thumb|upright|Johann Baptist Wanhal

Johann Baptist Wanhal (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813) was a Czech composer of the Classical period. He was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, and died in Vienna. His music was well respected by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. He was an accomplished instrumentalist as well; a proficient organist, he also played the violin and cello.

Name

Wanhal and at least one of his publishers used the spelling Waṅhal, the dot being an archaic form of the modern háček. Other attested variants include Wanhall, Vanhal and Van Hall. The modern Czech form Jan Křtitel Vaňhal was introduced in the 20th century.

Biography

Birth and youth in Bohemia: 1739–1760/61

Wanhal was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, into serfdom in a Czech peasant family. He received his first musical training from his family and local musicians, the organist Anton Erban being one of his most prized mentors, and excelled at violin and organ at an early age. From these humble beginnings, he was able to earn a living as a village organist and choirmaster. He was also taught German from an early age, as this was required for someone wishing to make a career in music within the Habsburg empire.

Journey to Italy: 1769–1771

The details of Wanhal's journey to Italy are scant, but it is known that he met his fellow Bohemians Gluck and Florian Gassmann in Venice and Rome, respectively. The Italian journey offers the only evidence of Wanhal writing operas. It is thought that he wrote music for the Metastasian opera libretti Il Trionfo di Clelia and Demofonte, either by himself or in collaboration with Gassmann. Wanhal might have supplied some or all of the arias, but nothing can be evaluated, since these works have been lost. In additions to his documented travels in northern and central Italy, Wanhal may have intended to travel to Naples, but never seems to have arrived there.

Vienna and Varaždin: 1771–1780

After his journey to Italy, Wanhal returned to Vienna rather than to go to Riesch in Dresden. Claims have been made that Wanhal became heavily depressed or even insane, but these claims are likely to have been overstated. During this period it is supposed that he acted occasionally as a de facto Kapellmeister for Count Erdődy in Varaždin, Croatia, although the small number of compositions by him remaining there suggests that this was not the full-time role that would have been expected if he had worked with Riesch; Vanhal might have preferred such employment with the Count precisely because of its part-time nature. There is no evidence of visits after 1779.

Return to Vienna and final years: 1780–1813

Around 1780, Wanhal stopped writing symphonies and string quartets, focusing instead on sacred works and music for piano and small-scale chamber ensembles. His piano music, written for a growing middle class, supplied him with the means to live a modest, economically independent life. For the last 30 years of his life, he did not work under any patron, probably being the first prominent Viennese composer to do so. During these years, more than 270 of his works were published by Viennese printers. In the 1780s, he was still an active participant in Viennese musical life. In 1782, he met Mozart, who admired Wanhal's symphonies. He enjoyed playing music with Mozart and some of his friends who were composers, as testified in Michael Kelly's account of the string quartet Wanhal played in together with Haydn, Mozart and Dittersdorf in 1784. After 1787 or so, however, he seems to have ceased performing in public, but he nevertheless was economically secure, living in good quarters near St. Stephen's Cathedral. He died without heirs in 1813, an elderly composer whose music was still recognized by the Viennese public.

<!--

Old text which is retained for now, as all details may not be adequately covered in the newer text above!

Biography

Born in Nechanice, Bohemia, to a Czech peasant family, Wanhal received his early training from a local musician. From these humble beginnings he was able to earn a living as a village organist and choirmaster. The Countess Schaffgotsch, who heard him playing the violin, took him to Vienna in 1760, where she arranged lessons in composition with Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf. Further patronage helped him to travel and gain further knowledge of music and by the age of 35, he was moving in exalted musical company: it is reported he played quartets with Haydn, Mozart, and Dittersdorf. Wanhal tailored his output to economic realities of the day and ceased writing symphonies in the late-1770s. He wrote three operas: Il Demofoonte (1770), Il trionfo di Clelia (1770), and The Princess of Tarento. In the 1770s, Wanhal met the contrabassist Johannes Matthias Sperger and wrote a double bass concerto for him. The English music historian Charles Burney visited Wanhal in 1772. Mozart performed Wanhal's Violin Concerto in B flat in Augsburg in 1777. In or around 1784, Haydn, Dittersdorf, Mozart and Wanhal played string quartets together; Haydn and Dittersdorf played the violins, Mozart the viola, and Wanhal cello. The recorder of this event, the composer and tenor Michael Kelly, stated that they played well but not outstandingly together, but the image of four of the great composers of the time all joined in common music-making is still a classic image of the Classical era.

Wanhal was reported to have suffered from an unspecified nervous disorder, which eventually went away, but which gave rise to the opinion held by Burney and others that the quality of Wanhal's compositions deteriorated with the disappearance of his condition. Scholars such as Paul Bryan find that "the quality and quantity of the serious works he [Wanhal] composed after 1770, ... belie that assertion."

Old text ends here

-->

Style

Wanhal had to be a prolific writer to meet the demands made upon him, and attributed to him are 100 quartets, at least 73 symphonies, 95 sacred works, and a large number of instrumental and vocal works. The symphonies, in particular, have been committed increasingly often to compact disc in recent times, and the best of them are comparable with many of Haydn's. Many of Wanhal's symphonies are in minor keys and are considered highly influential to the "Sturm und Drang" movement of his time. "[Wanhal] makes use of repeated semiquavers, pounding quavers in the bass line, wide skips in the themes, sudden pauses (fermatas), silences, exaggerated dynamic marks ... and all these features ... appear in Mozart's first large-scale Sturm und Drang symphony, no. 25 in g minor (K. 183) of 1773." This kind of style also appears in Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 83 in g minor, The Hen (1785), and

Muzio Clementi's Sonata in g minor, Op.34, No.2 (circa 1795).

Around 1780 Wanhal seems to have stopped writing large-scale instrumental music, and rather contented himself with writing piano music for the growing middle class, and church music. In the former category his programmatic pieces, often related to recent events such as "the Battle of Würzburg", "the Battle of Abukir", and "the Return of Francis II in 1809". Judging from the number of extant manuscripts available, these works must have been highly popular.

Wanhal was also the most prolific writer of Masses and other Catholic church music of his generation in Vienna. Despite this, it appears that he was never in the employ of any religious institution. This means that his late Masses are both testaments to a genuine personal faith, and evidence of how lucrative his focus on incidental piano music must have been.

Robert O. Gjerdingen sees a change in Wanhal's style as he redirected his attention towards the middle class, his music becoming didactic in the sense that it employed musical figures in a clear and self-referential manner, rather than the seamless continuity from figure to figure that had characterized his earlier pieces. In this, Gjerdingen sees Wanhal as prefiguring Beethoven.

Such was his success that within a few years of his symphonies being written, they were being performed around the world, and as far distant as the United States. In later life, however, he rarely moved from Vienna, where he was also an active teacher.

References

Further reading

  • www.wanhal.org the Johann Baptist Wanhal Association
  • Duke University website
  • www.klassika.info/Komponisten/Vanhal/wv_gattung.html
  • www.klassika.info/Komponisten/Vanhal/index.html
  • Johann Baptist Wanhal (Vanhal) on NAXOS.com
  • www.classical-composers.org/comp/vanhal
  • Wanhal works at Artaria Editions

;Scores

  • Works by Wanhal at the Mutopia project