A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Wanhal, John Baptist
WANHAL—in English publications VANHALL—John Baptist, a contemporary of Haydn's (1732–1809), was of Dutch extraction, but born at Nechanicz in Bohemia May 12, 1739. His instructors were two local worthies, Kozák and Erban, and his first instruments the organ and violin. His early years were passed in little Bohemian towns near the place of his birth. At one of these he met a good musician, who advised him to stick to the violin, and also to write for it; both which he did with great assiduity. In 1760 he was taken to Vienna by the Countess Schaffgotsch, and here his real progress began; he studied (under Dittersdorf), read all the works he could get at, played incessantly, composed with great enthusiasm, and what was then thought extravagance, and was soon taken up by many of the nobility. One of these, the Freiherr Riesch, sent him to Italy for a long journey, of which he took full advantage. On his return to Vienna he fell into a state of mental depression, which for some time affected him greatly. It was thus that Burney found him in 1772 ('Present State,' etc., p. 358). Life in Vienna then was very much what it was 50 years later, and Wanhal's existence was passed, like Beethoven's or Schubert's, in incessant work, varied by visits to Hungary or Croatia, where the Count Erdödy, the immediate predecessor of Beethoven's friend, received him. He died in Vienna in 1813. Though somewhat younger than Haydn his music arrived in England first. Burney mentions this fact (Hist. iv. 599) and speaks of his symphonies as 'spirited, natural, and unaffected,' and of the quartets and other music for violins of this excellent composer as deserving a place among the first productions in which unity of melody, pleasing harmony, and a free and manly style are constantly preserved.' Burney's expressions about Haydn in the next paragraph show, however, how far higher he placed him than Wanhal or any other composer of that time.
The list of his works is enormous. Dlabacz, the author of the Dictionary of Bohemian Musicians, gives no less than 100 symphonies, 100 string quartets, 25 masses and 2 requiems, 30 Salve Reginas and 36 offertories, 1 Stabat Mater, 1 oratorio, 2 operas, and many other works. His sonatas were often met with in our grand-mothers' bound volumes, and Crotch has given two pieces in his Specimens of Music. Many of the symphonies and sonatas were produced a dozen at a time, a practice to which Beethoven gave the deathblow. They must not therefore be judged of from too serious a point of view.[ G. ]