Visszaemlékezés

Fifty Years in Haydn Research
A Personal Account
László Somfai

Presented as the opening address at the Haydn 2009: A Bicentenary Conference (Budapest & Eszterháza, 27-30 May 2009), this is a critical review of Hungarian Haydn studies primarily based on the sources of the nationalized Esterházy private collection in the Széchényi National Library and other public institutions in Budapest. The reviewer worked in the music collection of the library from 1958 to 1963 among others scrutinizing the operatic material once conducted by Haydn. The first period of researches focused around the Haydn Year 1959 with the presentation of new scholarly achievements at the International Haydn Conference in Budapest (17-22 September 1929), including the publication of a catalogue of the primary sources of Haydn's music in Budapest, followed by two major books printed a year later (Haydn emlékére, collected studies by Hungarian authors, and Bartha & Somfai, Haydn als Opernkapellmeister). During the 1960s Dénes Bartha became an internationally recognized Haydn scholar, among others editor of several operas in the series Joseph Haydn Werke, and the volume Gesammelte Briefe and Aufzeichnungen; in the following period mostly the reviewer published documents, facsimile editions, studies. The survey ends with a short and personal view on the achievements and shortcomings of the last decades of Haydn scholarship.