TheVirtual Haydn - Early Music America · works by Haydn that contain chords in the left hand...

Early Music America Summer 2010 35

IN MANY WAYS THE SUCCESS of the early music movement has

been inextricably linked with that of therecording industry. A plethora of record-ings were made by early music pioneersthat may have helped “spread thegospel” even more than live perform-ances. Many were truly ground-breaking,either in revealing old chestnuts in a newlight through the use of “old” instru-ments and playing styles, or by featuringlesser-known repertoire that had falleninto obscurity once the instruments forwhich it had been written fell out offavor. Intimate instruments such as thelute and the clavichord, for instance,were particularly well served by record-ings since listeners could bring theseinstruments into their living rooms for aprivate experience, which is what theywere intended for in the first place.Many in the field embarked on ambi-tious “Complete Works” projects, whichwere far less cumbersome to releaseonce the CD era began. The early musicrecording boom reached its peak in themid-to-late 1990s, when the power ofthe recording industry in general seemedto have largely run its course: more andmore people began downloading theirmusic from the Internet, often piece-meal, and indeed, one is hard pressed tofind a good old-fashioned record storeto browse through these days. (See CraigZeichner’s “New Ways to Get YourMusic” in EMAg, Fall 2007, page 30)Sadly, once this shift took place, some“Complete Works” projects werestopped mid-production. In some ways,it also seems that everything has beendone already: most major works in the

canon have been committed todisc on period instruments, andmany of the composers whoseworks were a revelation a fewdecades ago are now well- represented on recordings.

However, in the first decade ofthe 21st century, three intrepid profes-sors at Montreal’s McGill Universityembarked on a project that was trulyrevolutionary, the results of whichwere released on four Blu-ray discsby the equally enterprising Naxoslabel in September 2009, just intime for the Haydn Year. Wel-come to The Virtual Haydn: TheComplete Works for Solo Keyboard(Naxos NBD0001-04),recorded by keyboardist andmusicologist Tom Beghin onseven historical instrumentsin nine “virtual rooms.”The recording engineerand producer (or “Tonmeister”) for thisproject was the legendary Martha deFrancisco, who was one of the pioneersof digital recording and editing inEurope in the 1980s and who hasworked with countless luminaries ofclassical music on a staggering 300-plusrecordings. Wieslaw Woszczyk, who callshimself a “virtual acoustics architect,”was the mastermind who harnessed thepower of a new recording technologythat, simply put, allows one to “sample”the acoustical properties of a space andthen bring the results back to a studio tocreate a “virtual room” in which torecord. Thus, Beghin was able not onlyto use newly-built replicas of seven key-board instruments that reflected more

How early keyboard specialist Tom Beghin brought togetherseven instruments, nine rooms,four instrument builders, arenowned recording engineer and a “virtual acoustics architect”to re-create the sound world of Franz Joseph Haydn

TheVirtualHaydn

By Sylvia Berry

36 Summer 2010 Early Music America

closely than ever before the wealth ofinstruments known to Haydn and thosewho played his music but to record them“in” spaces that are either directly associ-ated with Haydn or are very like spacesthat he and his players would haveknown. The studio where these record-ings were made is part of McGill’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), known affectionately bypeople at McGill as “Kermit.” Theequally ground-breaking decision torelease the project on Blu-ray allows forall 15 hours of music to fit on just threediscs, and for the inclusion of a fourthdisc that features a wonderful documen-tary about the whole process as well asfive video performances. I got thechance to visit Montreal last spring asthe project was nearing completion andto speak with some of the peopleinvolved. To fully grasp the magnitudeof this undertaking, some backgroundinformation is necessary.

The instrumentsJoseph Haydn (1732–1809) com-

posed keyboard music during a roughly40-year period during which manychanges in aesthetics and instrument-building took place. In our current earlykeyboard landscape, the mid-18-century

French double-manual harpsichord andthe Walter-type five-octave Viennesefortepiano from the 1790s reignsupreme, but during Haydn’s lifetime,scores of other instruments were incommon use, such as the clavichord, thesquare piano, and the Vienneseharpsichord. Previous to Beg hin’s proj-ect, only one other complete Haydn setcame close to representing the wealth ofinstruments known to Haydn, that ofkeyboardist Christine Schornsheim(Capriccio/WDR, 2005). For this projectSchornsheim used five instruments: aSaxon-style five-octave clavichord byBurkhard Zander (Cologne, 1999) afterGottfried van Horn (Dresden, 1788); aFrench double-manual harpsichord byWilliam Dowd and Reinhard von Nagel(1976); an English double-manual harp-sichord by Jacob and Abraham Kirck-man (London, 1777); a five-octave Vien-nese fortepiano by Louis Dulken(Munich, 1793); and an English grandpiano by John Broadwood and Son(London, 1804). All of these instru-ments are interesting and pertinent, andin the case of John Broadwood, weknow that Haydn had access to hispianos during his time spent in London.It is a rich set and a truly welcome addi-tion for anyone interested in Haydn’skeyboard works.

