The Concertos of Johann Adolf Hasse

Abstract

The name of Hasse is customarily associated with vocal rather than instrumental music. Rightly so, for the operas and sacred vocal works stand at the centre of his activity as a composer. It was the vocal music that established Hasse's international reputation and elicited such admiration from eighteenth-century critics. The same bias prevails in modern literature. Of the various studies devoted to Hasse since 1900 only one deals at length with any aspect of the instrumental music—and, significantly, it treats the overtures to dramatic works. The instrumental music proper remains largely unexplored. One might assume that instrumental music was of little importance for Hasse. But this is not the case. He wrote, for example, at least 60 concertos, a fair number even by the prodigious standards of the eighteenth century.