The Life and Times of Hyacinthe Jadin
With the the classical triumvirate Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, the Romantic Liederfürst Franz Schubert and with their numerous contemporaries such as Vanhal, Salieri, Pleyel or Hummel - some still awaiting re-discovery - Vienna has remained the city of classical music in the 6 decades around 1800. Particularly the instrumental forms of chamber music and piano music have been justifiably regarded as the dominant forms of the Viennese Classical period; the other equally important European music centers having established themselves by way of musical imports (such as Händel, J.C. Bach or Clementi in London) or musical dramatic forms such as the opera (Paris). Particularly here, the period of classical music in France (including the opera repertoire)presents us both qualitatively and quantitatively with a considerable gap between the music of Rameau and Berlioz. But what would Beethoven have been without France, the ideals and the musical language which grew out of the Revolution?
At the time of the Revolution in Paris there were principally only opera productions or music for revolutionary celebrations to be heard. Established composers like Gossec or Cherubini, or younger colleagues like Méhul or Catel, had no ambitions in the field of instrumental music. Symphony, string quartet and piano music were considered the domain of „Germans“, with which the Viennese and Mannheim schools as well as Bohemian composers were more or less indiscriminately lumped together. One single exception stood as a bright star in the heavens for a brief time as the great French hope, but would all too quickly be extinguished: Hyacinthe Jadin, who would only live to the age of 24 (Music history has given us several other examples of promising young composers who shared this same fate: Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Juan Chrisostomo de Arriaga and even Wolfgang Amadé Mozart. Mozart, however, lived to be a good 10 years older than the others mentioned, who did not live to reach even 30).
The data concerning Jadin’s life are as scarce as his years: On April 27, 1776, he was born at Versailles as the son of a regularly-employed court musician and bassoonist of the royal orchestra. Hyacinthe and is brother Louis-Emanuel, five years older and later famous for his dramatic works, were the most talented among five musically gifted brothers.
The Fortepiano found its way into France via the Alsace (Andreas Silbermann) and began in the course of the late 18th century to replace the harpsichord in both public and private music-making. The Alsatian Nicolas Joseph Hüllmandel (student of C.P.E.Bach and composer of piano sonatas and pedagogical works), provided Jadin with a solid musical instruction, and as with Haydn and Mozart, C.P.E. Bach symbolized the ultimate musical sensibility. In 1785 the first printed composition (Journal de Clavecin) of the then 9-year old Jadin appeared, a Rondo for Fortepiano. In May of 1789, Jadin appeared for the first time at the age of 13 publicly in the Concerts Spirituels performing a piano concerto of his own composition. After the storming of the Bastille on the 14. of July, however, the financial basis for most of the musical life in Paris, which up to then had been funded by the nobility, was destroyed. Hüllmandel left Paris in 1790 for London. Jadin, his best student, was left behind to fend for himself.
In the theater boom of the Revolution, the young Jadin was employed in 1792 as assistant rehearsal pianist (Rezitativbegleiter) at the Theater Feydeau. In 1794, Jadin presented his most convincing contribution to the music of the Revolution, a Hymn to the 21st of January (overture for 13 wind instruments), the one year anniversary of the execution for treason of Citzen Capet, previously known as Louis XVI, King of France. In 1795, Jadin was named Professor for the ladies' piano class at the founding of the Paris conservatory. (Oddly enough piano instruction was divided into men's and women's classes. Jadin seems to have been a good teacher; in any case his students always performed well at the piano competitions which have continued there unto this very day).
Piano music and chamber music formed the emphasis of Jadin's short creative life. The Rondo of 1785 was followed by a flute sonata (lost). The three violin sonatas Op. 1, dedicated to his mother, were announced on the 14th of June, 1794. On November 25th of the same year his opera Cange (lost) was performed. From this point on, the two volumes of string trios and 4 volumes of string quartets and above all the 4 volumes of piano sonatas Op. 3,4,5 and 6 - each containing 3 sonatas - would be Jadin's most significant works. One sonata for piano 4 hands has also survived. A sonata for 3 pianos was unfortunately lost. Jadins 3 piano concertos are among the few compositions in this form which , like all such orchestral works, seemed at the time to take a second place behind revolutionary republican celebrations. The smaller pedagogical works and opera potpourris seem less significant compared with the more mature compositions.
Jadin, with his inimitable style, stands at the transition from the Classic to Romantic periods: On April 1st, 1793 the philosopher, politician and critic Condorcet legitimized Méhul's music calling it “Romantic”, thus was born the concept of Romanticism. Hyacinthe Jadin, however was with his musical language even more progressive than Méhul or Cherubini. Where as in the form of the piano concerto neither Haydn, Vanhal nor Mozart could have served as artistic models, Haydn, Pleyel and above all Mozart were certainly his inspiration for the string quartets (particularly Mozarts “Haydn quartets” and the “Hoffmeister” quartet). But neither in the piano concertos nor in the string quartets had Jadin attained such a degree of stylistic iindependence and assuredness as in the piano sonatas.
In the last five years of the century, Jadin was plagued increasingly by tuberculosis to the extent that in 1799 he was excused from military service by none other than Napoleon Buonaparte. On September 22nd, 1799, Jadin appeared for the last time in a public concert. One could hardly imagine a more tragic end: one year later on September 26th, 1800, he died in poverty in a time of constant political unrest, still owed several months' salary by the Paris conservatory. No portraits have survived.
Dr. Heinz Anderle, Wien, 2005 (translation by Richard Fuller)