Haydn's Haus

[nesf]

Nice set to have....however, I would promote seeking out individual recordings from various ensembles and conductors.  Haydn's strength lies in the performances.....more so than others for me.  His music lends itself cleanly to interpretations of those who find him and play him.  Where performances for others such as Beethoven and Mozart can vary greatly and still hold you with either prong, Haydn performances, at least for me, can have chasms found in the subtle differences between performances.  His music is "clean" and you will find that the recs here may lead you down this centering path.  At least they have for me.   

My worry about going the individual recording route is the expense it incurs in exposing myself to a lot of a composer. I'm all for picking up particularly good performances of symphonies, the better string quartets etc but I always worry that I'm missing out on some obscure piece that isn't well loved but that I'll fall in love with due to my own idiosyncrasies.

Not that I'm remotely planning on picking up the Haydn box in the near future or anything!

[Bogey]

My worry about going the individual recording route is the expense it incurs in exposing myself to a lot of a composer. I'm all for picking up particularly good performances of symphonies, the better string quartets etc but I always worry that I'm missing out on some obscure piece that isn't well loved but that I'll fall in love with due to my own idiosyncrasies.

Not that I'm remotely planning on picking up the Haydn box in the near future or anything!

Hmmm.  Do not know how many times I posted something like this and sooner than later occured.

[nesf]

Hmmm.  Do not know how many times I posted something like this and sooner than later occured.

The thought of ripping 150 CDs is enough to put me off for a while at least...

[Bogey]

The thought of ripping 150 CDs is enough to put me off for a while at least...

If you find yourself buying too much, take a month furlow from the board.

[Karl Henning]

Wisdom! ; )

[nesf]

If you find yourself buying too much, take a month furlow from the board.

Yeah I figured out that much already! I must teach my wife how to block certain sites at the router...

[Gurn Blanston]

Other than the baryton trios that I posted last week, I have found a few interesting disks this month, some of which some of you may find interesting as well.



There have been several recommendations for works from this set here. I actually only had one disk already covered (the 7 Last Words oratorio version which is already my top pick), so at the bargain price it was a no-brainer. Looking forward to the Nelson Mass, and the Harmoniemesse too.





I have always had a hard time (as you have noted already) in staying with a full cycle of works (no matter how well I like them) without straying out of bounds on a regular basis. I have the Smithson Quartet playing Mozart, Beethoven & Boccherini (with Bylsma!) already anyway, but I wanted to hear what they had to say about Haydn. The DHM disk is readily available for a great price (in USA at least), and the Dorian digipak is a brand new release; seeing it is what prompted this excursion to start with. The Dorian has Op 9 #4 in d minor, one of the very best early quartets, along with 2 of Op 17. It is working its way up tonight's playlist!

The Op 76 by the Kuijken's is a collector's item, plain and simple. I have been shopping it for nearly 2 years trying to find a combination of condition and price that I could live with. I finally pressured an eBay seller into giving me a good deal, hope it lives up to my expectations now!   





Finally, as we get closer to discussion of The Creation, I wanted to bulk up on my collection a bit to have some other possibilities to present. In inquiring about this version yesterday in the "...Considering" thread, I got a couple of very positive comments, so it is now on the way. My only current English version is Hogwood, who is no slouch himself, so this should be good competition for him. Anyway, now we'll have a bit more to talk about when 1798 rolls around.

[DavidW]

Yeah I figured out that much already! I must teach my wife how to block certain sites at the router...

Get leechblock or stay focused app and have it block arkiv, amazon etc after you're on there for x # of minutes!

[nesf]

Get leechblock or stay focused app and have it block arkiv, amazon etc after you're on there for x # of minutes!

Oh my, the difference that'd make to my bank balance...

[Leo K.]

I'm still here!

I've been on a Baroque binge, which usually happens in the winter, but it does complement my study of the classical era very nicely 

[Gurn Blanston]

I'm still here!

I've been on a Baroque binge, which usually happens in the winter, but it does complement my study of the classical era very nicely 

I was wondering.   Well, Baroque Binge is scarcely an excuse to ignore real music....    0:)

I'm preparing an essay on music for Lira Organizzate, hope to publish this weekend. If you have any interest in that, prepare to discuss.

[Gurn Blanston]

Notturni for Lira organizzate

Since we first discussed the music for 2 Lira in 1787 when the Naples versions of the concertos were introduced, and through 1790 when the notturnos came along, the confused state of affairs manifested in the literature took no time at all to inject into our discussion too!