Beghin, however, has gone even fur-ther, commissioning seven instruments,one of which is the first replica of itskind ever made. His instrument rostercontains a Saxon-style clavichord by JorisPotvlieghe (Tollembeek, 2003) after aninstrument from circa 1760; a Viennesesingle-manual harpsichord with the so-called “Viennese short octave,” or “mul-tiple broken octave,” by Martin Püh -ringer (Haslach, 2004) after Johann Ley-decker (Vienna, 1775); a French double- manual harpsichord, c.1755, by YvesBeaupré (Montreal, 2007); a squarepiano (Tafelklavier) by Chris Maene (Rui -selede, 2007) after Ignaz Kober (Vienna,1788); an “early” Viennese fortepianowith Stossmechanik by Maene (2005) afterAnton Walter (Vienna, 1782); a “late”Viennese fortepiano with Prellmechanikby Maene (2005) after Walter (Vienna,c.1790); and an English grand piano byMaene (2004) after Longman, Clementi& Co. (London, 1798).

Above, McGill’s Tom Beghin, who recordedthe complete keyboard works of Haydn on Blu-ray for Naxos, and top, WieslawWoszczyk and Doyuen Ko during the technical set up for capturing the sound ofOxford’s Holywell Music Room, the oldestexisting concert hall in Europe, which servedas a virtual venue for some of the recordings.

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Each of these instruments is a gem,and the combination of them in The Virtual Haydn provides a great opportu-nity to travel through Haydn’s expansivesound-world. Perhaps the two most fas-cinating instruments here are the Vien-nese harpsichord and the Viennesesquare piano. The Viennese harpsichordhas never before been copied, and partof the interest of this instrument lies inthe fact that there are a handful of earlyworks by Haydn that contain chords inthe left hand spanning a tenth (Varia-tions in A Major, Hob. XVII:2, Sonata inE Minor, Hob. XVI: 47, and the Capric-cio on “Acht Sauschneider Müssen sein,Hob. XVII:1), which are only realizableon instruments with this particular shortoctave configuration (see photo at right).

That in itself would be reason aloneto want to try these instruments, butBeghin is also well-versed in the researchof organologists Alfons Huber, RichardMaunder, and Michael Latcham, whichled him to the conclusion that theseharpsichords really needed to be exam-ined. Upon playing some of theseinstruments in the KunsthistorischesMuseum in Vienna, he realized that thediscomfort he’d felt playing Haydn onFrench or Italian harpsichords vanished.“I started noticing that so much of the“Viennese style” we’ve grown to know –the little slurs, those exquisite resolu-tions, the type of ornamentation we findin Wagenseil’s or Haydn’s scores – wasclearly embedded in those earlier harpsi-chords already, with their low key dip

and their relatively light touch.” Beghin’smastery of the intricacies of the shortoctave is impressive, and as we learn inthe accompanying documentary, he waspracticing on this instrument while itwas still being built, in preparation for aconcert at Esterháza!

Truth be told, it is easier to play thework on a fully chromatic keyboard, andwhen it was published in an unautho-rized edition in 1788, the chords with thetenths were easily reconfigured. (Howev-er, the fact that the last page is fiendishlydifficult on the Viennese short octavemay also serve to represent the difficulttask the eight castraters face!) Manybelieve that these instruments were therule rather than the exception in Vienna;in fact, Viennese musicians at the timeoften referred to instruments with fullychromatic keyboards as “French,”heightening the sense that they were for-eign and unusual. It is also interesting tonote that the early Viennese harpsichordclearly has its roots in the Italian schoolof building rather than the Franco-Flem-ish, evidenced by its scaling and the factthat it is a single-manual instrument withonly two 8' registers, whose hand stopsare inside the case (making it much harderto make quick register changes) ratherthan at the front, as on a French instru-ment. It is still debated whether or notHaydn had access to French double-manual harpsichords, and in the absenceof concrete evidence, it is hard to say. Itseems quite likely, however, that Haydn’semployer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy,

Bottom, the “Spiegelsaal” in the EsterházyPalace, once used as the main receptionroom but imagined by Beghin as a salonwhere music lessons might have been held.Middle, a Viennese single-manual harpsi-chord (after Johann Leydecker, 1775) madeby Martin Pühringer, used for the recordingsin the Spiegelsaal. Below, a detail of the shortoctave configuration on this instrument.


who had a penchant for French culture,would have had one at Esterháza, hisopulent summer home that was modeledafter the magnificent palace at Versailles.Beghin has chosen to use both kinds ofharpsichord, but the Leydecker replica isa real revelation; its back 8' has a beauti-fully luminous tone, and when the two 8'registers are coupled, the instrument hasa wonderful tangy sound.

