Giovanni Battista Viotti (1753-1824)

 Gary Smith

                   Violinist and composer for the violin, considered as one of the great masters of that instrument, Viotti probably did more than anyone else to effect the change from the old classical Italian violin school to the modern school we are all familiar with today.

He was born in Fontanello in what is now Italy on March 23, 1753, the son of a blacksmith who played the French horn. The young Viotti learned music from him as well as a wandering musician named Giovannini, and by age 8 was able to scrape along well on a small fiddle bought at a local fair. By age thirteen he had made such progression that the Bishop of the diocese, taken with the precocious boy, sent him to Turin to study, and as well, had him placed in the charge of the famous violinist Pugnani, a pupil himself of Tartini, another great violinist of that age. Viotti made by all accounts excellent progress at these studies.

Pugnani, highly esteeming Viotti's growing skills, took the young man on tour with him (starting in 1780) through Northern Europe. They visited the German states, Poland and Russia, and later England and France. Everywhere, young Viotti's playing aroused great enthusiasm and produced a growing acclaim. In Paris he parted company with Pugnani, believing himself now capable of managing his career on his own.

There in Paris, he first appeared at a performance of the Concert Spirituel in 1782 (4 years after Mozart worked with them). The glowing accolades on his premiere appearances came across as though the revelation of a new art had occurred. Wrote one reviewer: "Never, had playing been heard that approached that perfection; never had any artist exhibited a finer tone, an elegance so unfailing, such brilliancy and variety." He appeared in Paris to such reviews for two years. Then, with the fickleness any public is capable of, another violin virtuoso appeared and was accorded nearly equal treatment. Viotti, believing this person to be of inferior talent, disgustedly turned on his public and resolved therefore never to play in public anymore. He remained, however in Paris.

And for good reason. Now enjoying special favor of the Queen (Marie Antoinette) as well as of the great world of fashion & art salons, he was composing and playing for the private concerts of the nobility. He was much sought after for this, as well as for conducting the various groups of players that were supplied. Viotti's plan, as it turned out, was to achieve about the highest post any musician in France could hope to gain, that of Director of the Opera in Paris. In 1788, after failing in an attempt to have his noble patrons get him appointed Director, he and Leonard, the Queen's hairdresser, obtained a license to establish an Italian opera theater. An excellent company was assembled, the enterprise started out with great success, and Viotti was responsible here for all the musical direction.

The year 1789, however, brought the Revolution and retribution by the people of Paris on the nobility and those believed to be its supporters. The market for Italian opera dried up very quickly, Viotti lost everything in trying to stave off disaster, and finally had to flee to London to avoid getting swept up in the in revolutionary fervor. In England he began over, appearing in public as a virtuoso in the Hanover Square concerts under the noted impresario Salomon. Several new violin concerti were composed for these audiences and again success began to flow Viotti's way. However, the backlash from the Revolution washed over to England, and there was a great fear of revolutionary agents secretly at work in Britain to spread unrest and dissent. For some reason, Viotti fell under suspicion and felt worried enough to leave voluntarily and ended up living near Hamburg in semi-retirement.

Affairs change with time, and within two years Viotti returned to London. He entered into the Italian opera scene there, working again as the music director for theaters. These were always troubled waters for him. He conducted and played frequently in concerts and when Haydn appeared for the 1794-95 seasons, Viotti was the leader of the orchestra at his benefit concerts. But the opera involved him in growing financial difficulties, he still disliked heartily having to play in public, and the stress level eventually became more than he wished to bear. He abandoned music as his primary career and took up the wine trade instead. However, he continued to compose as he felt the call and to this period in his life belongs the last and best series of his concertos.

Viotti even returned in time to Paris for visits. One the first trip in 1812, he yielded to the calls of his friends and played several of his new concerti in public concerts. On the second trip in 1818, with a nearly 40 year reputation of music behind him, his friends and supporters were able to get him appointed as Director of the Opera in Paris. By this time though, it had sunk down low in reputation due to intrigue and scandal, and Viotti's job was to redeem the organization. He tried for three years to raise it to a higher level, but was not fully successful. In the end, he resigned the post in 1822 and moved back to London, dying there in 1824.

One good note on being Director of the Opera: In the 1821 season, Viotti had Salieri's great French tragedie lyrique Les Danaides staged. It was always a popular work from its first performance back in 1784 and a sure audience pleaser. Hector Berlioz, then studying to be a doctor, went to this performance and was captivated by the music and action. He credits this opera performance as having initiated the mental process that led to his decision to devote his life to music.