Among other problems with this particular music, research is difficult because not a whole lot has been written about it. And while what may be true about the concerti is not necessarily true about the notturni, oftentimes what literature exists is a hodgepodge of info about both together.

My sources in this essay are the Oxford Composer Companion to Haydn edited by David Wyn Jones, and the liner notes booklets from these disks, whose authors (and dates) I will name as I get to them:



It is highly likely that there are other recordings out there of these works, but since I don't have them, well...  also, note that I have listed the Huss Concertos disk which is also included in the "Naples and Esterházy" set. The reason I did this is to merely point out where a problem lies. When this discussion began, this came up;

I'm a little confused about those Notturni.  The liner notes for the Huss/Haydn Sinfonietta Wien recording state rather clearly that the original versions written for Naples are lost, and all we actually have are the rewrites FJH did for London.  So where did these Naples versions come from?

And I went back and reread the "Naples and Esterházy" notes and they DID say that.    But a couple of evening ago, while I was doing this research, I pulled out the disk I have of just the concerti, and that statement came actually from those notes. And it wasn't the notturni that he was talking about, it was the concerti!  That makes a big difference to the discussion, and was only readily noticeable in a book that was only about the concerti.

There aren't any surviving examples of the Lira from the Naples court, but the likely instruments involved are not the ones that look like this;
or like this;
sort of like a modified guitar body, so to speak. But the ones that look like this;
which are the ones that were reproduced for the Delirium disk. The reason I say this is that the entire range of the keyboard is needed to play some of Haydn's works (not sure about the other composers' works). There is plenty of information about how these things work, maybe Sonic Dave will provide us a link to one of his articles in the "Old Instruments and Reproductions" thread. For now, I am looking at the works themselves; what versions were composed and when and where they ended up. Little mysteries that show up along the way may or may not be explained, since I haven't found any postulated answers to agree or disagree with yet.   

I want to start off with a quote from Wyn-Jones in the Oxford book.



So this is the 'official' line on these works. It is pretty much in agreement with what we see when we begin collecting them and listening to them.

The earliest recordings that I have are those by Dieter Klöcker / Consortium Classicum on cpo. Despite that the CD was released in 2000, the actual recordings were made in April, 1974. And I would venture to say that the liner notes (written by Klöcker) are concurrent with the original recordings, if only because of some facts he reports which have been superseded by more recent scholarship. An example of this is that Klöcker doesn't know at the time about the origin of the works which we call for convenience #7 & 8 (Hob 2:27 & 28). As far as he knows, there are only 6 works (which we can safely call the First Commission) that were written for 2 Lira etc., and the later 2 may have only been written for London, since they are in the London scoring, sans clarinets. Thus, Consortium Classicum recorded 6 notturni, Hob 25, 26, 32, 31, 29 & 30. The use of 2 small positive organs and clarinets in C (instead of Bb) make this disk an aural treat.

As an interesting display of synchronicity, our next contestant um, representative is the L'Oiseau-Lyre (now a London/Decca re-release) of The Music Party with Alan Hacker playing all 8 notturni in the London versions. They were recorded only 2 months later, in June/July 1974! Its liner notes are written by a fellow named Anthony Short, of whom I know nothing. May be the greatest Haydn scholar of all time, but maybe not.

Anyway, the notes don't shed a lot of light for our purposes, although I mention in passing that he states that Haydn's re-orchestration for London involved the addition of the Baß plus the replacement of the 2 Lira with a flute and oboe.

So now we jump ahead to 1996. In late October of that year, the string group L'Archibudelli led by cellist Anner Bylsma and the wind group Mozzafiato, led by clarinetist Charles Neidich hooked up with producer Wolf Erichson and recorded the 8 London notturni again. Since these are my favorite PI groups, I do profess a fondness for these recordings, but for our purposes the real coup here are the liner notes by god himself H.C. Robbins-Landon. Here are a few definitive highlights from those notes. I am going to paraphrase because I don't like to type quotations since mistakes are intolerable.

It appears that there were two separate commissions. The first, from 1788, involved composing through late '88, '89 and early '90. These consist of #1 (Hob 25), #2 (Hob 26), #3 (Hob 32), #4 (Hob 31), #5 (Hob 29) & #6 (Hob 30). The finale for #6 is completely lost.   The original autographs, either in Haydn's own hand or in the hand of known copyists from Esterháza exist for these works.