Similarly, the Viennese square orTafelklavier (literally “table piano”) isinteresting because it differs in some keyways from the better-known Englishsquare. It differs sonically from the Eng-lish, having a much clearer and sweetertone, but a more obvious difference is inthe construction, most notably in its var-ious registers or “mutation” stops. Forstarters, on the Tafelklavier the handstops are at the front of the case insteadof inside, which, as already stated, makesit easier to do quick register changes.The registers include a “Pantalon” stopthat enables the player to raise all thedampers at once, imitating the un -damped effect of the large hammer- dulcimer of the same name, which wasinvented around 1697 and performed onacross Europe to great acclaim by itsinventor, Pantaleon Hebenstreit. (On anEnglish square, one needs to engage twostops to raise all the dampers, since thereis one stop for raising the dampers onthe lower half and one for raising themon the upper half.) Although many citethe harpsichord as the forebear of thepiano, the hammer dulcimer certainlybears more paternity in some respects,most obviously because both instru-ments use hammers to strike strings.Hebenstreit worked at the court in Dres-den where the famous organ andfortepiano builder Gottfried Silbermannwas responsible for the upkeep of hisinstrument. Silbermann, of course, wasalso the one who helped disseminate thedesign of the instrument now known asthe “piano,” which was known by itsFlorentine inventor Bartolomeo Cristo-fori (1655 – 1732) as “gravecembalo colpiano e forte,” or “harpsichord with softand loud.” Cristofori’s instruments had

no mechanism to lift the dampers, so Silbermann’s addition of this device onhis squares was a radical change to theCristofori model, and one that became a well-loved feature of square pianosthroughout Europe.

The Viennese Tafelklavier also has a“register” not found on English squares,the moderator, which slips a strip of feltcloth between the hammers and stringsto create a breathtaking muted effect.When the Pantalon and moderator arecombined, the sound is truly ethereal, asit is on Viennese grands. Most fortepi-anists have not taken the humble squarepiano too seriously; it was the instru-ment of amateurs, mostly women, whoplayed in their parlors, and it has a small

sound, not to mention some difficultywith repetition largely due to the lack of a backcheck rail. But indeed, theseinstruments were actually more prevalentthan grands, and Beghin makes a con-vincing case for it musically. Historically,too, we know that Haydn was veryattuned to his buying public, so he waswell aware that many of the players whobought his music would play it on thistype of instrument. In fact, new researchby Richard Maunder points to the factthat the “new piano” by Schanz thatHaydn mentions buying in a letter of1788 may very well have been a square.

The two Walter copies used here rep-resent a real feat of engineering, for theyare in fact one piano with two actions;veteran instrument builder Chris Maenehas made one case that can accommo-date an earlier Stossmechanik and a later

Prellmechanik, both after those by thefamed Viennese builder Anton Walter.Stoss literally means “push,” and in theseactions a hopper (jack) attached to theend of the key flings the hammer, whichis attached to a rail, up to the strings. In aPrellmechanik (Prell means “flip”), thehammers are held in a kapsel (bracket)attached directly to the backs of thekeys, making more dynamic gradationsavailable to the player, as Beghin demon-strates in the documentary. A further dif-ference in these actions is the amount ofleather covering the hammers: in theearly instrument, we find only one layer,and in the later instrument, three. Soni-cally, this makes the earlier instrumentsound a bit more percussive and“speech-like,” and the later instrument abit more mellow and singing. Beghin’sability to have “two” pianos by simplysubstituting one action for another hasallowed him to easily explore the sonicand aesthetic differences between thesetwo actions, and it has been very inform-ative. I have elsewhere referred to thisinstrument as a “two-in-one Walter” (seeSylvia Berry, “Haydn Recordings in theBicentennial Year” in Keyboard Perspectives,Vol. II; Westfield Center for HistoricalKeyboard Studies, 2009), but Beghin hascalled it “the double action Mozartpiano.” The seeds for the idea of explor-ing both were planted in 1997 after orga-nologist Michael Latcham published aseminal article in Early Music (Vol. 25.No. 3) that posited that Mozart’s much-copied Walter, with a Prellmechanik andknee-levers, may have been altered bythe builder after Mozart’s death upon therequest of his widow. Latcham surmisedthat Mozart’s piano, built in 1782, mayhave had a Stossmechanik action, as well ashand stops for raising the dampers andengaging the moderator, which makesthem more easily accessible, offeringaltogether different performance possi-bilities than when these registers areaccessed by the knees. This means thatone will play “damped” for the mostpart, instead of “pedaling” frequently,and that when one wants to have an“undamped” effect, one has to choosewisely and commit to it for longerstretches of time. Interestingly, withhand stops for raising the dampers, onemay also raise half the dampers, leaving

In the first decade of the 21stcentury, three intrepid

professors at Montreal’s McGillUniversity embarked on a

project that was trulyrevolutionary, the results ofwhich were released on four Blu-ray discs by the equally

enterprising Naxos.