Viotti came into the rich heritage of the great Italian violin traditions, and it almost seems ironic that he should have been one of the foremost composers to do the most to effect the transfer of supremacy in the violin from Italy to that of France and Germany. His own skills and genius made important contributions to both technique and the development of the solo violin concerto into its modern form. He has been named along side of Mozart as producing the first and finest concertos of this kind that have endured to the present. While not as tightly composed as Mozart's works (Viotti tends to sprawl some, allowing the soloist to showoff), his compositions are melodic, leaning towards the Romantic, especially as one moves into the later works.

His works are (of course) geared to the violin. He composed 29 extant violin concerti, perhaps the best-known being #22 in a. These were composed between the years of 1782 and 1808. Along with Mozart, he helped advance the extension of the concerto form to the broader dimensions, which it now has, developing it after the model of the sonata and elaborating the accompaniment with the full resources of the orchestra of the time. He also composed two symphonia concertantes for two violins, cello concerti, 21 string quartets, 21 string trios, 51 violin duets, 18 sonatas for violin and bass, and 1 for violin and pianoforte.

Beyond mere reputation, Mozart knew Viotti's works, but how well we aren't sure of. We know he played one concerto on his trip that ended up in Paris. Mozart also composed a substitute Andante in A for a violin concerto of Viotti (K.470) unfortunately, which is lost. Further, he added trumpet and timpani parts to Viotti's Concerto # 16 in e (K.470a), making an excellent work just that much better. Although, there is a slight discrepancy in the dates I have regarding this. The concerto was published in Paris circa 1789. A K.470 date would mean Mozart incorporated his changes in the early 1780's. A wrong Koechel dating then, or what? As a last note: in the first movement of #16, there is a solo violin riff that strongly resembles the opening theme to Mozart's Piano Sonata in C for Beginners K.545 from three years later. This riff appears four times in the movement, and Mozart noticed it enough to add some discreet timpani accompaniment to it. Did it, perhaps, stick in his head somewhat longer, filed for later use?

Works: The Dynamic label has 8 volumes issued on Viotti's violin concerti, three works per CD. The works aren't issued in order, so if you want say Concerto # 16 in e, the one Mozart added to (but not recorded here), you'll need to get Volume 3. As well, Dynamic is offering the Complete Violin Sonatas and some string quartets as well.

Sources:

Sadie, Stanley (Ed.)  The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2^nd Edition   Groves Dictionaries, New York  

Artaria composers list

Liner notes from some of the above CDs

Additional Notes by dennis:

I can add nothing to Gary's excellent posting on Viotti. But I can give some insight into the Violin Concerto #16 in e-minor, and with it the lost Andante for Violin and Orchestra K.470.

Mozart's additions to Viotti's Violin Concerto #16 in e-minor are on a single autograph sheet (written on both sides), with the heading "Concerto" and "2 Horns in E/Timpani in E".

J.A. Andre in the introductory remarks of his manuscript catalogue of 1833 noted the following next to the incipit of the 1st movement parts: "For lack of space or lack of music paper Mozart had for many accessory parts and by Opera full scores often also for the entirely not essential wind instruments wrote out an 'accessory full score'. Thus was found among his manuscripts also such a one of 2 Trumpets and Timpani to a Concerto in E, which begins with an 'Adagio non troppo'. As this Concerto is entirely unknown to me, I place for its possible re-discovery the beginning measures of the Trumpets and Timpani-full score here".

Koechel's Catalogue of 1865 did not place, or mention, Andre's "unknown Concerto", nor did K2 of 1905. In 1936 Alfred Einstein solved the riddle of these parts, reporting they were additions to the outer movements of Giovanni Battista Viotti's Violin Concerto in e-minor that Mozart presumably made in the beginning of 1785 for a performer in one of his concerts. Mozart wished to "glitter up" the outer movements; the middle movement was already "Romantic" sounding. [Rather ironically, even though Einstein did not bring up the fact, Andre had published Viotti's Violin Concerto #16 in parts in 1821, and in 1833 did not recognize the additions to a Concerto he had already published.] Einstein believed--confirmed by St. Foix--the work was reworked for the same concert event in the Mehlgurbe for which he had written the Andante K.470. [Also at the end of the autograph--not identified in any edition of Koechel--is the remark "You can write in directly the Trumpets and Drums", thus showing a copyist must have brought about the parts very quickly for a performance from Mozart's written copy.]

