Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

disc 12:  nos. 30 in C, Alleluja, 31 in D, Hornsignal, and 34 in D

Love this stuff!

That's a good one! I think 34 is underrated, it is unique in its way.

[Madiel]

I'm not quite keeping one-a-day pace. The last one I listened to was Symphony No.17 which is on disc 5.

[Karl Henning]

That's a good one! I think 34 is underrated, it is unique in its way.

It stands out from a typographic standpoint, at the very least:  In English, it's in D Major, but in Italian, in d minor 

[Karl Henning]

That's a good one! I think 34 is underrated, it is unique in its way.

The finale is possibly the most purely cheerful jig I've ever heard in classical music.

I'm not quite keeping one-a-day pace. The last one I listened to was Symphony No.17 which is on disc 5.

We each work at our own pace, and why not?

[Gurn Blanston]

It stands out from a typographic standpoint, at the very least:  In English, it's in D Major, but in Italian, in d minor 

It's in both, the first and second are in minor, the finale doesn't even get within stone throwing distance of minor, it is a very solid D major. It has been speculated that he added a mismatched finale that he had available to a different opening, but to me, that is the 19th century thinking out loud. Look at works like #49, also the first movements in minor , the finale in major. The oddity here is that major and minor are the same tonic, something which he only did one other time in a symphony, and much later on (one of the 80's, IIRC).

[Karl Henning]

#59 (Fire) is terrific, especially in the Hogwood box.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Gurn -

in what Haydn works (the all-too obvious 33/2 apart), would you say does Haydn's brand of wit and humor show best? When is he messing with us most coyly?

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn -

in what Haydn works (the all-too obvious 33/2 apart), would you say does Haydn's brand of wit and humor show best? When is he messing with us most coyly?

Gosh, Jens, that's a big question. Symphonies 90 & 94 are the bigger ones to me, but there are many which I don't know enough about theory to even get or recognize. 93's 'Great Bassoon Fart' is obvious, but even more so if you recognize that the entire movement is part of the joke, the fart is just the punchline. His contemporaries considered the last movement of 'Farewell' to be a joke at the Prince's expense, but after the 18th century, I bet no one gets it that way any more.

To me, anyone who isn't an accomplished musician, or at least very well versed in theory, probably won't get most of them. He used to do things like write the entire bass line on one staff and change the clef on the fly, so to speak, just to mess with the players. Now that's funny, but what listener would ever know about it? That was a symphony in the high 40's or low 50's, I'll look it up tonight and post it. EDIT: It is the minuet of Symphony #51

Gretchen Wheelock wrote a whole book about it called, IIRC, Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art where she discusses a great many of these. Lots of false recapitulations and such, faux endings, wrong keys... it's a good book, I've read it twice and still have a ways to go before getting things figured out.

Anyone else have any ideas on this topic? I find it very interesting.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Gosh, Jens, that's a big question. Symphonies 90 & 94 are the bigger ones to me, but there are many which I don't know enough about theory to even get or recognize. 93's 'Great Bassoon Fart' is obvious, but even more so if you recognize that the entire movement is part of the joke, the fart is just the punchline. His contemporaries considered the last movement of 'Farewell' to be a joke at the Prince's expense, but after the 18th century, I bet no one gets it that way any more.

To me, anyone who isn't an accomplished musician, or at least very well versed in theory, probably won't get most of them. He used to do things like write the entire bass line on one staff and change the clef on the fly, so to speak, just to mess with the players. Now that's funny, but what listener would ever know about it? That was a symphony in the high 40's or low 50's, I'll look it up tonight and post it. EDIT: It is the minuet of Symphony #51

Gretchen Wheelock wrote a whole book about it called, IIRC, Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art where she discusses a great many of these. Lots of false recapitulations and such, faux endings, wrong keys... it's a good book, I've read it twice and still have a ways to go before getting things figured out.

Anyone else have any ideas on this topic? I find it very interesting.