TheVirtual Haydn


the other half of the piano damped. In a Mozart disc recorded on this

instrument in 2006, Beghin made a stun-ning discovery by recording one of theworks, the D minor Fantasia (K. 397)twice, using both actions. The instru-ment sounded significantly differentdepending on which action was used,revealing that the action has as much todo with the “voice” of the instrument asthe case and soundboard. Interestingly,the earlier Stossmechanik is what is foundin square pianos, and perhaps not sur-prisingly, the “early” Walter bears a strik-ing sonic resemblance to the VienneseTafelklavier. The presence of handstopsfor the “registers” on the early Walteralso mirrors the Tafelklavier, making forsimilar register use. The Prellmechanikwith knee levers is what most fortepi-anists play these days, and it’s a morepowerful, but less intimate instrument.While we do not know which kind ofpiano Haydn had the most access to, it isnonetheless clear that both types ofpianos were in use during his lifetime,and having the chance to hear both isilluminating.

Though less revelatory, the remainingthree instruments in the set are all won-derful: the Saxon-style clavichord has awarm sound and a wide dynamic range,while the French double-manual harpsi-chord literally sparkles. The Longman,Clementi & Co. piano holds a certainfascination, since Maene owns the origi-nal and restored it himself before mak-ing a copy of it. Luckily, in The VirtualHaydn, we get to hear both: on the audiodisc we hear the replica “in” the virtual

Holywell Music Room, and in the docu-mentary we hear the original in the realHolywell Music Room. It is amazing tosee how sonically close Maene came inhis replica to the original.

The rooms Beghin had already asked Martha de

Francisco if she was interested in work-ing on the Haydn project when WieslawWoszczyk approached him with the ideaof using “virtual acoustics.” As Beghinexplains in his notes, he initially feltskeptical: “My focus had been onHaydn, his dedicatees, and their instru-ments. Now also their rooms? Whatabout their clothes, also relevant for aspecific composure at the keyboard?Candles?... We want to be inspired, notenslaved, by history.” When asked later ifhis plan had been to use a conventionalstudio or to record in spaces with fairlylive acoustics, he elaborated: “I hadindeed intended to go to places where Iwould find the best instruments. Goingto proper historical spaces hadn’t beenmy priority. In retrospect, I’d say: rathernaively. (I once recordedC.P.E. Bach’s characterpieces on a clavichord in ahuge concert hall – trueenough: for recording it’simportant to be in spacesthat allow vibrations todevelop at their fullest, butthe danger is that one losestouch with the actual envi-ronments that these instru-ments were initially designedfor.) My main fear was

regarding the trap, as I would call it, ofhistorical reconstruction.… [But] theinteresting part is that ‘rooms’ startedentering my interpretations as a parame-ter completely on par with instruments.”

Malcolm Bilson likes to tell the storyof the revelatory experience he had play-ing in the Ceremonial Room at Ester-háza for the first time in 1972. Theacoustics were perfect, and after return-ing from his trip, he called the pioneer-ing fortepiano builder Philip Belt andexclaimed, “Philip! Stop building instru-ments and start building rooms!” Mostearly music enthusiasts in North Ameri-ca would have to agree that we have adearth of venues that truly come closeto the spaces this music was performed

Bottom, Haydn’s study in his house inEisenstadt near the Esterházy Palace. Below,a Saxon-style clavichord (after an instrumentfrom 1760) used by Beghin for recordings in Haydn’s house. The clavichord was madeby Joris Potvlieghe in 2003.


in. And while a number of exquisitechurches exist in which Medieval, Ren-aissance, and Baroque music can be suit-ably heard and played, one still finds thatmany groups are performing in spacesthat are too big for the music. Indeed,even when some period orchestras playClassical and early Romantic repertoire,the concert halls in which they are play-ing are still too big. In many ways, thisproject addresses that issue, for Haydn’skeyboard music, and indeed most key-board music from that period, was notconceived of as “concert music” in theway that concertos and symphonieswere, or in the way that sonatas from themid-19th century onward were. Whilewe know that many composer-pianistssuch as Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi,Dussek, et al., performed solo music inconcert, we return again to the pointthat the spaces they would have played in are still more intimate than most dedicated concert spaces here.

As it happens, the stunning Ceremo-nial Room at Esterháza (see cover)where Bilson had his epiphany is one ofthe nine rooms that was sampled for TheVirtual Haydn, and it seems only fittingthat Beghin, who was one of Bilson’sstudents in the 1990s, would have theopportunity to record “in” this spacewith the aid of this nascent, ground-breaking technology. The McGill team

chose the other eight rooms based ontheir ties to Haydn, or their similarity tospaces he and keyboardists at the timewould have known. Taken together,these nine spaces range from extremelyintimate to sumptuously grand, andwithin the scope of this project, Beghinis able to demonstrate that Haydn’s veryscores often point towards which type ofspaces or “performances” Haydn wasconsidering. There are intimate sonatasthat point to the small salon and grandersonatas whose big gestures and publicnature points towards larger spaces. Inthe end, it seems clear that the decisionsBeghin had to make about which worksto play on which instrument seguedbeautifully and very sensibly into whatrooms they should be “recorded” in.

