Originality as market-value: Remarks on the fantasia in C Hob. XVII:4 and Haydn as musical entrepreneur

Abstract

The distinction between aesthetic and commercial value emerged in the later eighteenth century under the conditions of an emerging market for literature and music. Such a distinction was sharply pronounced in North German debate on music, especially concerning the “elitist” fantasia and the “populist” rondo. While Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach would pay lip service to the sharp reprobation of Forkel or Reichardt concerning commercialisation of music, he would nonetheless act as a businessman when it came to selling his music. Joseph Haydn and his Austrian contemporaries, on the other hand, seem to have had much less reservations concerning the idea of music as commodity; indeed, one could argue that Haydn consciously used his trade-marks like “originality” or “wit and humour” as a kind of branding. Commercial success, after all, allowed a composer to get a response from an otherwise anonymous and silent public. The issues at stake are exemplified by a comparison of two important piano pieces which combine elements of fantasia and rondo form: C. P. E. Bach’s Fantasia in C major, H. 291/Wq. 61,6, and Haydn’s Fantasia in C major, Hob. XVII:4.