Description
In spite of its enduring appeal to audiences, the technical demands and the high tessature of the solo part of Joseph Haydn's Cello Concerto in D major (Hob VIIb:2) have made it a trial by fire for modern cellists. However, the origins of the piece have resisted musicological investigation for nearly two centuries.
In the early 20th century, Hans Volkmann and Donald Tovey argued that the work was the fraudulent creation of Esterházy cellist Anton Kraft. In 1959, the discovery of Haydn's autograph manuscript definitively proved the concerto’s pedigree, but its association with Kraft persisted under the assumption that he had premiered the work. However, discoveries in 2019 by Simon McVeigh and Thomas Tolley cast new light on the concerto’s origins, demonstrating that it was, in fact, commissioned by Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon for his concert series and premiered in 1784 in London by one of England's leading solo cellists of the period, James Cervetto.
This study examines evidence that, although Cervetto possessed a prodigious command of the upper extremes of the 4-stringed cello, Haydn seems to have conceived the work for a 5-stringed instrument fitted with an E string. It considers iconographic evidence and organological data on both Cervetto and his father, Jacob, with 5-stringed instruments. The core of the investigation is a quantitative analysis of the keys, range, and pitch median of Haydn’s solo cello part. It situates that data within the full corpus of Haydn’s concerti for stringed instruments, as well as Cervetto’s own compositions for 5-stringed cello. It follows with a qualitative analysis of the idiosyncrasies of technical execution of the work and concludes with a summary of arguments both in support and in opposition to the central hypothesis, in light of the performing traditions that shaped the reception of the work.
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