K.470 is a (lost) Andante to a Violin Concerto. Mozart entered the incipit in his work catalogue under April 1, 1785. Nothing else is known of the work. Otto Jahn and Koechel believed it was perhaps written for the virtuoso Janiewicz [Anton Janitsch 1753 - 1812], who at that time was in Vienna. Hermann Abert had thought Janiewicz could also mean Jarnovich [?Giovanni Giornovichi 1735 - 1804]. Einstein added Leopold Mozart's Salzburg student, Heinrich Marchard [1769 - after 1812], who was in Vienna at the time with his teacher.

Einstein in K3 thought K.470 was most likely written to replace the original slow movement of the Violin Concerto K.218, probably performed in Vienna, as in his work catalogue Mozart wrote "An Andante for the Violin to a Concerto", thus the piece was not intended to be a free standing piece. By the time of K.3a (1947) Einstein eliminated Jarnovich from consideration as K.470's performer, as he had arrived in Vienna in 1786. Einstein also followed St. Foix in now expressing the opinion K.470 was meant as a replacement for the middle movement of Viotti's Violin Concerto in e-minor #16 K.470a.

K6 kept Mozart's additions to Viotti's Violin Concerto at K.470a, but placed doubts that K.470 could be intended for this Concerto from tonal grounds. K6 thought Einstein's original opinion it was a replacement for K.218 was correct. Unfortunately this does not solve much of the problem why or for whom K.470 was written. Heinrich Marchard's only documented appearances in Vienna are in March of 1785 (March 2 and 14). Easter Sunday in 1785 was on March 27.

In 1973 the Viotti side of the picture finally came to be heard. Chapell White in his article "Toward a more accurate Chronology of Viotti's Violin Concertos" wrote the Concerto was probably written for the Theatre de Monsieur in Paris in 1789-90, but possibly for Versailles around 1784-86. Its first edition was in Paris 1789-90. White points out that to accept the 1785 dating of Mozart's additions it would have to be assumed Violin Concerto #16 traveled from Paris to Vienna in manuscript, an assumption difficult to support. White stated Viotti would not risk the chance of piracy of such an important work, and certainly the young Marchard (16 years old at the time) would have been an unlikely candidate for such a favor. There is also no evidence Viotti was well known in Vienna in the mid 1780's.

Once the connection between the Mozart additions for the Viotti Violin Concerto and K.470 is removed, a much later dating comes into consideration. As White pointed out Mozart might have prepared them for any one of a variety of occasions as late as 1790 or 1791. White concluded that Viotti wrote the Violin Concerto #16 in 1789 or 1790, for Viotti or one of his star pupils to perform in Viotti's own theater that opened in January 1789. Viotti's Concertos were also played during intermissions at the opera house in Paris.

Boris Schwarz was however of the opinion the Violin Concerto #16 came to Mozart from Johann Friedrich Eck (1766 - 1810). The 20-year old violinist was in Vienna in March 1786 and Schwarz believed Eck may have brought the Concerto with him from Paris. Eck had become a student of Viotti in 1785. Mozart then reworked the Violin Concerto for a planned concert by Eck and Mozart, which never materialized.

In 1995 Manfred Hermann Schmid took up the Mozart additions to the Violin Concerto #16. He stated the handwriting of the autograph belonged to the time of 1787-1791. The paper type cannot be determined with final certainty, but one used from the end of 1789 until 1791 comes into question.

From all the above I think it safe to say Mozart's additions to the Violin Concerto in e-minor of Viotti date from 1789 to 1791, or as Schmid writes "around 1790".

Musically Mozart placed no high demands on his new players. The additions are restricted to doubling; the Trumpets strengthening the Horns in the forte. However Schmid believes Mozart's encounter with Viotti's Violin Concerto #16 had an influence on his composition style. Mozart used slow introductions prior to 1789, but not as Viotti did in this Violin Concerto. All three slow introductions Mozart used after his presumed work on Violin Concerto #16 have slow introductions that return again toward the finish of the work--String Quintet K.593, Overtures to Cosi and Zauberflote--exactly as Viotti's introduction returns later in the movement.

As Gary stated Dynamic has record Viotti's Concerto #16, without Mozart's instrumentation. In the LP era the work was recorded twice with Mozart's additions. To my knowledge these have never been reissued on CD and no new recordings have been made. This has always baffled me. The work is very good, it is in a minor key--something companies love to record--and has the Mozart name to add to it. Too bad it never had a nickname, it would have been recorded numerous times.

dennis

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