Pichl seems hitherto
to have made only the most passing appearances on the pages
of MusicWeb International, so some biographical information
would appear to be in order.
Czech by origin
– originally known as Vaclav Pichl – the composer was born in
Bechyně in Bohemia. He received his early musical education
there, then studied at the Jesuit College at Březnice where
he served as a singer; he was then able to attend university
in Prague, where he studied theology, law and philosophy, as
well as developing his musical knowledge and ability. It was
in the musical world that Pichl set about earning his living;
our first certain knowledge of him as a professional musician
belongs to 1760 when his he was listed as a member of the chorus
at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 1762 he was appointed first
violinist of the orchestra in the Church
of Our Lady in front of Týn, in the Old Town of Prague
(where Tycho Brahe is buried). In 1765, he was engaged
by Carl Ditters (i.e. Ditters von Dittersdorf) as assistant
director (and violinist) of the private orchestra which served
Bishop Adam Patachich at Grosswardein (now Oradea, in modern
Romania). Pichl and Ditters became good friends and seem to
have exerted a mutual influence on one another. When the Bishop’s
orchestra was dissolved at the end of the 1760s, Pichl found
work back in Prague and then at the Kärntnerthortheater in Vienna.
His work gained him influential admirers, including the Empress
Maria Theresa herself, and he was appointed music director to
Archduke Ferdinando d’Este, the Austrian governor of Lombardy.
From 1777 until 1796 Pichl worked in Italy and established many
significant musical contacts there, his own work being much
admired. Returning to Vienna – after the French invasion of
Lombardy – he remained musically active until the time of his
death – indeed he died when he suffered a seizure whilst performing
as a soloist in the Lobkowitz Palace in Vienna.
Pichl (like his
friend von Dittersdorf) was a well-educated man with pronounced
interests in the traditions of classical learning. He wrote
Latin texts, some of which he set himself, some of which were
set by von Dittersdorf. Rather as von Dittersdorf famously composed
a series of sinfonias on stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
so Pichl composed a series of sinfonias which take their
names from the Nine Muses. There is, though – a striking difference;
Dittersdorf’s sinfonias have more or less evident programmes,
their connections with their mythological titles are not hard
to spot; Pichl’s ‘Muse’ sinfonias, on the other hand, have far
less obvious connections with their purported subjects/dedicatees;
only with some hesitancy and some guesswork can one suggest
why a particular sinfonia is associated with a particular muse.
But the music itself is generally impressive and interesting
and doesn’t depend upon such extra-musical associations, real
or invented.
Of his ‘Muse’ symphonies,
seven survive – those dedicated to Euterpe, Urania, Clio, Melpomene,
Calliope and Thalia. Those dedicated to Terpsichore and Erato
seem now to be lost. Three are recorded on the present CD, along
with a sinfonia in honour of Diana, Virgin-huntress and goddess
of chastity.
As implied above,
these compositions are not heavily characterised or lavishly
pictorial in relation to their ostensible subjects. It is presumably
not an accident that Calliope, Muse of Epic, is ‘represented’
in the most heavily orchestrated of these sinfonia, with a certain
musical grandeur befitting her status (she was, after all, the
mother of Orpheus). But beyond this – unless there are some
very deeply coded signals going undetected – the compositions
would seem largely interchangeable. It is not, then, for what
they say about their titular figures that these pieces are likely
to be valued, but for the subtle way, for example, in which
the counterpoint of the andante in ‘Clio’ is worked out or the
lively quasi-dramatic quality of the allegro (very definitely
‘con brio’) which opens ‘Melpomene’ or, indeed, for the melting
andante arioso of the ‘Diana’ sinfonia.
In a number of other
recordings for Naxos, Kevin Mallon and the Toronto Chamber Orchestra
have already demonstrated just how secure both their technical
control and their stylistic understanding are in the music of
this classical period. They will only enhance their reputation
still further with this fine recording.
Allan Badley’s well-informed
booklet notes (from which I have learned a good deal) tell us
that when Pichl produced a list of his compositions for a reference
book (Jan Bohumír Dlabač’s Lexicon of Bohemian Artists)
in 1802, it contained some 900 works and observes that “the
majority … are still extant but largely unexplored”. I sincerely
hope that that exploration will be undertaken and that at least
some of the results will be recorded, in performances as good
as these.
A familiarity with
Pichl’s music is not likely to compel any drastic redrawings
of the historical maps of the music of the Eighteenth Century
– though a few significant details will certainly become clearer.
The Haydns certainly knew some of Pichl’s music and so, one
suspects, did Mozart. But leaving aside historical questions
this is, quite simply, delightful, intelligent, well-made music
which will surely give much pleasure to anyone with a taste
for the classical symphony.
Glyn Pursglove
Toronto Chamber Orchestra/Kevin
Mallon