The second set was commissioned in 1790. Of the three, one of them is completely lost. The other are #7 (Hob 28) and #8 (Hob 27). The difference in these, as noted by Klöcker many years earlier, is that there is no indication that they ever had clarinet parts.

That is the best information I have found from any source about these works.

Now the synchronicity again. At approximately the same time as the above disk, only a month earlier in fact, Manfred Huss and his group, Haydn Sinfonietta Wien, got in the studio of Koch/Schwann and also recorded the London notturni. The liner notes in this set are written by Huss, who hasn't written much in English, but has a definitive biography of Haydn in German (apparently there aren't any translators available these days ).

One can see that the confusion problem lies on page 25, where in the last paragraph Huss is talking about re-orchestration for London. In the middle of the discussion about the notturni, he breaks off and says that the "violin part for the concerti probably remained unchanged too... We cannot determine how wide-ranging Haydn's revisions were because the parts of the original versions with lire are all lost..." etc. What happened here is that when they made this compilation, they more or less blended the 2 sets of notes (concerti and notturni) together. In the set for the concerti alone it is much more clear that he is talking about the concerti being lost.

The liner notes of the most recent disk containing any notturni, the endlessly entertaining "Delirium", are of little help throwing light on the chronology subject. However, they do contain 2 notturni, one a London version (Hob 27) and the other a Naples version (Hob 32). This may not be a disk to learn anything from, but it sure is a fine one to listen to!

So anyway, that's what I've found out. I'm not done looking though, and also would love to get some results from any of you who have looked into this issue too.

[kishnevi]

Thanks for clearing that up.  Possibly one of the few times that textual criticism was needed in discussing liner notes.

[Gurn Blanston]

Part 40

1791

Biographically, a whole book could be written on 1791-92. No doubt several have been.   It was the most famous period of his life, not just for the music but also because he was being seen by the public for the first time. And it was a public who already knew and adored his music long before he arrived. And owned his sheet music and played it at home on their own instruments. England was already, to some small degree (but more than other countries) a place with a middle class who could get educated, could take part in the social life of their capitol, and knew what was going on in the world because of newspapers and travel, both to and from. From the day he landed, Haydn was a hit.

His contract included, besides the symphonies we know so well, that he write an opera first thing. And he did do, a total re-crafting of the Orpheus story. It has some wonderful music, a typically cobbled-together libretto, and a story to explain why it was never performed in Haydn's lifetime. The cabals that we hear stories of in relation to Gluck, Mozart and many others, finally reached out to touch Haydn. The impresario Gallini was the real target, but Haydn's opera was collateral damage. Haydn himself got paid in full in advance, so his own pain was artistic. Anyway, you should like the opera, it's a nice listen.

Meanwhile, the spring concert series went ahead and was a huge success. Since Haydn was writing the opera, he fulfilled his commitment for new works by providing items he brought with him, like symphonies #90 & 92 (he lost track of the manuscript for #91 and couldn't get new parts until the Fall). And the concertos and notturnos for Lira which he had reorchestrated for London. And the Op 64 string quartets. As a little oddity, London was the only place known in which string quartets and other chamber works were played on stage at concerts just like symphonies or other orchestral works. So the Op 64 quartets, played by Salomon et al, were a huge favorite with the crowd. 

After the season was over (end of May, <>), the famous Dr. Burney tendered Haydn's name to Oxford for a Doctorate in Music. The trip to Oxford, with the likes of Burney, Salomon and Nancy Storace (Mozart's close friend and the first Susanna in "Figaro") among others, was a smashing success also, where Haydn was required to parade about town for 3 days in his cap and gown ("if my friends in Vienna could have seen me!") and also led 3 concerts on successive days. He presented a symphony as his thesis (generally believed to be Hob 92, thus the name, "The Oxford Symphony") and then the whole party trooped back to London with their new, and very pleased and proud Doctor in tow.

And that was just the first 6 months!

