From Mozartian connections in Salzburg & Vienna, to London success: Joseph Wölfl’s Duos for Harp and Piano from Duo Praxedis on Toccata Classics

Joseph Wölfl in 1811

Joseph Wölfl (1773–1812) is hardly a name that springs to the lips. Born in Salzburg, the young Wölfl had lessons with Mozart’s father and with Michael Haydn, as well as taking piano lessons with Mozart’s sister. In 1790, he performed before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna and was received as a refined pianist. He may have taken lessons with Mozart.

Wölfl established himself as a freelance musician and enjoyed marked success in Poland until the third partition of Poland in 1795. Returning to Vienna, his opera Der Höllenberg premiered at the Theater auf der Wieden to a libretto by Emmanuel Schikaneder. Wölfl became known as a pianist and composer of opera, piano and chamber music, making tours to other musical centres of Germany. It was Constanze Mozart’s recommendation that led to Breitkopf & Härtel became the main publisher of Wölfl’s works.

Wölfl would write further operas during the 1790s and early part of the following century. He was in Paris by 1801, standing out both as a pianist and as a composer of opera, orchestral and chamber music, then he was in London in 1805.  

He entered into a lifetime contract with Johann Peter Salomon (1745–1815), best remembered through his association with Haydn in the early 1790s, and received prestigious commissions as a composer. Soon Wölfl was known as one of the leading musicians of the city, and the most important part of his work, covering the whole breadth of musical genres, stems from this period. Between 1805 and 1810, one of his pupils was the English composer Cipriani Potter (1792-1871), who was principal of the Royal Academy of Music for 27 years.

Wölfl died in London in 1812, in what was then the well-to-do suburb of Marylebone. After his death, numerous publishers showed continued interest in his works and further editions continued to appear until the end of the nineteenth century.

“Wölfl played a concerto of his own composition with unprecedented clarity and precision, such as, with the tremendous span of his hands, no one else could possibly have done it. […] A pianist who measures six feet in length, whose fingers are incredibly long and can reach the span of a 13th without effort, who is also so thin that everything about him rattles like a scarecrow, who, with the most incredible ease, with a touch that is weak, albeit pleasant, performs all difficulties, impossible for other pianists, without losing his calm posture, who often knows how to bind entire passages in moderately fast tempo with one and the same finger, such as in the long tenor passage that continues in sixteenth notes in the Andante of Mozart’s Fantasia [K.397] – such a pianist is surely unique. What would our journalists say about such a pianist, compared to whom all our pianists, with their baggage of etudes and so-called fantasies, are fools who have never recognized the meaning of true art, who model their bravura after the comical jumping of grasshoppers, and thus develop themselves into true musical Gasconians. Wölfl’s remarkable virtuosity aside, his playing had neither light nor shade; he completely lacked masculine strength, which may have been why his playing didn’t penetrate the innermost being, but rather captivated admiration by its gymnastic qualities. Moreover, despite his good-naturedness, he lacked refined culture; his childishly humorous nature earned him the nickname ‘the foolish Wölfl’.”

Václav Jan Tomášek (remembering 1799) quoted in Classical Pianists website. 

There are six piano concertos, written between 1802 and 1809. The piano concertos closely resemble the later piano concertos of Mozart, who had revolutionized the genre; they can be distinguished from Mozart’s works by the larger range of the piano, which had been extended shortly after Mozart’s death 

Wölfl encountered distinguished harp virtuosi both in Paris and in London, with whom he performed and for whom he composed an important body of works for harp and piano – one unmatched by any other major master of the Viennese Classical period. 

The invention of the pedal harp around 1800 made performance in all keys possible. The double-action pedal system was first patented in London by Sebastien Erard in 1801 and 1802. This invention led to the development of a new chamber-music combination, piano and harp, two instruments that were becoming common in middle-class homes. 

The Toccata Classics label has already issued two discs of Wölfl’s piano music performed by Adalberto Maria Riva, and now they are focusing on Wölfl’s duos for piano and harp with a new disc performed by Duo Praxedis due out in November. Since 2010 the Duo Praxedis, comprising the harpist Praxedis Hug-Rütti and the pianist Praxedis Geneviève Hug, has been reviving this forgotten tradition of works for harp and piano. 

Wölfl’s Grand Duo pour Harpe et Piano in F major, Op. 29 was composed in Paris in 1804, and dedicated to a harpist who had performed as a musician in Queen Marie Antoinette’s concerts. The Grand Duett for the Harp and Piano Forte in B flat major, Op. 37 was composed in London in 1806 and dedicated to François-Joseph Dizi (1780–1840), one of the leading harp virtuosi of the day. The premiere at the King’s Concert Rooms in Hanover Square, was a resounding success, and it was repeated at subsequent concerts, even being issued in a version for two pianos. A Second Duett in E flat major, Op. 44 dates from 1807 and was dedicated to harp-playing sisters, the Miss Gautherots. The premiere took place at a benefit concert where Wölfl played the piano and Miss Gautherot the harp.

In 1807 Joseph Wölfl published a collection dedicated to his pupils under the title Bouquet de Flore, comprising seven compositions for a variety of instrumental combinations. It is noteworthy that Wölfl engraved the music himself on copper plates and issued the volume at his own expense. Two of the works in the collection are scored for harp and piano. 

Wölfl also composed a substantial sonata for solo harp and a sonata for flute and harp. Together, these compositions form a representative body of works that stands as a timeless monument to the development of the harp and the art of harp-playing during this period. 

My thanks to Toccata Classics as much of the information in this article comes from the informative programme booklet by Margit Haider-Dechant and Hermann Dechant.

The recital, below, includes the Second Duo by Wölfl [from 1:26:30] performed by Duo Praxedis at the Wölfl-Haus in Bonn.

 Full details of Joseph Wölfl’s Complete Duos for Harp and Piano from Duo Praxedis on Toccata Classics. The disc will be released at the end of November.