cale of C, the second in F and the third in G. Make the Ritornello shorter than in your first concerti, and arrange the voice of the Leyern or the melody entirely according to the manner of the oboes without making their passages too slow; the other reminders with regard to this instrument you are already familiar with, since you have written several pieces of this nature."]
Among the composers who wrote music for the vielle organisée for the King of Naples was Joseph Haydn. It is not known how the king arranged the contact with Haydn. Under certain circumstances Norbert Hadravaa, who might have known Haydn, could have been the middle man; it is however also possible that Haydn's pupil Ignaz Joseph Pleyel, who in 1782 resided in Naples and wrote concertos for the king's vielle organisée, attracted the king's attention to Haydn [fn].
In the 1780's Haydn wrote five concerti for two vielles organisée for Ferdinand (Hoboken VII h:1-5) and between 1788 and 1790 wrote several nocturnes (Hoboken II: 25-32) [fn]. Haydn wrote these compositions for two of these instruments because the king wanted to play them with Hadrava.
Like Johann Xaver Sterkel, Haydn used the keys of C major / minor in the concerti. Thus both went beyond the two principal keys C and G. To be played in F major however the instrument either had to be retuned, although then the pipes could no longer be used because these could not be simply retuned a whole note, or both rows of keys had to be constantly used. However in the nocturnes written by Haydn (of which two are in the key of F), this cannot be done either, since in these the highest notes are f''' sustained and even g'''. For the performance of these compositions in F there were probably two possibilities: either the pipes were
not used or instruments especially tuned to F were used for these scales. In any case the instruments had to have a range that went somewhat over two octaves; hurdy-gurdies of this sort were also built in France (see page 125).
As with the French compositions for two hurdy-gurdies or musettes, Haydn's compositions show a strongly developed use of parallel thirds and sixths (ex. 40, ex. 41). Haydn was careful to see that the other instruments participating did not exceed the vielle organisée in virtuosity and made all the voices technically quite simple [fn]. Perhaps Haydn knew other hurdy-gurdy compositions, since he also used the favorite rhythms of the French composers for this instrument and prescribed almost only uneven rhythms. [???] His compositions display very little modulation and then only into the related keys, which Harry Edwall, together with the selection of the keys, attributed to the difficulty of playing chromatically on the vielle organisée [fn]. In support of his opinion he cites Michel Corrette's "Méthode pour apprendre à jouer de la vielle", in which the composer likewise limits himself to C and G major and their minor versions. Nevertheless it seems to be unknown to him that the selection of the keys and the type of modulation is related to the drone sounds of the instrument [fn]. In regard to the question as to which parts of the composition can be played with the pipes, and which the pipes and strings, he assumes without hesitation that the drone is not present: "The drone strings, of course, were not used at all" [fn]. However it cannot be blithely assumed that the drone strings were not used. Even in French compositions only the melody lines were written down; the sounding of the drone strings was taken for granted and occurred even in concerti with several instruments, which were arranged in a manner similar to that of Haydn's concerti
as also in the arrangements of Vivaldi's concerti (see page 320). It was not the difficulties of playing the vielle organisée chromatically that was the reason for the simple harmonic modulation, but rather the drone strings that were used as on the normal hurdy-gurdies.
The nocturne for vielle organisee instrumented with flute and oboe were repeatedly presented in the Salomon concerts of 1791 and 1792 under the direction 