Wanhal, Double Bass Concerto

Few people these days know the music of Johann Baptist Wanhal (1739-1813). Count me among them. Born in Bohemia (the Czech Republic), he became a prominent Viennese composer at the same time as Mozart and Haydn, and you can easily hear the similarities of style, but Wanhal’s legacy did not develop the same way.

Many factors can influence whether a particular composer makes into the “Classical canon.” It would have helped Wanhal if some scholar had decided to write his biography, or catalog all of his works and publish a collection. When Wanhal was composing, the music performed was generally newly composed. You would not find concerts of “historical” music from earlier times or strong interest in the lives of earlier composers.

John Mainwaring published the first composer biography, Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Friedrich Handel to which is added A Catalogue of His Works, and Observations upon Them, in 1760. Composer biographies then became popular in the 19th century as the focus turned to the individual artist—the creative genius and the “great man” theory. Publishers also began to produce “Complete Works” of certain composers. Such publications helped to secure a composer’s position in the Classical canon.

A certain amount of luck was involved also, along with good P.R. and enterprising heirs. Alas for Wanhal, he was not so fortunate.

But the economics of music have changed today. We have access to almost endless amounts of music over the internet. Performers seeking to distinguish themselves from the crowd are turning to works that did not fare so well in the 19th and 20th centuries when large publishers controlled the market.

And now, Professor Paul Bryan at Duke University is doing for Wanhal what Köchel and Maynard Solomon did for Mozart. You can read more about that on the website of the Wanhal Association.