Composed 1783; Duration: 26 minutes
First BPO Performance: December 2, 1941 (Joseph Schuster, cello; Franco Autori, conductor)
Last BPO Performance: February 7-8, 1992 (Raphael Wallfisch, cello; Maximiano Valdés, conductor)
For much of Haydn’s career, he was employed by Nikolaus Esterházy’s wealthy Hungarian estate. Paradoxically, confined to the rural setting, he was cut off from Europe’s thriving metropolises—and yet, the freedom and duty to compose large swaths of music in a wide variety of genres led him to achieve fame and influence unmatched by any other in his day. Notable were his nearly 70 string quartets that effectively established the genre, but importantly, led the development of the cello’s soloistic capabilities, made possible by the abundance of musical talent at Esterházy.
However, his contribution to the cello concerto was limited to two installments, twenty years apart, with the first in 1765. In 1779, his contract was renegotiated, allowing him to finally benefit from publishing his works, and he was busy working on the piano trios, string quartets, and symphonies that publishers were clamoring for. His second cello concerto was lost in the fray and has suffered from murky scholarship and dubious misattribution, but recent discoveries confirm Haydn’s authorship and pin its only performance of the time as having occurred in London, where Haydn was enormously popular, in 1784 by James Corvetto.
The concerto was likely unpublished because virtuosic works for the instrument lacked marketability at the time. As Haydn aged, he fastidiously engaged with publishers to print unpublished works, as with his second cello concerto in 1803. However, tastes changed, and the concerto suffered in relative obscurity until the twentieth century, when it was fairly recognized as perhaps the greatest classical-era work of its genre.
After a leisurely introduction, the cellist enters with nonchalant virtuosity in the singing high register. The development offers minor-keyed tension that resolves seamlessly in a return to the opening material. The soloist continues to shine with an extensive cadenza that is capped off by a final orchestral statement. The opening movement occupies most of the work and is followed by the stately Adagio. The finale is a flowing Rondo, concluding a work that is a prime example of Haydn’s masterful knack for musical clarity, paired elegantly with complex virtuosity.