Here is the music of 1791;

Hob 01_095 Symphony in c
   Collegium Musicum 90 / Hickox
Hob 01_096 Symphony in D
   Academy of Ancient Music / Hogwood



Hob 02_27 Notturno in C for Wind &  Strings (London Version)
Hob 02_28 Notturno in C for Wind & Strings (London Version)
   L'Archibudelli / Mozzafiato
Hob 02_29 Notturno in C for Wind & Strings (London Version)
Hob 02_31 Notturno in F for Wind & Strings (London Version)
   Haydn Sinfonietta Wien / Manfred Huss
Hob 02_32 Notturno in G for Wind & Strings (London Version)
   The Music Party / Alan Hacker



Hob 07h_1 Concerto in C for 2 Lira Organizzate (London Version)
Hob 07h_2 Concerto in G for 2 Lira Organizzate (London Version)
Hob 07h_3 Concerto in G for 2 Lira Organizzate (London Version)
Hob 07h_4 Concerto in F for 2 Lira Organizzate (London Version)
Hob 07h_5 Concerto in F for 2 Lira Organizzate (London Version)
   Haydn Sinfonietta Wien / Huss
or

Hob 28_13 Opera L'Anima del Filosofo (o Orfeo ed Euridice)
   La Stagione / Schneider Schmiege / McFadden / Prégardien / Schwarz / Netherlands Chamber Chorus



Well, I'm afraid that you will have to bear with my tendency to give every orchestra the opportunity to play for my amusement. For these two symphonies, written in the Spring of 1791 and at least one of them performed by late May, are an amazing feat of composition, given that he was also composing the opera and leading the concerts at the same time!

I have chosen 2 very nice versions for consideration. Before his untimely demise a couple of years ago, Richard Hickox and his PI band, Collegium Musicum 90, had worked half through the London symphonies. I always hoped that someone would continue this series which got off to such a promising start. That not being the case, then at least we will start off with the wonderful c minor symphony. Never let it be said that Haydn didn't know how the wind blows. He knew that "Ancient Music" was still the king in England, and in fact, The King himself, George III, absolutely refused to hear any music other than Handel. So Haydn dug back into his own earlier bag of tricks and pulled out a splendid fugue for this work. I think you will agree that Hickox does it justice here if you decide to go this route. Then for Hob 96, I decided on Hogwood, whose AAM folks kick butt and take names in this rendition of Haydn's first D major symphony in a few years. D major is his most frequently used key by far (24 symphonies), and all of them are true showpieces. This disk with Hob 96 also has Hob 94 in a very nice performance, so worth casting about for.

Of course, the same things that plague me with symphonies do so with the notturni too. Of course, not all of these saw performance in 1791, but they were ready if called upon. And many were. Since there are 3 different performances available to me, I took a selection from each of them. If you haven't got any of them yet, then I can heartily recommend the L'Archibudelli/Mozzafiato recording. It is still pretty generally available at a reasonable cost, and of the bunch, I think the performances are the liveliest and most interesting ones. All of them are good though, this is music to enjoy.

Of the concertos for Lira, recordings are much thinner on the ground. In the original Naples versions, we had Ruf on Brilliant as the only representative. In the London version, in which the 2 Lira are replaced by a flute and an oboe, the only recording I have is the Huss. Fortunately, it is a fine one. Pictured here are the original Koch/Schwann version that I have had for several years, and which is still available here and there. And the BIS reissue, "Music for Prince Esterházy and The King of Naples". Clearly the BIS is the one to get, since you will also net the 6 Scherzandi and the Baryton Octets among other things. Highly recommended set.

Finally, the ill-fated opera of the year, L'Anima del Filosofo (o Orfeo ed Euridice) . There is some truly lovely music to be had here. This opera doesn't appear in the "Operas for Esterháza" boxes, of course. There are 2 versions available, of which I have chosen this one by La Stagione Frankfurt. The other is by Hogwood et al, featuring some fine singers led by Bartoli, who sang so nicely for us in Armida recently. I haven't heard this one yet, so comparison is out of the question for now. But I am pleased with the one I have shown you, and think you would be too.

So that's 1791. A busy year indeed, but one which scarcely begins to compare with what was ahead. If one were to queue up the music from this year, a most enjoyable listening session would await. Try it and see.

[SonicMan46]

Notturni for Lira organizzate..............................

.............There is plenty of information about how these things work, maybe Sonic Dave will provide us a link to one of his articles in the "Old Instruments and Reproductions" thread........................

