History books have a habit of lumping together composers with arbitrary tags, from simple geographic terms (The Five Russian Romantics) to broad stylistic tendencies (like the minimalists). One of the most well-known labels in music history is the term Viennese School, the first of which counts Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven as its members.  These three incredibly famous composers constructed the forms, melodies, harmonies and overall character of Classical Era (as well as hatched plans for eventual escape from it).

But there were many other composers in Vienna at the same time as the “big three” who never fit neatly with that narrative.  Perhaps they didn’t have enough surviving published works, or never found the right advocates in influential positions. After all, even Mahler’s great symphonies remained relatively obscure until Leonard Bernstein decided to record them in the 1960s.

It is this group of composers that the Guidonian Hand humbly champions this season. All of them made wonderful contributions to the literature, as demonstrated by (for example) Michael Haydn’s haunting Requiem and the precise turns of phrase in Dittersdorf’s Notturno.  Also, these composers’ careers and lives entwined quite frequently with those of the Big Three: Albrectsberger was Beethoven’s music theory teacher, Süssmayr quietly finished Mozart’s Requiem after that composer’s death, and Fux’s book on compositional practice is used to this day in conservatories. Dittersdorf even performed in string quartets with Haydn and Mozart.    The program fittingly begins with Beethoven’s Three Equale, which was in fact written for four trombones and was performed at his own funeral. Rarely performed itself, the piece makes an apt introduction to this inquisitive collection of “lost” Viennese music.

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Works to be performed on the “Lost Viennese School” program include:

Beethoven, Three Equale
Michael Haydn, Requiem
Albrectsberger, Dopplefugue and other works for organ
Fux, Sonata for 4
Dittersdorf, Notturno
Süssmayr, Piece for Organ
Wagenseil, Sonata