In celebration of both Haydn’s birthday and wind chamber music this month, I was reminded of an inspiring recording that some friends made back in 2001: Ensemble Campanile performing Haydn string quartets from Opus 20 arranged for flute and strings on period instruments.

Here is a YouTube playlist for the Campanile Ensemble’s full album:

I find this transcription works really well: the flute (replacing the 1^st violin) brings a beautiful new color to the ensemble, and its unique timbre makes the counterpoint easier to follow. On period instruments, the wooden transverse flute creates a lyrical, warm sound that complements the gut strings. In the last movement especially, the flute’s speedy agility contrasts beautifully with the more earthy texture of the lower gut strings.

Arranging music for different instrumentations was common in the 18^th century as three trends converged: 

• chamber music at home was a popular form of entertainment
• music publishing was a thriving, profitable business
• public concerts were still relatively rare, so the latest symphonies and operas couldn’t be easily heard by everyone

The most common transcriptions of chamber music in Haydn’s time were symphonies and operas distilled into smaller ensemble versions so amateur players could perform the latest thrilling music at home. Music publishers capitalized on these trends by offering several chamber versions of the latest hits. This also created an outlet for highly skilled female players (who were not permitted to play in symphony orchestras) to play a version of the music that male professionals performed.

But there were also many transcriptions of chamber works for various instrumentations. Haydn’s six published flute quartets (Opus 5), for example, involved a marketing ploy: they were not originally written by Haydn as flute quartets, and several were composed by other, less famous composers, but were marketed as Haydn’s works for better sales. And this wasn’t scandalous: the copyright litigiousness of today did not exist in the 18^th century.

Ensemble Campanile’s decision, back in 2001, to arrange three of Haydn’s ground-breaking string quartets for flute and strings was something that might well have been done in the 1770s. Then, as now, it was likely a combination of musical chemistry and a strong intuition that this music would be compelling to audiences in a different version than the original.

If you would like to try this at home, there are arrangements by Andreas Eichhorn published by the Swiss publisher Edition Kunzelmann of Op. 20 No. 2 and Op. 20 No. 5 available for purchase at SheetMusicPlus (and also through Presto Music in the United Kingdom.) Marshall Tuttle also made arrangements of all six opus 20 quartets and uploaded them to IMSLP: Op. 20 No. 1, Op. 20 No. 2, Op. 20 No. 3, Op. 20 No. 4, Op. 20 No. 5, and Op. 20 No. 6. NOTE: The hyperlinks take you to the whole IMSLP page for each piece; to find these arrangements, click on the “Arrangements and Transcriptions” tab.

I hope you give this recording a listen and are inspired to try arrangements that are suitable for the friends you play music with!