Save for his two London sojourns,Haydn spent his entire life in the Haps-burg empire, in a small region near Vien-na that spanned only 31 miles (50 kilo-meters) across. In 1761, he was hired byPrince Anton Esterházy, a plum jobsince the Esterházys were the richest andmost influential members of the Hun-garian nobility and had long been avidpatrons of the arts. The main residenceof the family was the Esterházy Palace inEisenstadt, a small town outside Vienna.Haydn bought a house there in 1766,and two of the “rooms” used in thisproject are in this house, which is now amuseum. Designated as “Room Five”and “Haydn’s Study,” they are smallrooms with hardwood floors and lowceilings; “Room Five” is the larger of thetwo and is treated as a middle class draw-ing room. Beghin chose to play earlyworks on the clavichord in both rooms,which works well not only in the spacesbut with Haydn’s circumstances in theearly part of his career. We are remindedof Haydn’s own comment on this time:“When I was sitting at my worm-eatenclavier, I envied no king his fortune.” Itis fairly certain that by clavier he meansclavichord. Indeed, the quiet-voicedclavichord consoled and charmed manya musician, and it is easy to imagineHaydn playing for himself in thesespaces. From the Esterházy Palace, wehave the ornate “Spiegelsaal,” whosewalls feature bas-reliefs of musicalinstruments. Though this was a publicspace once used as the Prince’s main

Bottom, the “Prunkraum” in the AlbertinaMuseum in Vienna. Using the sound envelope captured from this room, Beghinrecorded three sonatas Haydn dedicated to Princess Liechtenstein on a square piano(below) built by Chris Maene in 2007 after a 1788 instrument by Ignaz Kober.


reception room, Beghin treats it as asalon where one of the ladies of theEsterházy clan might have had lessons,using the Viennese harpsichord.

Prince Nikolaus, successor to Anton,had grand dreams and proceeded tobuild another palace in what is nowmodern-day Hungary, in the town of Fertöd. Called Esterháza, it started outas a summer palace but eventuallybecame the family home for 10 monthsof the year. Nikolaus, who in his day was known as “The Magnificent” (DerPrachtliebende), consciously set out to cre-ate Esterháza in the image of Versailles.With this in mind, Beghin chose to playthe French double-manual harpsichordin this room and to record the sixsonatas that comprise Haydn’s firstauthorized publication in any genre, Hob.XVI: 21-26. Published in 1774, they arededicated to his royal employer and areoften referred to as the “EsterházySonatas.” They are grand works with biggestures, and the opening sonata of theset is in C major, itself a very “public”key. The opulence and magnificence ofthe Ceremonial Room is heightened bythe six large mirrors on the walls, whichalso create a highly reflective and “live”acoustic. The adjoining room, separatedonly by tall French doors, is treated inthis set as the “Esterháza Music Room.”It is also visually stunning, and the linernotes state: “An almost exact cube, theroom has extraordinarily lusciousacoustics. We use the room as a genericsalon of the high aristocracy.” In thisroom Beghin plays one of three pro-grams on the “early” Walter piano, thisone featuring six sonatas (Hob. XVI:35–39, 20) published in Vienna in 1780and dedicated to the extremely talentedAuenbrugger sisters, whose musician-ship Haydn praised as “equal to thefinest masters.” This room, while large, has a less cavernous acoustic than the Ceremonial Room.

The remaining four rooms do nothave a direct relationship to Haydn,though we can be fairly certain that hewould have visited the Lobkowitz Palaceduring his visits to Vienna. It was thescene of much music-making, andPrince Franz Joseph MaximillianLobkowitz, an amateur violinist, cellist,and singer, greatly admired Haydn’s

music. In 1808, the composerJohann Friedrich Reichardt notedthat it was a “true residence andacademy of music.” Both profes-sional musicians and aristocraticamateur musicians (many of whomwould be quite talented by today’samateur standards) performedchamber music and oratorios in thisgrandiose hall, and Beethoven’sEroica was premiered there in 1804.(Thus, the hall is usually referred tonow as the “Eroica-Saal.”) Likemany rectangular rooms with marblewalls and parquet floors, this room hasvery sympathetic and lively acoustics,which are in many ways friendlier thansome spaces built today that aredesigned specifically for concerts.Adorning the ceilings are allegoricalscenes depicting various arts and sci-ences. Beghin plays the “late” Walterwith Prellmechanik in this room for a pro-gram entitled “Viennese Culture,” whichpresents four late works with Vienneseties. The free-spirited and utterly virtu-osic C major Fantasia (Hob. XVII:4) waspublished there in 1789, and the otherworks were not only published there butdedicated to Viennese ladies who werewell-known as performers in the salon

Above, in conversation with his recordingcolleagues, Tom Beghin discusses the sound of Holywell Music Room in Oxford,England (where Haydn received an honorarydoctorate in 1791). Below, an English grandpiano built in 2004 by Chris Maene after one made by Longman, Clementi & Co. in1798, an instrument restored by Maene.Beghin recorded a Blu-ray video on the original instrument in the Holywell MusicRoom and recorded Haydn works associatedwith London in the captured sound of theroom back in the studio in Montreal.


