Woods & Strings

There are a few factors at play here. You have to first recognize that the music industry in the first half of the 18th century was not what it is today. In order for a composer’s music to become well known, a pair of factors needed to come into play: First, that composer had to have a great publisher. Publishing was expensive in those days, and involved very careful and painstaking engraving of each note and staff. It was even more costly than printing text, and significantly more expensive than hiring a team of copyists to do it by hand. So, the publisher needed a really REALLY good reason to run things to print and distribute them. Oh, also, distribution was a horse and carriage. So again, really expensive. And SLOW. By the time Bach reached his apex as a composer, there were composers of secular music (Vivaldi, Handel, et al) who had better publishing deals and better court appointments. Bach was a church musician first and foremost, and by this time the style he was using for chur...

Originally written for the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (TBSO, January 2005) Haydn’s popularity outside his native Austria must no doubt have surprised him. After all, it was not common for composers as well-settled in their particular stations as Haydn was by the 1780s to be heard outside of their home courts. But under a revised contract with the Esterházy family—in particular with Prince Nikolaus, who succeeded Haydn’s original contractor in 1762—the court no longer held exclusive rights to Haydn’s compositions, and they were published in nearly every major European city. This fact in itself led to the widespread distribution of Haydn’s symphonic and chamber works, and contributed nearly as much to his comfortable retirement as his pensions did. Haydn’s 82nd Symphony was the first in a series of six works commissioned by a Paris concert organization in 1785/86. It was unusual indeed for a composer under contract to accept foreign commissions, but Haydn’s outstanding service at Es...