Johann Baptist Vanhal

(1739–1813)

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In his colourful Reminiscences, published in London in 1826, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly (the first Basilio and Don Curzio in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro when it was produced in 1786) described a string quartet party given in the summer of 1784 by the English composer Stephen Storace, in his rooms in Vienna:

The players were tolerable: not one of them excelled on the instrument he played, but there was a little science among them, which I dare say will be acknowledged when I name them: The First Violin, Haydn; The Second Violin, Baron Dittersdorf; The Violoncello, Vanhall; The Tenor [Viola], Mozart. The poet Casti and Paesiello [sic] formed part of the audience. I was there, and a greater treat or a more remarkable one cannot be imagined.

As well as being a composer Vanhal was a violinist of some stature (Mozart played one of his violin concertos in Augsburg in October 1777) but this is the only known reference to him as a cellist.

Johann Baptist Vanhal was born at Nové Nechanice in eastern Bohemia on 12 May 1739, and died in Vienna on 20 August 1813. The son of a bonded peasant, he had his first music lessons with Kozak, the organist at Marsov, and from about 1752 studied the organ with Anton Erban, the cantor at Nové Nechanice. In 1757 he was appointed organist at Opocno and in 1759 choirmaster at Hnevceves. In 1760 Countess Schaffgotsch, whose estate included Hnevceves, summoned him to Vienna, where he had lessons with Dittersdorf, established himself as a teacher (his pupils included Ignace Pleyel) and was able to redeem himself from bondage. In May 1769 Baron Riesch made it financially possible for Vanhal to go to Italy. He spent a year in Venice and then visited Bologna, Florence, Rome (where two of his operas were produced) and other cities. On his return to Vienna in 1771 Riesch offered him the position of Kapellmeister in Dresden, but he declined it because of ‘mental disturbance’.

During his convalescence Vanhal probably stayed in Hungary and Croatia, where he visited the estates of Count Johann Nepomuk Erdödy. He spent the last forty or so years of his life in comparative obscurity as a freelance musician in Vienna, teaching, and composing religious works, piano pieces and music for small chamber ensembles. His heyday as a composer of symphonies was between about 1765 and 1785.

from notes by Robin Golding