Joseph Wölfl’s Duos for Harp and Piano from Duo Praxedis on Toccata Classics

Joseph Wölfl in 1811

Joseph Wölfl (1773–1812) is hardly a reputation that springs to the lips. Born in Salzburg, the younger Wölfl had classes with Mozart’s father and with Michael Haydn, in addition to taking piano classes with Mozart’s sister. In 1790, he carried out earlier than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna and was obtained as a refined pianist. He might have taken classes with Mozart.

Wölfl established himself as a contract musician and loved marked success in Poland till the third partition of Poland in 1795. Returning to Vienna, his opera Der Höllenberg premiered on the Theater auf der Wieden to a libretto by Emmanuel Schikaneder. Wölfl turned often called a pianist and composer of opera, piano and chamber music, making excursions to different musical centres of Germany. It was Constanze Mozart’s suggestion that led to Breitkopf & Härtel turned the principle writer of Wölfl’s works.

Wölfl would write additional operas through the 1790s and early a part of the next century. He was in Paris by 1801, standing out each as a pianist and as a composer of opera, orchestral and chamber music, then he was in London in 1805.  

He entered right into a lifetime contract with Johann Peter Salomon (1745–1815), finest remembered by means of his affiliation with Haydn within the early 1790s, and obtained prestigious commissions as a composer. Quickly Wölfl was often called one of many main musicians of the town, and an important a part of his work, protecting the entire breadth of musical genres, stems from this era. Between 1805 and 1810, one in all his pupils was the English composer Cipriani Potter (1792-1871), who was principal of the Royal Academy of Music for 27 years.

Wölfl died in London in 1812, in what was then the well-to-do suburb of Marylebone. After his dying, quite a few publishers confirmed continued curiosity in his works and additional editions continued to seem till the top of the nineteenth century.

“Wölfl performed a concerto of his personal composition with unprecedented readability and precision, comparable to, with the great span of his palms, nobody else may probably have carried out it. […] A pianist who measures six toes in size, whose fingers are extremely lengthy and might attain the span of a thirteenth with out effort, who can also be so skinny that all the things about him rattles like a scarecrow, who, with essentially the most unbelievable ease, with a contact that’s weak, albeit nice, performs all difficulties, not possible for different pianists, with out shedding his calm posture, who usually is aware of bind whole passages in reasonably quick tempo with one and the identical finger, comparable to within the lengthy tenor passage that continues in sixteenth notes within the Andante of Mozart’s Fantasia [K.397] – such a pianist is unquestionably distinctive. What would our journalists say about such a pianist, in comparison with whom all our pianists, with their baggage of etudes and so-called fantasies, are fools who’ve by no means acknowledged the which means of true artwork, who mannequin their bravura after the comical leaping of grasshoppers, and thus develop themselves into true musical Gasconians. Wölfl’s exceptional virtuosity apart, his enjoying had neither gentle nor shade; he fully lacked masculine power, which can have been why his enjoying didn’t penetrate the innermost being, however somewhat captivated admiration by its gymnastic qualities. Furthermore, regardless of his good-naturedness, he lacked refined tradition; his childishly humorous nature earned him the nickname ‘the silly Wölfl’.”

Václav Jan Tomášek (remembering 1799) quoted in Classical Pianists web site. 

There are six piano concertos, written between 1802 and 1809. The piano concertos intently resemble the later piano concertos of Mozart, who had revolutionized the style; they are often distinguished from Mozart’s works by the bigger vary of the piano, which had been prolonged shortly after Mozart’s dying 

Wölfl encountered distinguished harp virtuosi each in Paris and in London, with whom he carried out and for whom he composed an vital physique of works for harp and piano – one unmatched by another main grasp of the Viennese Classical interval. 

The invention of the pedal harp round 1800 made efficiency in all keys doable. The double-action pedal system was first patented in London by Sebastien Erard in 1801 and 1802. This invention led to the event of a brand new chamber-music mixture, piano and harp, two devices that had been turning into widespread in middle-class properties. 

The Toccata Classics label has already issued two discs of Wölfl’s piano music carried out by Adalberto Maria Riva, and now they’re specializing in Wölfl’s duos for piano and harp with a brand new disc carried out by Duo Praxedis due out in November. Since 2010 the Duo Praxedis, comprising the harpist Praxedis Hug-Rütti and the pianist Praxedis Geneviève Hug, has been reviving this forgotten custom of works for harp and piano. 

Wölfl’s Grand Duo pour Harpe et Piano in F main, Op. 29 was composed in Paris in 1804, and devoted to a harpist who had carried out as a musician in Queen Marie Antoinette’s live shows. The Grand Duett for the Harp and Piano Forte in B flat main, Op. 37 was composed in London in 1806 and devoted to François-Joseph Dizi (1780–1840), one of many main harp virtuosi of the day. The premiere on the King’s Live performance Rooms in Hanover Sq., was a convincing success, and it was repeated at subsequent live shows, even being issued in a model for 2 pianos. A Second Duett in E flat main, Op. 44 dates from 1807 and was devoted to harp-playing sisters, the Miss Gautherots. The premiere befell at a profit live performance the place Wölfl performed the piano and Miss Gautherot the harp.

In 1807 Joseph Wölfl revealed a group devoted to his pupils below the title Bouquet de Flore, comprising seven compositions for quite a lot of instrumental combos. It’s noteworthy that Wölfl engraved the music himself on copper plates and issued the amount at his personal expense. Two of the works within the assortment are scored for harp and piano. 

Wölfl additionally composed a considerable sonata for solo harp and a sonata for flute and harp. Collectively, these compositions type a consultant physique of works that stands as a timeless monument to the event of the harp and the artwork of harp-playing throughout this era. 

My due to Toccata Classics as a lot of the knowledge on this article comes from the informative programme booklet by Margit Haider-Dechant and Hermann Dechant.

The recital, beneath, contains the Second Duo by Wölfl [from 1:26:30] carried out by Duo Praxedis on the Wölfl-Haus in Bonn.

 Full particulars of Joseph Wölfl’s Full Duos for Harp and Piano from Duo Praxedis on Toccata Classics. The disc will likely be launched on the finish of November.