Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

THE RATHER GORY

I'm going to move on some five years from Mozart's death to 1796, but before I do, let me just try and fill in the gap.

To live in these times is to know the meaning of the word 'revolution' if, admittedly, not always its spelling. Revolution is everywhere -Marc Bolan would have loved it. Republit s,?» Republics are the new black. Everybody's wants one. Just as, according to the great philosopher, Sir James Savile, the early 1970s was the age of the train, so this is the age of the Republic. The French Republic, Roman Republic, Lemanic Republic, the… the… the… Helvetian Republic, the Cisalpine Republic… all of them… genuine, 100 per cent kosher republics.

M. Rouget de Lisle's big hit of 1792, 'La Marseillaise', is still popular, although the Commune of Paris has been and gone, and with it some of the leading lights of the particularly French brand of Revolution - the heads of Danton, Desmoulins, Robespierre - all of them, alongside Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, getting to know what it feels like to be a chicken-in-the-basket supper.

And wars - where are we with them? Well, France has been and gone to war with Prussia and Austria… er, oh and Sardinia. Well, why not, eh? If it moves, declare war on it, that's what I say. In turn, the Holy Roman Empire has declared war on France, and Spain has just this minute declared war on Great Britain, and not before time, too, clearly, Spain! Lagging behind a bit on the old… 'war declaring' front, Spain. See me afterwards. France are, then, current holders of the Jules Rimet Trophy for Services to War, having just this year - 1796 remember - won wars against Italy, Austria, Worthing© and Milan. Actually, not sure of my notes, there, on Worthing.

In the more or less non-violent world, things are coming on in leaps and bounds. We've had the new book by the Marquis de Sade, rather racily entitled The Philosophy of the Bedroom. I can't think what that's about. Also, the first gas lights have gone on in England, Joshua Reynolds's light has gone out, and someone travelling«just near New Zealand has inadvertently discovered the… wait a minute, what are they called…

… the Kermadec Islands. Mmm.

Yes, I think that was the reaction then, too. Strangely enough, no one goes to war over them. Moving on, Jenner has developed the first smallpox vaccine and someone has sent the first ever telegraph - from Paris to Lille, in fact. The wedding of the year has got to have been that of Napoleon Bonaparte to Josephine de Beauharnais - she of'not tonight' fame.

But musically, where are we? Who's the ageing Status Quo type, who's the youthful S Club Seven-ers? Well, the smart money is on a twenty-six-year-old Beethoven to come up with something fantastic following last year's impressive Opus 1, Three Piano Trios. Would he be a U2 or a Sigue Sigue Sputnik? Also still there, keeping on keeping on, as it were, is his teacher, Haydn. Old Franz Josef may be starring in ads for stair lifts, but he can still knock out a tune with the best of them.

When we left him, Haydn was as happy as a sandboy, coining it in at the Esterhazy Palace, composing his head off and having his meals cooked. But, ohhhh, how his situation has changed in the last twenty years! How? Well, not at all, in fact, apart from maybe he is earning even more money now. He is still in the employ of the Esterhazy Bunch but, by now, his original boss has died. In the true 'jammy devil' style that seemed to stay with Haydn all his life, when the entire orchestra and choir were disbanded and sacked - because his new boss was not particularly into it - he himself was kept on, with an increased salary. As a result, with a salary and no job, he decided to travel. An enterprising type called Salomon booked him to tour London, where he was feted as a bit of a living legend, making a small fortune in the process.

If it helps, just think of how Tom Jones's career had that wonderful turnaround, not too long ago, when he suddenly found himself all trendy again, with his name coming on some rather 'hip' records, very often after the word 'featuring' - Catatonia featuring Tom Jones, White Stripes featuring Tom Jones, Peters and Lee© featuring Tom Jones. Well, so it was with Haydn. London had been fantastic - the audiences couldn't get enough of him: encores galore, special 'London symphonies' written, knickers being thrown from the audience - actually, no, that was Tom Jones. Anyhow, Haydn returned to his palace digs with a small fortune in his pocket only to discover there had been a change of management at Eisenstadt. Gone was Paul Anton, who preferred paintings to music - and in had come the new Prince Nicholas II. He revived the old Haydn court orchestra - maybe not quite to the level it had been under Nicholas I, but still, enough to cash in on the new Haydn vogue. And in this orchestra was a sexy new trumpeter, name of Anton Weidlinger, who was not only a fantastic, virtuoso player, but also a bit of a Caractacus Potts. Weidlinger had invented himself a thing called the 'keyed trumpet' - far too complicated to go into here, suffice to say it allowed you to play faster than the trumpet had ever played before. So Haydn, in the year of Our Lord 1796, duly wrote him a piece, full of the flashy new things that only Weidlinger's trumpet could do.

Unfortunately for Weidlinger, his 'keyed trumpet' became the Betamax of the trumpet world, beaten by the valve system. But Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in Eflat has weathered every storm and is still considered a good test of even a modern-day trumpeter, particularly the last movement, which goes to show that Weidlinger himself must have" been a pretty brilliant bugler to manage it. There are so many versions of this piece around today - on old trumpets, on new trumpets, on 'natural' trumpets/ slow versions, quick versions, underwater versions©, recordings using Haydn's solos, recordings using performers' own specially-written solos - I think it's fair to say there's a recording out there for everyone. Personally, I love the modern, take-no-prisoners sound of Wynton Marsalis. Every time I hear him play it, it makes me realize that this is music that simply couldn't have been written any earlier. Well, no, that's not true - it could have been, it's just that no one would have been able to play it, so there wouldn't really have been much point.