Hi Gurn - thanks again for your two recent installments; for those interested regarding a short snip from the #39 contribution, please check out the thread mentioned HERE, beginning on pg. 6 (reply #112), and flowing over to the next page - on the latter are some liner notes from an LP that might provide some additional information!  Dave

[Gurn Blanston]

Hi Gurn - thanks again for your two recent installments; for those interested regarding a short snip from the #39 contribution, please check out the thread mentioned HERE, beginning on pg. 6 (reply #112), and flowing over to the next page - on the latter are some liner notes from an LP that might provide some additional information!  Dave

You're welcome, Dave. Thanks for taking the time.

Glad you got that note. I wanted to put some cross-info there but it would have taken me a week to find something that you could put your finger on in a moment, so that worked well. Guess I'm still surprised when people don't know all about it...

On the note of those notturni, last night I found (at Arkiv) and purchased this disk. It features the original 5 works that were certainly brought to London by Haydn. I am still not on solid ground that the other three are a sure thing in London performance anyway, although there is no doubt that Haydn rescored them, since the manuscripts still exist in his hand, and were found in his personal library. Anyway, I look forward to these:

[Gurn Blanston]

Part 41

1792

A new year, a new season of concerts, and plenty of controversy. Last year, the Salomon Concerts had blown away the competition (which there was plenty, but mainly the Professional Concerts (or 'The Professors' as Haydn called them)). Over winter they had tried to hire Haydn away, but he was loyal to his friend Salomon, and refused their generous offer. The result was that The Professors went off to Paris and brought back Ignaz Pleyel, Haydn's top student before Beethoven, and one of the most popular composers in Europe. How times change, eh?

Among the Haydnish works to come out of the ensuing competition, which both composers were well aware of, but which neither of them cared about since they attended each others concerts and ate dinner together frequently, were the famous "Surprise" symphony (Hob 94) and the Sinfonia concertante, which Haydn wrote specifically to counter one of Pleyel's strengths (the SC was a Parisian form, and Paris resident Pleyel excelled at it).

In this year, Haydn also met and engaged in business with music publisher William Napier. He produced 100 Scottish folk song settings, the first of <>400 he would set over the next 12 years. Hard to know where he found the time for this project; it may have been an easy thing for him to do, but 100 sings is 100 songs, that's a lot of writing!

In addition, some marches and dances, and the hugely popular "The Storm", a Pindaric Ode set to music, which Peter Pindar himself, and Haydn after him, called a madrigal (it wasn't).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Prince was getting rather pissy about Haydn's continued absence, and when the season ended along with the month of June, the trip home began. Probably Haydn had second thoughts about this when his arrival in Vienna was totally without notice or fanfare. Despite the fact that he was now the most renowned and successful composer in the world!

The music of 1792;
Hob 01_093 Symphony in D
   The Hanover Band / Goodman
Hob 01_094 Symphony in G
   Orchestra of the 18th Century / Brüggen
Hob 01_097 Symphony in C
   La Petite Bande / Sigiswald Kuijken
Hob 01_098 Symphony in Bb
   Musicians of the Louvre, Grenoble / Minkowski


Hob 01_105 Sinfonia Concertante in Bb for Violin, Cello, Oboe & Bassoon
   Concentus Musicus Wien / Harnoncourt –Hobarth / Coin / Reichenburg / Turkovich



Hob 08_03 March in Eb 'For the Prince of Wales'
   Haydn Sinfonietta Wien / Huss



Hob 09_12 Six German Dances
Hob 09_29 & Hob 09_24 Five Contredanses, a Quadrille & a Menuet
   Ensemble Bella Musica de Vienne / Dittrich



Hob 17a_deest / 09_11 12 Menuets for Keyboard (w/Trio)
Hob 17a_deest / 09_12  12 German Dances for Keyboard
   Bart van Oort


Hob 24a_08 Madrigal for Soprano & Chorus   "The Storm"
   Orchestra of the Golden Age / Haydn Society Chorus / Ruth Holton


100 Scottish Folksongs set for Voice, Keyboard & Continuo for the publisher William Napier
Hob 31a_001 Scottish Song  'Mary's Dream'
Hob 31a_002 Scottish Song  'John Anderson'
Hob 31a_003 Scottish Song  'I love my love in secret'
Hob 31a_004 Scottish Song  'Willie was a wanton wag'
Hob 31a_005 Scottish Song  'Saw ye me father'
Hob 31a_006 Scottish Song  'Todlen Hame'
.................................................................
.................................................................
Hob 31a_093 Scottish Song  'Shepherds, I have lost my love'
Hob 31a_094 Scottish Song  'Bonny Kate of Edinburgh'
Hob 31a_095 Scottish Song  'If e'er ye do well it's a wonder'
Hob 31a_096 Scottish Song  'Peggy in devotion'
Hob 31a_097 Scottish Song  'Colonel Gardner'
Hob 31a_098 Scottish Song  'To daunton me'
Hob 31a_099 Scottish Song  'Jenny was fair'
Hob 31a_100 Scottish Song  'Her absence will not alter me'
      Haydn Trio Eisenstadt / Lorna Anderson  / Jamie MacDougall*
* Full listing available upon request


