Day 97: Of Snowstorms and Bagels

HaydnCD97As I type this, Michigan is in the middle of a winter storm warning the likes of which we haven’t seen in years.

It’s a good day to be holed up at Panera, drinking Light Roast coffee and eating a bagel.

Or, it’s a good day to be holed up at home, not venturing out into the weather. But I’m a bit of an adventurist. Or a fool. Take your pick.

Either way, today’s CD features Haydn’s Op. 64 quartets (Nos. 1, 2, 3), composed in 1790. Haydn was 58.

For some reason, these are called the “Tost” quartets. I’ll find out why soon enough.

After a bit of Googling, I found this as a pdf for I don’t know what:

From 1783 to 1788 the Hungarian Johann Tost was principal second violin in the Esterházy orchestra of which Haydn was music director. When Tost left Esterházy in 1788 to freelance in Paris, Haydn entrusted 6 quartets to him with a view to finding a publisher. Tost was successful, and they were published in Paris in two sets of three as Op 54 and 55. A later set of six, Op 64, were written in 1790, the year that Haydn first visited London. Around this time Tost returned from Paris, married the housekeeper at Esterházy (of whom Haydn was also fond) and used her money to set up a successful cloth business in Vienna. There in 1791 he also found a publisher for this Op 64 set, which are gratefully dedicated to him. Tost continued to play the violin and commission chamber works, whose performances in aristocratic homes provided an entrée for his cloth business; incidentally he is possibly the dedicatee (“composto per un amatore ongarese”) of the last two of Mozart’s string quintets.

Oh, now I see where that pdf came from. This web site. It’s an organization Continue reading