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scene, Barbara Ployer and Magdalenavon Kürzbock. Ployer was one ofMozart’s star students and the recipientof K. 459 and 453, and the work Haydndedicated to her is the transcendentalVariations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6.Kürzbock was the lucky recipient of oneof Haydn’s most famous and belovedworks, the Sonata in E-flat, Hob.XVI:52. A Viennese reviewer at the timenoted that the sonata spoke to the abili-ties of the dedicatee, which is surelytrue, but this work had actually beendedicated earlier to another powerhousepianist, the “Celebrated” Therese JansenBartolozzi, a student of Muzio Clementiwhom Haydn befriended in London.Therefore, Beghin cannily chose torecord this work twice, once on theViennese piano to represent Kürzbock,and once on the English piano forJansen.

The Albertina in Vienna, once a vastroyal palace, now serves as an art muse-um and library. The“Prunkraum” in theAlbertina was once thereception room for theprivate apartments of aprincess, the young wifeof the Archduke of Aus-tria. Beghin explains thatsilk wall coverings and alarge carpet “contributeto intimate acousticsdefined by a heavy absorption ofsound.” He plays the square piano in thisroom and features the three sonatas thatHaydn dedicated to Princess Liechten-stein (Hob. XVI: 40-42) as a weddingpresent after her marriage to PrinceNikolaus II Esterházy. At the oppositeend of the spectrum is the only room ofthe nine that was originally conceived ofas a public concert space, the HolywellMusic Room in Oxford, England. Builtin 1742, it opened for public concerts in1748 and is thus the oldest concert hallin Europe. Haydn received an honorarydoctorate of music at Oxford Universityin a two-day ceremony in July 1791, andit seems quite likely that he could have

heard or participated in a concert here. Itis a large rectangular space with a curvedback wall, hardwood flooring and wood-en benches, and plastered walls and ceil-ing. It is acoustically very vibrant, and asan added bonus in this collection, one ofthe video performances was filmed here,using the original Longman, Clementi &Co. piano that Maene restored and sub-sequently replicated. In this way, we hearand experience not only the “real” room,but a “real” instrument as well. Beghinrecords Haydn’s works associated withLondon here, save for the Sonata in DMajor, Hob. XVI: 51, which he recordson the English piano, but in the “Sallesdes Nantes” in Montreal.

The McGill team returned home tothe New World for one room, the exqui-site “Salle des Nantes” at the ChâteauRamezay in Montreal. Built in 1705, itwas originally the mansion of Montrealgovernor Claude de Ramezay but it sub-sequently had many owners, the Ameri-

can Revolutionary Armybeing one of them. (Ben-jamin Franklin is said tohave stayed here.) The“Salle des Nantes,” asBeghin writes, “… has itsown ‘virtual’ feature: sur-rounding mahogany pan-els, carved with images ofmusical instruments,[which] were imported

from another 18th-century mansion inNantes, France.” He explains further:“We use the room as a ‘far away’ loca-tion. The ‘Anno 776’ Sonatas (Hob.XVI: 27 – 32) had already made it intoprint in Amsterdam and Berlin. Surely acopy reached the faraway Province ofQuebec, too.” In point of fact, we doknow that Haydn’s music had made it tothe New World by the 1780s, specificallyto the city of Philadelphia via AlexanderReinagle (1756 – 1809), an English musi-cian of German descent who movedthere following the American Revolu-tion. A keyboardist, he arrived in 1786and began programming Haydn’s musicon a series called the “City Concerts,”

Beghin hascommissioned seven

instruments, one of which is the

first replica of its kindever made.

TheVirtual Haydn


and on a number of programs we findlisted sonatas “For the Piano Forte, byMr. Haydn.” Interestingly, the rooms ofthe City Tavern, where Reinagle’s con-certs took place, are covered in woodpaneling like the “Salle des Nantes.” Wedo not know what piano Reinagleplayed, but Beghin’s choice to use theViennese Tafelklavier perhaps reflects thefact that square pianos were prevalent onthis side of the ocean as well.