As you can see, I am continuing my tradition of trying to expose all the available symphony disks, rather than just one or two cycles. I have made some effort to choose the better works in each though, it isn't just random picks.

The Hanover Band did about half of the London's, some early, some late. I like their Hob 93, it is nicely con fuego. Another D major following on the heels of last year's Hob 96, this one caught the attention of the patrons and held on, being performed a second time due to popular demand. I think you will like this version.

For Hob 94 we turn to Brüggen. His slightly more deliberate tempos are even more conducive to a surprise than some others might be. Overall I am not Brüggen's biggest fan, sorry to say that, but in this work he does credit to himself and to Haydn. And just to show that Haydn was not quite so self-deprecating as has been related when it came to his work, when Dies asked him about the anecdote of his saying that he wrote Andante surprise to 'wake up the little old ladies in the audience'. His reply was 'No ... my intention was to surprise the public with something new, and to debut in a brilliant manner, in order to prevent my rank from being usurped by Pleyel, my pupil ...'  And that he did, as this concert was the highlight of the season and in fact, the turning point of the whole 'contest'.

For Hob 97, we will turn to our old friend Kuijken again. This entire cycle is high on my list, and the 97 is as good as it gets. I think the Petite Bande has a bit lesser manning than some of the others, but you can hardly tell it in these works. They play for all its worth!

Finally we turn to Minkowski and the Musicians of the Louvre for Hob 98. This is a very new cycle, the newest of all at less than 2 years. Minkowski always gets the most out of his players, and their #98 here is very nicely presented.

For the Sinfonia concertante I had a tough choice between Kuijken and Harnoncourt, but finally the soloists tipped the balance for me. And perhaps a bit more get up and go too. Anyway, this is a fine representation of this work, I think you will like it.

When BIS released the "Early Divertimentos" box set by Huss, they also included an extra disk that had, for example, the Violin Concerto #1. But the pleasant surprise came from the fact that there were some fully orchestrated marches from the late years! And so we have here the March for the Prince of Wales, a nice bon-bon for those of us who love a good march. Now if someone would go one better and record all of them....

And so it is with dances too. The Ensemble Bella Musica Wien give us this nice disk on Harmonia Mundi. One of the very few dances disks around, but it does include a few "attributed to" dances while leaving out several genuine Haydn works. Well, we're glad to have anything in this arena, aren't we?  I am, anyway.

Now our lad Bart presents the piano reductions of these dance works, without which we wouldn't even know the existence of. They are quite charming, and Oort plays them at good tempo, as they actually were dances meant to dance to, unlike many of the orchestral minuets in symphonies. I always recommend this little box of non-sonata keyboard music whenever I get the chance, and here it is again! 

Talk about works that are difficult to get your hands on! Several years ago I found this 'madrigal' easily enough as a MP3 download on Amazon, and I bought it figuring that it would work until later when I could get it on disk. Well, now, later came and went a long time ago and I still don't have it on disk. The disk this particular version comes from, by the Orchestra of the Golden Age / Haydn Society Chorus is clearly a good one. I would like to hear what these folks have going with that Nelson Mass and the very first mass, the Missa Brevis in F. Well, one day I will round up the exorbitant AMP price and hear for myself. Meanwhile, you could do worse than this download, and if you run across a nice disk of this work, PM for my address....

Finally, we finish off the year with the very first big batch of folksongs that would bring the commissions for the later years. This group of 100 for Napier represents all sorts of folksongs, traditional and contemporary. Brilliant arranged the entire project where I doubt any other publisher would have done. I am pleased to have it, even though I have only listened to it twice through now. These early works Haydn wrote as mainly keyboard works with a figured bass, as opposed to the later ones which were through-composed keyboard trios. If you have the patience and enjoy folk music, which I do (despite that Scottish sounds like a Slavic tongue to me ), then you might enjoy these. If there is any demand, I will publish the entire list in chronological order for us. Otherwise, the abbreviated form will suffice to give the idea.

