His Life and Works (Part 1)

All Viennese sources agree that Wanhal was happy, congenial, gentle, kindly, well-liked, and well-known in Vienna. An oil painting made ca. 1792 depicts the healthy and prosperous looking man he probably was at the time, one of the most prominent composers active in Vienna. He was also a deeply religious person who devoted much, perhaps most, of his creative musical energy during the final decades of his life to composing works for churches and monasteries (and for organists). He did not, however, undertake the job of Regens chori for which he was eminently qualified, nor did he join the Free Masons, as did Mozart and Joseph Haydn. He kept no diary and wrote no auto-biography; and his estate (Nachlass) contained no memoirs. He was obviously little concerned about his role in musical history and, from the evidence suggesting his modesty, would have been surprised to know that anyone would consider him worthy to be investigated.

Contemporary Sources

Biographical information about Johann Wanhal written by his contemporaries is distressingly sparse. There is, nevertheless, no doubt that he was born in the small town of Nechanicz in Bohemia on May 12, 1739 and that he died in Vienna on August 20, 1813. Even though he was very successful in Vienna and was well-known throughout the western world, he attracted no adoring disciples. Many references point to casual personal contact with him, but only two writers claimed to have had extensive personal contact with Wanhal: Charles Burney and Gottfried Johann Dlabacž. In addition, a short unsigned biography was published in 1813.

Charles Burney's personal contact with Wanhal was quite limited as may be seen in the reproduction of his comments in The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces.¹ His evaluations were based on personal but casual contact with Wanhal in Vienna during 1772. Burney's widely read travel books were almost immediately issued in German translation. His observations and opinions were eagerly read by German (which includes Viennese) commentators, and adapted according to their individual tastes, perceptions, and purposes. His remarks about his visit to Wanhal's apartment provide the only direct report about Wanhal's circumstances at the time; they also tell something about his own personal characteristics.

Together with his article, "VANHALL" in the Cyclopædia² and his observations in his A General History of Music,³ Burney's report in The Present State demonstrably influenced others who wrote about Wanhal's life and works.

Dlabacž, the best informed of all the reporters, tells that he knew Wanhal personally and enjoyed daily contact with him during the year 1795 while he was in Vienna gathering material for his Allgemeines historisches Künstler-Lexikon für Böhmen und zum Theil auch für Mähren und Schlesien, published in Prague in 1815.⁴ A natural empathy between the two men might be assumed since they were fellow countrymen from Bohemia and both had strong religious inclinations. They must also have been similar in personality and disposition.⁵ Dlabacž's observations about Wanhal's life and personal characteristics were undoubtedly accurate, especially for the first half of the 1790s; they provide clues which explain many things about Wanhal and the course of his career. His article is clearly the most accurate source of information about Wanhal's early years, although it provides only generalities about Wanhal's life for the years between 1795, when Dlabacž was in Vienna, and 1815 when the Lexikon was published in Prague. His listing of Wanhal's compositions is incomplete. It was based primarily upon the information he received directly from Wanhal during 1795, and was as complete as possible to that date, perhaps limited by Wanhal's predilection to modesty. Thereafter it is sketchy — apparently based only on sources which subsequently became available to him in Prague.

The round numbers of "100 Simphonien." and "100 Quartetten." attributed to Wanhal in Dlabacž's catalog show that Wanhal had not bothered to keep an account of them and that fifteen or so years must have elapsed since he composed in those genre. It also shows the influence of Dlabacž's Lexikon because the same number of symphonies and quartets are included in all other sources. David Wyn Jones' dissertation of 1978⁶ will probably not have the last word in the matter, but it provides the most accurate tabulation of Wanhal's string quartet output. It includes considerably fewer quartets than Dlabacž: of the 74 attributed to Wanhal, Jones considers that 53 are authentic. The quantities of most the other categories in Alexander Weinmann's "complete catalog"⁷ also differ from Dlabacž's, as does my list of seventy-seven probably-authentic symphonies. The printed items probably represent those Wanhal had on hand during Dlabacž's visit in 1795. The lack of French prints or any mention of their existence in Dlabacž's list likely indicates that Wanhal had none in his possession and that he was little concerned about them, even though he must have known that they existed. On the other hand, Dlabacž's annotations show that his list of prints was augmented by information from other sources: the catalogs of publishers such as Artaria and André, the lists of music dealers such as Walther, Widtmann, and Haas, and advertisements in the Wiener Zeitung and "der J. Poltischen Musikalienhandlung," which were available to him in Prague.