The recording processThe accompanying documentary,

entitled “Playing the Room: The Makingof the Virtual Haydn,” shows very clear-ly how the entire recording process tookplace. Here we meet Martha de Francis-co and Wieslaw Woszczyk, as well as allfour instrument builders. We see each of the rooms as well as the studio atCIRMMT, and in the sequence shot atthe Holywell Music Room, we see howthe rooms are sampled. In his essay inthe accompanying booklet, Woszczykdescribes the process in detail: “We‘excite’ the real room through an 80-sec-ond logarithmic sine-sweep rangingfrom 18 Hz to 48 kHz. The signal isradiated through multiple loudspeakersdistributed in the area of the roomwhere we’ve decided the musician wouldbe performing. HDIR software… allowsus to register the response in eight chan-nels of high-resolution 96 kHz/24 bitaudio. Sound sources of the sweep are10 to 14 loudspeakers covering a full fre-quency range from 25 to 50 kHz. Theloudspeakers, arranged to approximatethe radiation pattern of a keyboardinstrument’s soundboard, producestrong early reflection and reverberation.Eight high-quality, low-noise and wide-frequency microphones on a spacedarray tree capture a cluster of impulseresponses at three different heights of2m (meters), 3m, and 4m. In any select-ed room we measure 24 responses ateach of the three heights.” (In the pic-ture on page 36, we see the microphonetree set up in the Holywell Music Room.)If this all sounds very 21st-century and abit far from the spirit of the music, thenseeing the parade of equipment as it isbrought into the early 18th-centuryHolywell Music Room while a technicianfrom Chris Maene’s workshop (Paul

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Deduytschaever) tunes the 1798 Longman, Clementi & Co. piano rein-forces this incongruity, for the loud-speakers alone resemble the robot R2D2from Star Wars! After Woszczyk and hisassistant Doyuen Ko are finished settingup, Woszczyk begins the sine sweep, andthe sound is so powerful he needsearplugs. Even watching the video, thesound is a bit unsettling: it starts from arumble of a pitch too low to hear andsweeps up to sounds that are piercinglyhigh, again dissolving into inaudiblepitches. Maybe some would feel thewhole process goes too far: why notsimply bring instruments to these placesand record in them? In my interviewswith de Francisco and Ko, both admittedthat though they enjoyed this processand were pleased with the results, theystill felt that they’d prefer recording in areal space. In the documentary, however,de Francisco explains that she once had

to turn down the Holywell Music Roomas a recording venue because of theoverwhelming amount of outdoor noise,and therein lies at least one of the rea-sons why this technology is worth considering.

The other is that a dedicated record-ing studio obviously provides a con-trolled environment in which to work.Once the samples were brought back toMontreal, the other half of the processinvolved bringing the instruments intoCIRMMT and leaving them there fortwo entire weeks to record each of theten programs. It is hard to imagine hav-ing the luxury of doing that in any ofthe spaces used for this project, as mostof them are public museums. The two-week process included one or two days(usually the weekend) for the instru-ments to settle, during which Beghinpracticed “in” the acoustical space,which was reproduced in a dome of

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speakers in the studio. After these practice sessions, de Francisco wouldarrive on Monday and listen intently tothe instruments and consult with Beghinabout microphone placement, since partof that decision was based on whetherthe programs were meant to be heardonly by the player at the instrument (i.e.Haydn playing for himself at the clavi-chord) or by a few listeners positionedaround the instrument, or by a largernumber of listeners in a larger space.Each program was recorded in threedays, after which a video-shoot was done the following weekend.

Interestingly, Beghin recorded mostof the programs through headphones.When I asked Beghin if this was diffi-cult, he replied: “I was amazed at howquickly I got used to the headphones. Infact, I felt much more in control than ina conventional recording, partly becauseI not only heard the ambience aroundthe instrument, but also the very directsounds coming from parts of the instru-ment one normally isn’t able to hearwhen sitting at the keyboard. Usually, Ilower or remove the stand of my instru-ment to better hear what’s projected outfrom the soundboard area, but in thesecircumstances (since I was being fedwhat microphones picked up), this was-n’t necessary anymore. As a result, Ifound I was able to concentrate on mymusic-making much more directly andcomfortably. I also found that there wasmuch less of a shock when going to thecontrol room to listen to recorded takesthan in a conventional recording context.Usually, you don’t recognize what you’verecorded, to the point of shock. Now Ifelt there were no surprises: I couldanticipate the final result with amazingaccuracy – in fact, I heard it through myheadphones, just as I was playing.” In thelab, de Francisco actually heard the play-ing “dry,” without the acoustics, as shetook her production notes.

In one of the most moving andastounding sequences in the documen-tary, we witness Beghin, Woszczyk, andRyan Miller (another of the recordingstudents/assistants) as they hear the vir-tual Esterháza Ceremonial Room throughthe dome of speakers at CIRMMT forthe first time. What is astounding is that,as we watch them in this very small and

antiseptic-looking studio, every soundwe hear – their speech, Miller whistling,the French harpsichord being played –has tons of cavernous reverb. It is mov-ing because Woszczyk and Beghin, whoof course have been to the real space,attest that this is exactly what it soundslike. Finally Woszczyk says simply,“That’s the room.” Beghin relayed in ourinterview that he imagines Woszczyk’sfeeling at that moment must have been“…similar to that of an instrumentbuilder hearing his finished instrumentfor the first time.… That moment washis moment: his vision materialized.”The wonderment continues as YvesBeaupré explains that, while tuning, hecertainly feels as if he’s in a huge roombecause the resulting sounds are so faraway in space. A fine harpsichordist him-self, he starts to play some FrançoisCouperin, and as the final, wonderfullyrich bass note fades into the “acoustic”and the image also fades away, we hearhim declare, “I’d like to have that athome.” And indeed, in this moment, it isclear that one of the aims for theresearch being done at CIRMMT hasbeen realized, for while Beaupré isn’t yetable to have the Ceremonial Room athome, he actually is experiencing it in hishome city of Montreal without having totravel to Fertöd.