So there it is. 1792 was a triumphant year for Haydn, and clearly it set up the return in 1794 by its own success. The original plan is believed to have been Haydn in '91-92 followed by Mozart in '93-94. Fate overtook that though, and it was a considerably sadder Haydn who hit the road in early July, stopping in Bonn on the way to meet Beethoven for the first time, and worried the entire time about having lost his job. No need for worries though, Joe...

[Leo K.]

Excellant survey Gurn! It will take time for me to develop more comments, but I am absorbing it all in 

[Gurn Blanston]

Part 42

1793
There is considerable evidence that Haydn intended to return to London for the 1793 season; in the event he did not do so until 1794. On 24 July 1792 he had arrived in Vienna, occupying the same lodgings as in the autumn of 1790. His 18 months in the Habsburg capital were uneventful. Polzelli was in Italy.

In one of the most depressing moments, his good friend in Vienna, Marianne Genzinger, died on 20 January 1793. For all practical purposes, his two best friends, Mozart and Genzinger died only 13 months apart. Haydn must have been lonely when not absorbed in his work, a condition probably not improved by his wife's suggestion that they purchase a small house in the suburb of Gumpendorf (not occupied until 1797; it is now the Vienna Haydn Museum). To look at a different side of Haydn for a moment, it should be noted that he bought the house, but never allowed "The Infernal Beast" to live there. In all these years (recall that they wed in 1759) I can't say that I have read even a single anecdote that puts a positive spin on their relationship.

Beethoven arrived in November 1792, and their teacher/student relationship began immediately; included was a stay at Eisenstadt with Haydn in the summer of 1793. Haydn set him (like all his students) to a course of counterpoint based on Fux's model, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to correct the exercises systematically, and a frustrated Beethoven switched to Albrechtsberger. It is likely that what was more important to both composers were the comments Haydn made about free composition, as well as shop-talk about musical life and career-building. One can learn the basics of composition anywhere.

By early winter he had decided not to return to London in 1793. Instead, he had finally determined to undergo an operation for a long-painful polyp in his nose. There is considerable reason to suppose also that he feared traveling at this particularly dangerous stage in the First Napoleonic Wars. In any case it was to his advantage to take an additional year, so as to be able to have new compositions in his portfolio on his return. He began the string quartets Op 71/74 (a single opus of six) in late 1792 and composed them mainly in 1793, with a view to producing them in London. Later in 1793 Haydn worked on three symphonies for London, completing Hob 99 in Eb, the second and third movements of Hob 100 in G ('Military') and all but the first movement of Hob 101 in D ('Clock'). Another major composition from 1793 is the Variations in f for Keyboard Hob 17:6, one of his greatest solo keyboard works. Finally, a set of 3 Keyboard Trios (accompanied sonatas) dedicated to Princess Marie Esterházy, wife of Prince Anton.

By the end of the year, he was ready to hit the road for London yet again, once again well-armed with compositions guaranteed to make him the hit of the season for a third and fourth time!

The music of 1793;

Hob 01_099 Symphony in Eb
   London Classical Players / Norrington
Hob 01_100 Symphony in G
   Musicians of the Louvre, Grenoble / Minkowski
Hob 01_101 Symphony in D
   Collegium Musicum 90 / Hickox


Hob 03_69 Quartet in Bb for Strings Op 71 #1   
Hob 03_70 Quartet in D for Strings Op 71 #2   
Hob 03_71 Quartet in Eb for Strings Op 71 #3   
Hob 03_72 Quartet in C for Strings Op 74 #1   
Hob 03_73 Quartet in F for Strings Op 74 #2   
Hob 03_74 Quartet in g for Strings Op 74 #3
   Quatuor Festetics


Hob 15_18 Trio in A  for Piano & Strings
Hob 15_19 Trio in g  for Piano & Strings
Hob 15_20 Trio in Bb  for Piano & Strings
   Trio 1790