The best source, beyond Dlabacž's, for information about Wanhal's life is an article by an author who claims no personal connection with Wanhal and apparently had little if any contact with him. It was, however, copied without acknowledgement, by most of the other contemporary writers. Published soon after Wanhal's death as a necrology in the Vaterländische Blätter für den Österreichischen Kaiserstaat (1813, vol. 2 July-December, 476-478 [Vienna: Anton Strauss]), it appeared in a shortened version, in Der Aufmerksame, (No. 104, October 30, 1813 [Graz]).⁸ The anonymous author of the original version, in the Vaterländische Blätter will hereafter be identified as "A-a." He seems not to have been a native Viennese, but he could have been casually acquainted with Wanhal or members of his circle.⁹ I consider this writer's account to be less reliable than Dlabacž's, especially where they differ regarding details of Wanhal's life before 1795. It does, however, add considerable material about Wanhal, much of which could be characterized as gossip, common in Viennese circles at the time. Its observations about Wanhal's final years are general in nature, but they provide additional commentary and small details which tell much about his role in the musical scene in Vienna.

Dlabacž's article and the obituary from Vaterländische Blätter are provided in translation, designed to preserve the flavor of their writers' prose. The two biographies, written during his life or soon after his death, reveal the five basic periods in Wanhal's career: (1) 1739-1761 in Bohemia, (2) 1760 [61?]-May 1769 in Vienna, (3) May 1769-September 1771 in Italy, (4) from September 1771 until the early 1780s in Vienna, with occasional visits to Varaždin (Croatia), probably to Pressburg, and possibly other places, and (5) in Vienna until his death in August 1813.

The differences between the accounts of Dlabacž and the anonymous author in Vaterländische Blätter show that they were based on different sources. They differ regarding some details, such as A-a's birth ("am 10. May 1739") and death dates ("auf das Jahr 1812"). A-a's statements differ from Dlabacž's concerning Wanhal's family background: A-a says that Wanhal's ancestors were the noble family, van Halle, from Brabant, and his parents were well-to-do. They differ too about his patronage: A-a tells that, during the first period of his career Wanhal was supported by the noble family Colloredo in the community of Königgrätz. Here he learned to play the viole d'amour and, at the behest of the Countess Colloredo, wrote compositions for that instrument.¹³ She took him with her to Vienna where he remained with her sister [the Countess Schaffgotsch!], the wife of the Portugese ambassador, Frera. The severity of his illness in the 1770s is described by A-a with menacing words such as "bigotte Schwärmerey. . . Geistes Verwirrung . . . Manie . . . sonderbarsten Visionen . . . , and the results: . . . Kleider zu zerreissen . . . Haar abschneiden . . . ." Regarding his supporters: A-a refers to Baron Riesch and his assistant (Scolar) as Baron Elsnitz; Dlabacž refers to Riesch as "Freiherr" and fails to mention Elsnitz.¹⁴ On the other hand, in most matters, Dlabacž and A-a agree. Their information is complementary and does not essentially change the basic perception of Wanhal's career.

The authors of the other contemporary biographical sketches were apparently unacquainted with Dlabacž's Lexikon and derived most of their information from the article by the anonymous author and from Burney. Johann Friedrich Rochlitz' article in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in Leipzig, which appeared a few months after Wanhal's death was clearly derived from A-a's¹⁵ In its turn it served as the basis for other accounts, such as Gerber's final article,¹⁶ and, further in Wurzbach's.¹⁷ The commentary in Gerber's Historisches-Biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler of 1792 includes a unique statement: that Wanhal had found good circumstances through a fortunate marriage.¹⁸ This observation seems to have been provided by one of several travelers who, encouraged by Burney's success,¹⁹ were making the "Grand Tour," sometimes in order to uncover fresh material for new publications. The short article in Gerber's NeuesLexikon was published not long after Wanhal died, but it does not acknowledge the death nor provide further observations about personal aspects of Wanhal's life.²⁰

While the information supplied by Gerber's correspondent is nowhere confirmed, it is typical of the occasional apparently unfounded comments and chance remarks of many other contemporaries which, when found in different, seemingly credible sources may contribute to the gaps in our comprehension of the wheres, whens, whos, and whats in Wanhal's life. His position in the various currents of Viennese society can be seen, if only fleetingly, in the remarks of such diverse persons as Georg Forster, Michael Kelly, Carl Czerny, and Joseph Martin Kraus. Less direct, but more revealing in a way, is the host of connective threads which can be recognized and surmised through his relationships with fellow composers, such as Mozart, Haydn, Dittersdorf, and Pleyel; publishers such as Huberty, Sauer, Eder, Artaria, Hoffmeister, Koželuch, Bland, and Breitkopf; with various members of the nobility identified by notices about their appearances together in society, as well as through title page dedications on many of his compositions (e.g., van Swieten, Lichnowsky, Thun, Wrbna), and even with the man on the street as represented by the Eipeldauer letters.²¹