Ferenc
Dávid -János Malina
The Esterházy Fairyland
...
Eszterháza was first
compared to Versailles in the 1770s, and many times since.
That sort of comparison is a commonplace in Central Europe: Potsdam was dubbed
the Prussian Versailles in the eighteenth century, Ludwigsburg was the Versailles
of Württemberg, Jan Klemens' palace at Bialystok was labelled the Polish Versailles.
The label refers to the palace, garden, park and housing for servants seen
as a unit. It naturally presumes grandeur and sumptuous execution. Prince
Nikolaus and his architect set this goal in 1762 and achieved it in ten and
twenty years. The design suggests the desire of the wealthiest landowner in
Hungary for a residence as magnificent as that of any territorial prince in
the Holy Roman Empire, however, taking as his model not their seats but the
summer residences, what the French called maisons de plaisance and the Germans
Lustschloss. This idea of the layout was coupled with the Rococo notions of
cultured and gracious living, which pervades not only the buildings but subdues
nature to formal patterns, and creates a home for stately leisure centred
on the theatre, music and the chase.
It is important to emphasise that the contemporaries did not look on Eszterháza
- Nikolaus Esterházy gave this name to the place around Christmas 1765 - in
isolation. The Prince had a town house and late renaissance château fort in
Kismarton (Eisenstadt), a castle redolent of past wars and manifesting the
dignity of a warlord at Fraknó along with a hôtel de ville, well-placed and
properly furnished, in Vienna. In addition to, or against the background of,
these, he realised "the sweetness of Hungary, the Hungarian Paradise" (deliciae
Hungarorum oder das ungarische Paradies), or, in terms of its contents, Elysium,
Cythera that is the island of happiness and love.
Designs for extension were prepared in the Spring of 1762. The plan was to
enlarge the building with two-storied (L-shaped) wings on both sides and to
enclose the court with arched horseshoe-shaped wings. The functional basis
for the plan was the estate survey of the Kismarton palace. The same number
of primary and secondary apartments were planned in the new palace, except
that there was no provision for the estate stewards, who stayed in Kismarton.
Thus, the enlargement projected a new residence; however, the centre of the
Esterházy estates remained in Kismarton. The design, whose gifted architect
is unknown, was carried out in three short years, between 1762 and 1764. The
single-storied horseshoe-shaped wings and the two-storied subsidiary buildings
were erected, with the large chapel in one of them.
The second phase of construction lasted from 1765 to 1768 when the main aim
was to enlarge the old palace section. The appearance of the exterior was
determined by the belvedere erected above the central ceremonial hall covered
with a transversal roof of arched section, reminiscent of a dome. A similar
roof structure can be found in the palace of Nikolaus Esterházy's kinsman
Count Antal Grassalkovich the First, which is now the residence of the President
of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava (then Pozsony). In conjunction with the
extension of the centrepiece, the interior spaces were also modernised: the
first-floor ceremonial hall decorations survive today, and the carved, woven
and painted wall decorations of the inner rooms also date from that period.
Typical details of the cour d'honneur also derive from this phase of construction
(1765-1768): three statued fountains, and the double-armed staircase leading
to the banquet hall upstairs. The interior of the lateral wings can also be
dated to this phase, though furnishing was probably not completed until 1772.
In the third construction phase, in 1775-78, the palace received a third storey,
thus acquiring its present appearance. The reconstruction of the palace was
patterned on the model of Schönbrunn, with the invisible Italianate roofs
concealed behind an attic decorated with statues and vases and the articulation
of the walls with pilasters uniting two stories. That was when two extensions
were added to the single-level horseshoe-shaped wings: the Prince's picture
gallery on the western side overlooking Széplak and the conservatory on the
eastern, the Süttör, side. There is, however, no documented description of
their furnishing until much later, 1783 and 1784, respectively.
