actual recording we replaced speakers with headphones. rom our control room, we sent a live stream of recorded sound mixed with convolution responses back to om, who, though playing in a dry laboratory, heard himself through the headphones in a very different, acoustically rich virtual room. any months later, when we were ready to mix more than fourteen hours of edited material with its corresponding diffuse sounds, we systematically (re)created, this time also for the listener, a sense of “actually being there.” (here’s one exception to this procedure: the video performance of the of onata ob. x, featured on BD, was recorded “live” in the dome of speakers, without the use of headphones and with only minimal additional mixing.)uch thought was given to the perspective of the listener. n most cases we placed the listener in a position where we believe he or she would have sat listening to the music being played in the actual historical room. rogram aydn’s orkshop) is the perspective that of the player/composer, as we imitate how he may have heard the music that he himself was playing.irtual aydn was recorded in high-de�nition audio to professional quality standard and presented for commercial release both in stereo and multichannel surround sound. erging yramix platform was used for recording, editing, mixing and mastering. reampli�ers and converters were icstasy (converted to signal); for monitoring we used the Grace 906 surround system and speakers. ampling frequency was z and bit depth uring postproduction, as we prepared the �nal versions of the recordings for release, technology and research gradually took a back seat to musical and sound-aesthetics considerations, which have always been our primary concern. e did, however, make room for a special experiment. n addition to the sonatas and klavierstücke, we recorded performances of an ndante for ob. x) on each of the seven instruments. e later placed the sound of each instrument in each of the nine rooms, result or sixty-three combinations (see BD). he choice of a “mechanical” medium of performance (though, of course, it is still eghin performing) was a deliberate attempt to keep an isolated focus on instrument and/or room. or similar reasons of clarity and contrast, the characteristics of each room have been made more audible and slightly exaggerated. e invite the listener to evaluate how the sound of each instrument compares when heard in the acoustics of a different room or hall and to decide which combinations are most successful. ’d like to share a few personal discoveries. irtual aydn has made me conscious of the development of keyboard instruments in the second half of the eighteenth century. e’ve gained a panoramic and complex view of this development. he use of different temperaments was also a unique experience. variety of new sonic nuances emerged that are not obvious when using equal temperament on modern pianos, but which clearly formed part of musicians’ daily lives in earlier times. emarkably, the clavichord and the square piano had their own resonance chamber “built in.” ven when playing in an acoustically dry room they sounded “reverberant.” here are mechanical noises associated with performance on historical instruments that we are not used to hearing in recorded music, such as the noise of wooden parts being moved during stop changes. ather than deciding to smoothen or edit out these noises, we embraced their presence as a reminder of a performance context different from ours, without the expectation of precision and straight lines, but with an abundance of surprise and spontaneity, characteristics shared by the musical interpretations found on these discs.BioGraPhies is at the forefront of a new generation of interpreters of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century music. is discography includes cDs on the ridge, laves, ufoda, and t’cetera labels. s a scholar he has published in major musicological journals and volumes, and has co-edited haydn and the Performance of rhetoricniversity of hicago ress, ). is mentors include alcolm ilson, James ebster, uchbinder, Jean Goverts, and eiss. e is currently ssociate rofessor at niversity.n internationally acknowledged leader in the �eld of sound recording and record production, artha rancisco has credits on over recordings, most of them for worldwide release on the main record labels. he has worked in the best concert halls and has collaborated with some of the greatest classical musicians of our time. er research topics include the latest surround-sound techniques, music recording with virtual acoustics, and the aesthetics of recorded music. t present she is ssociate rofessor at niversity.ieslaw oszczyk holds the James rofessorship in ecording at niversity. nternationally recognized as a researcher and educator in audio technology, he is the founding director of cirmmTcGill’s Graduate rogram in ound ecording. e was resident of the udio ngineering ociety, hair of the ouncil, and is currently Governor. is current research addresses virtual acoustics, high-resolution audio, and remote real-time communication of multisensory content using broadband networks. knoWleDGmenany people have contributed to the success of irtual aydn. e have listed their names as part of the end credits of Playing the room, fully aware that any such list cannot be complete.wo major grants from the onds Québecois de la recherche sur la société et la culture rsc) and the ocial ciences and umanities esearch ouncil of sshrc) enabled the actual recordings, which we executed at the entre for nterdisciplinary esearch in echnology cirmmT) of the chulich chool of usic of niversity.dditional support for technological research was provided by the anada oundation for nnovation (cFi), the natural ciences and ngineering esearch ouncil of serc), and alorisation-recherche Québec (Q).e thank the chool of usic of niversity (ean), the entre for nterdisciplinary esearch in echnology (irector dams), and msBalorisation (msB) for �nancial contributions in the �nal stages of production.rançoys abonté (f�ce of echnology ransfer, niversity) oversaw the �nal business arrangements of the project with admirable ef�ciency and persistence. ilavachi, Geert obberechts and erbert offered us much appreciated help and advice.he irtual aydn is a cirmmTcGill project and uses irtual coustics echnology (VaT reDi performer/historianartha de rancisco, producer/ieslaw oszczyk, virtual acoustics architectyan iller and Jeremy recording and editingoyuen o, virtual room preparation, mixing, and masteringelyard, project assistance mastering assistanceves eaupré, oomis, aene, Joris otvlieghe, artin ühringer, instrument preparation and tuningJeremy video recording, editing, and directingobert J. documentary �lm screenplay and directinghotos of rooms and instruments Jeremy hotos of laboratory by obertrt photos, reproduced with permission:rograms 1, 3, 4, 9rt esource, nrogram ibrary, rogram aydn-aus, rogram ictoria and lbert rt esource, nrogram ibrary of ongress, ashingtonrogram oto arburg / rt esource, nrogram national ortrait Gallery, ompression and authoring of the lu-ray discs: ostproduction, ontrealesign of booklet, cover, and lu-ray interface: ookai ommunications, ontrealecorded, edited, and mixed at niversity, ontreal, anada, from to arch