Istraživanje o Vaňhalu u Hrvatskoj – poticaji, smjerovi i otvorena pitanja
Research on Vaňhal in Croatia – initiatives, directions and open questions

Summary/Abstract: This paper is a result of a personal experience in the study of Vaňhal’s life and in the research and performance of his works. After an introductory review of the information on Vaňhal from Croatian and international sources (Krešimir Filić, Ladislav Šaban, Lovro Županović, Herbert Seyfert, Paul Bryan), this paper tries to enrich the knowledge about Vaňhal’s activities in Varaždin under the patronage of Count Ladislas Erdödy and his possible interactions with the artists who were active in Varaždin at the same period: poet Josip Keresturi (1739–1794) and composer Leopold Ignacije Ebner (1769–1830). A discrepancy has been noticed between the biographical data about a large number of works of sacred music commissioned by Count Erdödy (biographer J. G.Dlabacz) and a small number of works that have been preserved in Varaždin, with a special view of the problem of the lost oratorio about the Jesus Christs’s Passion which the composer, according to Dlabacz, left at the Ursuline Convent in Varaždin, where it is nowadays not existant. In the closing section the paper presents a comparative analysis of the 6th movement from Ebner’s oratorio “Under the Cross” (1791, preserved at the Ursuline Convent in Varaždin where Ebner was employed), and two movements from Vaňhal’s Stabat Mater (1782 or earlier, it remains unknown if it was preserved at the Ursuline Convent in Varaždin and thus accessible to Ebner). In both works an entirely identical musical material has been found. The comparison of the manuscript of the oratorio with Vaňhal’s handwriting features shows a difference in handwriting, along with some features common to both manuscripts. These indications, as well as the specific orchestration of the oratorio (two viola parts), lead to the hypothesis that the oratorio “Under the Cross“ could be Vaňhal’s lost oratorio. At the present stage of the research, a comparative study of a larger number of works by both composers was not possible, but it will be neccessary in order to shed some light on the problem of the possible links between the two composers and of the attribution of their works.

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