Hob 17_06 Variations in f for Keyboard
   Paul Badura-Skoda


Hob 19_17 – 32  16 Pieces for Flötenuhr
   Hans-Ola Ericsson


Another good year for symphonies. Two of these three are among his most famous and distinctive. Despite the fact that the most famous movements were either lifted entire from earlier works (the Andante from Op 100 being the Romance from Lira Concerto #3 for example) or else had a firm model that he worked out years before (like the Andante of Hob 101 with its insistent upbeat 'Clock" rhythms derived from Rondo Finale of Symphony Hob 68), it was in their final form that they gained such success. For Symphony Hob 99, we turn here to the London Classical Players led by Norrington, who do a bang-up job in this one. These three disks (or Virgin box set with all on two disks) are quite interesting and I'm pleased to have happened across them. They are a bargain at twice the price.     For my favorite London symphony, Hob 100, we turn again to Marc Minkowski, whose Musicians of the Louvre play this stirring work with the sort of élan that made it a fan favorite in London, I'm sure. Finally, we visit once more with Hickox & Co. for their rendition of Hob 101, the famous 'Clock'. These three symphonies were the hit of the 1794 season, and Haydn mentions that when he arrived in London for his second visit, he felt that the welcome was rather more tepid than the first time out. However, by midway through the concert series, the love affair he had with the audiences had inflamed with a new passion. Hopefully you will feel some vestige of that when listening to these again.

The quartets that Haydn brought with him this time were more tailored to performance before an audience than the previous (Op 64) were. Most have a slow introduction as an 'attention getter' and move right into a variety of crowd pleasing forms that captured his audience. He had learned something from his first trip. That makes this Opus stand out from the others in its own way, as each opus is indeed unique. Our choices are limited here (if we are PIons, at least) to either the Salomon's else the Festetics. As I have only been able to buy one of the three Salomon disks over the years, I went with the Festetics, and have no regrets about it either. Their playing is up to the music in all cases.

True to my promise to stay with one group for one genre, I am delighted to continue my traversal of the Keyboard Trios with Trio 1790. There are several nice versions out there though if you haven't committed to this group. The Van Sweiten's are very nice in these, as are my other favorite, the, um, well, I call them the Trio Mosaiques, but they are Cohen, Hobarth & Coin on HM. Nice fallback there! 

I worked hard picking out the "Piccolo Divertimento", Variations in f for Fortepiano. Finalizing on Badura-Skoda was not a foregone conclusion because there are so many great versions available. But the wonderful 1790 Schantz fortepiano that he plays here sealed the deal for me. If it was good enough for Haydn, it's more than good enough for me!

Finally, we come to an entirely new category of works which I had misfiled and thus overlooked when we got to Part 1 back in 1789.   These are the works that Haydn wrote for Flötenuhr, or Flute Clock. This is a mechanical organ that could be thought of as a music box type of instrument. The Prince was, of course, enamored of them and had many, at least six of which were built by his personal mechanical clockwork/organ builder and contain music by Haydn. There are 32 known works among the various clocks. Some appear on more than one clock. It is believed that of the 32, 16 were composed around 1789, and 16 around 1793. Since that is everyone's best guess, I went with that. There is a disk in the world somewhere that actually uses a Flötenuhr to play these works;


I can't tell you how much I would love to have this disk, possibly one of my European friends has an extra copy he would be interested in selling... PM me! 

Anyway, the usual custom is to play these on an organ, which of course can't begin to match the speed and tempo that the mechanical apparatus can do. This was part of their charm, after all, that they played things at an inhuman rate. But Hans-Ola Ericsson is a fine player and of the two or three disks that I tried out, this was the keeper for me (until the real deal comes along).

So there you have it, 1793. Haydn moved from strength to strength, this music was from a master at the absolute peak of his powers, and inspired by his situation. Enjoy!

[DavidW]

Beethoven arrived in November 1792, and their teacher/student relationship began immediately; included was a stay at Eisenstadt with Haydn in the summer of 1793. Haydn set him (like all his students) to a course of counterpoint based on Fux's model, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to correct the exercises systematically, and a frustrated Beethoven switched to Albrechtsberger. It is likely that what was more important to both composers were the comments Haydn made about free composition, as well as shop-talk about musical life and career-building. One can learn the basics of composition anywhere.

I always assumed that the tension between Beethoven and Haydn was attributed to Beethoven being a jackass... but lo and beyond he had legitimate cause to be pissed.  Recalling grad school, the casual shop talk profs are hard to learn from, that's why I went for a nose to the grind stone adviser.  The former doesn't work well with most students.  Did Beethoven say anything about the value of his time with Haydn later besides the didn't want to teach me stuff?