The sophisticated ornamental garden was presumably the work of Franz Zinner
and had been finished long before 1762. In the first decade of Prince Nikolaus's
succession it was only modified on the fringes: the bordering hedges were
pulled down and a double row of horse-chestnuts was planted to link it to
the newly designed park which used to be the Lés Woods. A reshaping took place
in the years following Maria Theresa's visit in 1773: the intricately subdivided,
embroidered and mottled flower beds were replaced by lawns laid out in a lucid
pattern and lined with flowers. In the new overall appearance of the garden,
the statues on pedestals, stone vases, and old ornamental fountains acquired
salient importance. The last to be built, in 1783-84, was the huge waterfall
that closed off the parterre.
The most extensive change in the 1762
make-over was the conversion of the Lés Woods into a huge park. The paths
opening up the old deer-forest were replanted with trees, new avenues were
plotted in a sweeping vue system divided into sections by cross ways, leading
the inner sections via variedly designed networks of walks to clearings. The
lucid geometry of the ground plan may deceive the spectator: the Woods are
so large that one can stroll in them for hours; the straight avenues lined
with benches and statues only constituted a skeleton from which trellised
wooden gates opened onto irregularly traced paths and stalking tracks. The
constructed spectacles of this regulated forest were closed off with a double
avenue of trees where temples served as resting places: the temples of Diana
and the Sun closer to the palace, the temples of Fortuna and Venus at the
furthest ends. All four had been completed by the time of the Empress's visit
in 1773. The hermitage erected in one corner of the park-forest was finished
by the time of the visit of Archduke Ferdinand in 1775. The last to be built
was the most famous of all the buildings, the Chinese Pleasure-House or Bagatelle
(1783), which now stands in the modern-style version designed by János Sedlmayr.
An octagonal boar reserve in the outer parts of the park-forest, and a pheasant
house along the Szentmiklós road were established in the 1760s. These made
the great battus an integral part of life at Eszterháza.
The magnificent things to be seen were central to Eszterháza. For a start
the collections in the palace: the collection of china, the large library
and the picture gallery in the West Wing and continued in the Sala Terrena,
whose fountains featured spouting porcelain figures representing the aquatic
fauna of Lake Fertoý. Upstairs the ceremonial hall displayed paintings of
the love affairs of the gods, and the panoramic panneaux in the reception
rooms in the garden presented various delights of the harmonious life the
aristocratic company pursued in nature. The Sala Terrena was the venue for
smaller concerts, sometimes short plays were presented before choice audiences
in the large halls. Music and drama, however, could be performed to larger
audiences as more sophisticated spectacles: the Opera House and the Puppet
Theatre stood opposite each other at the sides of the ornamental garden. The
Opera House was opened in 1768 with a presentation of Haydn's Lo Speziale:
the orchestra was headed by Haydn and the theatre company moved to Eszterháza
that year. The first operatic performance was held there two years later.
The Puppet Theatre was completed for the visit of Maria Theresa. The Empress
watched Haydn's marionette opera from a box shaped like a pagoda. In the 1770s,
Haydn's music was already world famous and the buildings of Nikolaus the Magnificent
Esterházy provided a worthy setting for it. The strict symmetry of the palatial
garden was only modified for the sake of the opera: when in 1779 the building
burnt down, a larger new opera house was built, designed by the Prince's architect
Michael Stöger, seating four hundred.
...
Paul Anton (1711-1762) was a man of profound
erudition and wide vision; he himself played the violin, flute and lute, and
was a passionate collector of printed music. In the course of his extensive
travels he primarily collected the works of late Baroque composers, including
Vivaldi. In the Fifties, his taste underwent a radical change, and he turned
towards the Classical style then on the rise. His search for scores was also
aimed at providing his Kismarton orchestra with music. He had plans to perform
operas and he contracted several singers and instrumentalists. He employed
young Luigi Tomasini, whose subsequent studies he financed and who became
the outstanding leader and violin soloist of his ensemble. Last but not least,
he employed Joseph Haydn as Vice-Kapellmeister, signing a contract on May
1, 1761.
Hardly a year after the signing of the contract, Paul Anton died unexpectedly.