The Blu-ray decisionOriginally, the McGill team had

planned to release the project as a“hybrid-SACD” that would be playableon regular CD player as well. However,people in the audio field were increasing-ly enthusiastic about the possibilitiesafforded by Blu-ray, and when Naxosheard about this project, they werehappy to embrace it as their first Blu-rayrelease. The benefits of the Blu-ray for-mat are plentiful: for one, rather thanrelease a 14-CD box set, we have here ahandsome and slim product with justfour discs: three containing five hours ofmusic each, with individual programsaccessed by menu, and one video disccontaining a lengthy documentary, abeautiful photo gallery, seven video per-formances, and the game-like “7x9Matrix: Andante for Musical Clock,”which provides the ability to hear theshort Andante Hob. XIX:10 played on


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each of the seven instruments in each ofthe nine rooms. If you would like, forinstance, to hear the clavichord in one ofthe large spaces, this allows you to do so.Another element made possible by Blu-ray is that of being able to hear theaudio discs in either two-channel stereoor five-channel surround sound. Inter-estingly, the very packaging provides thechance to have a larger booklet, and theone that comes with this set is lavish andincredibly informative, with comprehen-sive essays as well as detailed informa-tion on the instruments, temperaments,and rooms used. For early keyboardplayers and builders, for instance, theamount of information on the instru-ments is astoundingly thorough, including scaling, stringing, case materials, etc.

So far, The Virtual Haydn has receiveda lot of notice in audiophile-related pub-lications and by DVD or Blu-ray filmreviewers. The decision to release theproject on Blu-ray has the potential toexclude those who are not ready toreplace their CD and DVD players withBlu-ray players, and when it comes downto it, the situation is not unlike that facedby keyboardists in the 18th century whobalked at the idea of replacing theirbeloved harpsichord with a newfangledfortepiano. However, Haydn himselfwas clearly one who embraced new situ-ations and instruments fearlessly. Hisdecision to travel to England (a truly dis-tant place at that time, and also a placewhere he didn’t know the language) atwhat was then the ripe old age of 58 isjust one example. Furthermore, when weexamine the works he wrote afterencountering the English piano, whichwas so different from any instrument hehad previously known, it is clear that inthis respect as well he was open tochange. Haydn was keenly aware of thechanging cultural aesthetics around him,as evidenced by letters where he men-tions crafting a work to suit a specificaudience or situation. There is only onetime he definitively “rebelled” againstsomeone he was composing for (unlessone counts the “Farewell Symphony”!),

and that was in 1789 when he wrote hiswonderful Sonata in E-flat (Hob. XVI:49) for his cherished friend Mariannevon Genzinger. Frau Genzinger owned aharpsichord, and he wrote to her numer-ous times explaining that she needed afortepiano for this sonata. In a letter ofJune 27, 1790, Haydn explained, “I knowI ought to have arranged this sonata inaccordance with your kind of keyboard”– he writes Clavier, but from a few earliersentences it is clear that he means harp-sichord – “but I found this impossiblebecause I am no longer accustomed toit.” When forging ahead with new tech-nologies, there must always be a bravefew who decide to embrace the newmodalities unequivocally, galvanizingeveryone else to go along with them.Perhaps Beghin will convince us all thatwe need Blu-ray players to experience hisground-breaking effort, just as Haydneventually convinced Frau Genzingerthat she needed a fortepiano.

Based in the Boston area, Sylvia Berry is anactive performer-scholar specializing inViennese music of the late 18th and early19th centuries. At the Haydn Society of North America’s 2009 conference, she presented a lecture-recital entitled “Haydn at the Keyboard: Four Sonatas from FourDecades” for which she played both harpsichord and fortepiano.

TheVirtual HaydnAbout Blu-ray playersAt the moment, Blu-ray players arebeginning to offer much more thanthe ability to watch and listen todiscs. For instance, a number ofmachines offer streaming capabilitieswith Netflix, allowing you to stream“Instant Watch” offerings directly toyour TV via the Blu-ray player.Similar streaming partnerships existwith Blockbuster on Demand,Pandora Radio, and YouTube. Onecan also view photos by inserting aJPEG disc or a USB memory flashstick. As with all ground-breakingtechnology, the price is comingdown considerably now that it hasbeen on the market a few years.

TheVirtual Haydn - Early Music America · works by Haydn that contain chords in the left hand...

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