2021 Haydn Marathon Support
Support the 3MBS 2021 Haydn Marathon
The 3MBS Marathon returns for its ninth year in 2021 on Saturday 27 February at Melbourne’s iconic Athenaeum Theatre to celebrate the music of Franz Joseph Haydn. You can support this year’s Marathon by becoming a 2021 3MBS Haydn Marathon Supporter, a special way that you can help 3MBS stage this prestigious event.
We have five levels of giving this year:
The Creation – $5,000 +
Haydn was inspired to write his imposing oratorio during his visits to London in the early 1790s when Handel’s choral works were revived at Westminster Abbey with large forces. The composer wanted to compose a biblical work with a broad public appeal and so he chose a narrative that celebrated the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis. Though there were several private performances in 1798 sponsored by the influential music patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten, the first public performance of The Creation, or Die Schöpfung, was at Vienna’s Burgtheater on 19 March 1799, in German. The work has its London premiere, using the English text, in 1800 at Covent Garden.
Salomon – $2,500 +
Johann Peter Salomon (1745-1815) was a violinist, composer, conductor and musical impresario. He became a close friend of Haydn and was responsible for bringing the composer to London in both 1791 and 1794. As a concertmaster, he led many of the premieres of Haydn’s works in London as part of his subscription concerts, including Haydn’s London Symphonies Nos. 93-104, that are sometimes even referred to as the Salomon Symphonies. He is also said to have provided Haydn with the original model for the text of The Creation as well as believed to have given the Jupiter nickname to Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, K. 551.
Esterházy – $1,000 +
Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician and Kapellmeister for the wealthy Esterházy family at their remote estate. For nearly 30 years Haydn produced an astonishing amount of music during the reign of his patron Prince Nikolaus composing over 120 baryton trios (one of which will be performed at this year’s Marathon) and all but one of his produced operas. Haydn’s Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, known as the Farewell, premiered at Esterházy in 1772 as an appeal by the Prince’s musical retinue. Haydn and his musicians were long overdue to return home to Eisenstadt to their families after an extremely long season. To their dismay, the Prince requested they stay longer to perform a new symphony. The diplomatic Haydn, instead of making a direct appeal, put his request into the music of the symphony: during the final adagio each musician stopped playing, snuffed out the candle on his music stand, and left in turn, so that at the end, there were just two violins left on stage. The Prince seemed to have understood the message: the court returned to Eisenstadt the day following the performance.
Sturm und Drang – $500 +
Meaning, “storm and stress”, this artistic movement influenced many of Haydn’s works in 1760s and 1770s. These works were predominantly written in a minor key to convey difficult or depressing sentiments and characterised by unpredictable leaps, tremolo for strings, accents and tempo and dynamic changes. Many Sturm und drang elements can be found in Haydn’s operas and his Farewell Symphony that are agitated or violently impassioned. Within this movement, individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements.
Surprise – $100 +
Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G, nicknamed The Surprise, premiered during the composer’s first visits to England. The “surprise” is a startlingly loud chord that interrupts the otherwise soft and gentle flow of the second movement. The distinctive feature did not appear in the original score. Rather, it was added by the composer on a whim for the piece’s London premiere on 23 March 1792, and was retained in later performances. In Haydn’s old age, his biographer George August von Griesinger asked him whether he wrote this “surprise” to awaken the audience. Haydn replied:
“No, but I was interested in surprising the public with something new, and in making a brilliant debut, so that my student [the composer] Pleyel, who was at that time engaged by an orchestra in London and whose concerts had opened a week before mine, should not outdo me. The first Allegro of my symphony had already met with countless Bravos, but the enthusiasm reached its highest peak at the Andante with the drum stroke. Encore! Encore! sounded in every throat, and Pleyel himself complimented me on my idea.”
The modernist composer Charles Ives wrote a parody of the second movement in 1909, penning the words “Nice little easy sugar-plum sounds” under the opening notes, in response to his disdain with concert audiences who unadventurously resisted difficult modern music.
You may choose a particular Haydn concert you wish to support. If you would like to become a supporter, please click on ‘DONATE NOW’ below or call (03) 9416 1035 for more information and to make a donation. All donations of $100 or more will be recognised in the published program and online.
3MBS 2021 Haydn Marathon Supporters
$5,000+ The Creation
Peter & Lyndsey Hawkins
$2,500+ Salomon
3MBS Board of Directors
$1,000+ Esterházy
Anthony Adair & Karen McLeod Adair (Concert 5)
Luisa Banks & Eugene Antczak (Concert 4)
Anne Bellew (Concert 1)
June Forester
Robert Gibbs & Tony Wildman (Concert 4)
Amanda Reed (Concert 3)
Alan & Shirley Richmond
Dr Julie Waters & John Waters (Concert 2)
Dr Victor Wayne & Dr Karen Wayne OAM (Concert 2)
Voi Williams OAM (Concert 3)
Anonymous (1)
$500+ Sturm und Drang
Bryan Lawrence
Baillieu Myer AC & Sarah Myer
Anne Neil (Concert 1)
Lady Primrose Potter AC
Colin Simson
Kiera Stevens (Concert 2)
$100+ Surprise
3MBS Music Library & Friends (Concert 4)
Janet Bell
Edward & Alison Davies (Concert 1)
Merrowyn M Deacon
Elisabeth Giddy
Stephanie Hoban (Concert 1)
Susan Porter
Holly Reid (Concert 3)
John Scully
John E Smith
David Zerman & Sarah Barzel (Concert 2)
Anonymous (1)