Nikolaus Esterházy, who had resided in the hunting lodge at Süttör, moved
to Kismarton as the prince regnant. He took over, among other things, the
small but first-class orchestra hallmarked by the names of Gregor Joseph Werner,
Haydn and Tomasini. Profoundly interested in books, in the fine and decorative
arts and a passionate devoté of the chase and impressive outdoor pageantry
such as military parades, lanterned garden feasts, spectacular firework displays,
the new prince set straight into realising the dream of his life. From around
1766, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy the Magnificent, along with Haydn and the
other musicians, began to spend more and more time at Eszterháza, at first
only in the summer months. The Eszterháza sojourn kept lengthening until their
time away from there, mainly in Vienna, shrank to two or three winter months.
The diverse spectacles at Eszterháza, which the aristocracy hankered after
and which were extolled in laudatory poems, were always crowned by musical
and theatrical productions.
The symphonies were performed in the spacious rooms of the main building.
The operas and the productions by Wahr's and Diwald's theatre companies were
presented in the theatre completed in 1768, and after that burnt down, in
the new and larger opera house of 1781 which had its full complement of singers
and orchestral players, a team of designers and copyists. Haydn the composer
concentrated on symphonies in his first fifteen years or so in the Prince's
service. Added to them are the concertos, divertimenti, trios and cantatas
composed for members of the orchestra during his Kismarton years. Later, in
Eszterháza, he had to compose many pieces that included the baryton, mostly
trios, a rarity already at the time, as the Prince played this viola da gamba-like
solo instrument. After Werner's death Haydn also composed masses for Eszterháza.
Productions of opera started at the end of the 1760s, relegating all other
genres into the background by the late 1770s. Haydn himself composed nine
operas here; at the turn of the 1770s and 1780s, however, his zeal slackened
and after 1783 he composed no further operatic works at Eszterháza. Considering
that between 1780 and 1790, a total of 67 operas were put on in 1038 performances
(averaging two or three performances a week), it is clear that the magnitude
of the musical tasks this entailed (such as adapting the scores to local circumstances,
composing inserts and so on) left Haydn no time to compose for his patron.
But he composed an increasing amount for "export", breaching his original
contract, soon even explicitly. According to a much-cited statement by Haydn
in his old age, he felt at ease at Eszterháza - at least in the first period
- because he could freely experiment there in complete isolation from the
wide world, hence his art necessarily became original. But, however receptive
Prince Nikolaus may have been, Haydn wanted to try out this originality in
other musical forms as well. The two main genres he wrote for publication
were the quartets and the keyboard sonatas. The phrase "composed in a new
and special manner" featuring on the
title-page of the "Russian" quartets op. 33, published in 1781, shows that
it was indeed his ambition to be an experimenting and innovating composer.
He regularly worked on outside commissions: in the 1780s, his symphonies were
almost all composed upon request from abroad. With the growth of his fame
(and corollarily, his self-esteem) the seclusion and isolation at Eszterháza
became increasigly inconvenient.
The sudden death of Prince Nikolaus the Magnificent in 1790 was thus a relief
for Haydn in a certain sense. The heir to the princely title, Anton, was not
a lover of music, and moved his household back to Kismarton. He only arranged
his installation as Lord Lieutenant at Eszterháza in 1791; however, the music
provided was not by the orchestra (for it had been disbanded in the meantime)
but by a Gypsy band. Nevertheless, he did not dismiss Haydn or Tomasini, and
put no obstacles to Haydn's triumphs in London (in 1791-92 and 1794-95).
Anton Esterházy was followed in 1794
by the grandson of Nikolaus 'the Magnificent', Nikolaus II (1765-1833). The
last blossoming of Eszterháza music life is associated with him. Nikolaus
II reorganised the orchestra, particularly to satisfy his great interest in
sacred music. He celebrated his wife's nameday with a newly composed mass
every year. This is how Haydn came to write six monumental masses between
1796 and 1802: after composing his last symphonies he reached the zenith in
yet another musical genre in the seventh decade of his life.
...
Ferenc Dávid
is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Art History of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. He has published widely on the history of monument protection
and secular architecture, on burgher's houses and mansions.
János Malina
is Director of the Baroque ensemble Affetti Musicali and Artistic Director of the Haydn Festival at Eszterháza.
