Johann Adolph Hasse - Style and Reputation

Style and Reputation

Despite Giovanni Battista Mancini's claim that Hasse was the padre della musica, and despite the composer's massive popularity as a figure at the very forefront of 18th-century serious Italian opera, after his death Hasse's reputation vastly declined and his music lay mostly unperformed (with the exception of some of his sacred works, which were revived now and again in Germany). In particular, his operas sank without trace and revival only begun as the 20th century approached its end: Gluck's reforms took opera away from Hasse's style and Metastasio's Arcadian ideals to a new direction from which it would not return.

In his day, Hasse's style was noted primarily for his lyricism and sense of melody. Burney put it this way:

may without injury to his brethren, be allowed to be as superior to all other lyric composers, as Metastasio is to all other lyric poets.

Careful choice of key was also a crucial factor in Hasse's style, with certain emotions usually marked out by certain key choices. Amorous feelings were expressed by A, for instance, while for expressions of aristocratic nobility Hasse used C and B flat; on the other hand, his supernatural and fear-inducing music usually went into the keys of C and F minor. Most of his arias begin in the major, switching only to minor for the B section before returning to major for the da capo. As his career developed his arias grew much longer but a lyrical sense was still his overriding target.