Thanks so much for this first answer. I suppose that op.33/2 is more 'humor' or 'wit' than either Surprise and definitely op. 93 (man, I LOVED that one as a kid; but it's a musical whoopie-cushion and irreverent, not so much wit, methinks). 'Farewell' probably wasn't funny at the time, nor meant to be, but risky business that -- according to lore -- didn't backfire, and only just, because the people in charge had enough of a sense of humor. My harpsichordist uncle played it once, as a student (playing the bassoon, I reckon; probably not the oboe -- his usual secondary instrument was the cor anglais), in an amphitheater. In lieu of proper seats, they were seated, in pairs, on planks that were placed on crates. The instrumentalists left, in pairs, and so far, so good, but his crate-mate stopped playing well before him and got up, and my uncle found himself on his bum, as the plank, now no longer held down on the other side of the crate, flung up there and down underneath him.

The Sy.51 story is cute; Wheelock's book sadly out of print (though the library may have it here) ... and then again, I've heard it said about that book that it's strange how a book so incredibly humorless and with such a graceless writing style should have taken the gracefully funny Haydn as its subject. Do you find that bearing out?

[Jo498]

There are lots of "little" things. E.g. not a joke but the allusion to the farewell symphony's main theme in the first movemet of "la Reine" was supposedly done because the #45 had been so popular in Paris. Then there are things that are funny because of sound/register/changes, e.g. the "ticking" in the "clock" movement" alternating between bassoon and flute (or violin in high register) or being pounded out by the whole orchestra. I also find the beginning of the late C major piano sonata funny, without being able to explain why. It's like a comical figure (Falstaff or so) entering a stage in full swagger.

[Gurn Blanston]

Thanks so much for this first answer. I suppose that op.33/2 is more 'humor' or 'wit' than either Surprise and definitely op. 93 (man, I LOVED that one as a kid; but it's a musical whoopie-cushion and irreverent, not so much wit, methinks). 'Farewell' probably wasn't funny at the time, nor meant to be, but risky business that -- according to lore -- didn't backfire, and only just, because the people in charge had enough of a sense of humor. My harpsichordist uncle played it once, as a student (playing the bassoon, I reckon; probably not the oboe -- his usual secondary instrument was the cor anglais), in an amphitheater. In lieu of proper seats, they were seated, in pairs, on planks that were placed on crates. The instrumentalists left, in pairs, and so far, so good, but his crate-mate stopped playing well before him and got up, and my uncle found himself on his bum, as the plank, now no longer held down on the other side of the crate, flung up there and down underneath him.

The Sy.51 story is cute; Wheelock's book sadly out of print (though the library may have it here) ... and then again, I've heard it said about that book that it's strange how a book so incredibly humorless and with such a graceless writing style should have taken the gracefully funny Haydn as its subject. Do you find that bearing out?

This is my own opinion, based on several years of reading little else. I am NOT humorless, despite all that.   There are definitely 2 sides to Haydn, the humorist. One of them is, as you say, gracefully funny and with a sense of wit which is highly polished and often subtle. But the flip side of the coin is the man who, with his little buddy Mozart, could laugh at nearly any level of humor, whether it was subtle or not. Frankly, I see Haydn choking to avoid laughing during the great bassoon fart joke. He is said by contemporaries to have laughed out loud whenever one of his musical jokes was played, so clearly he was into the joking aspect in a big way. His early projects writing the stage music for Hanswurst musicals (and later the marionette opera Die Feuersbrunst) could not have fallen into better hands, because like all Viennese of the time, including his Prince, he loved that stuff, and believe me, it could be coarse!

Well, Wheelock is an academic, writing for academics. I have a big bunch of books which fall into that category. Not a single one of them is funny, even those which write about humor. Wheelock even finds it necessary to define 'funny', which turns out to be a pretty good idea since the 18th century idea of funny didn't involve Steve Martin even a little bit. But yes, it is a hard read. Highly informative though, and so worth wading through if you want nothing but facts and perspective. I didn't read it for pleasure, but I got pleasure from reading it, if that makes sense. 

[Gurn Blanston]

This passage, dealing with Haydn's symphonies ending up in Russia via Paris, is a contemporary description of Symphony #45 and the stories that were going around about it at the time. Note the part about the audience and orchestra reaction...

    I have the honor to send you the twelve most beautiful symphonies for full orchestra that I could find. Among the others by Haydn, there is one, No. 16 (Siebert's number), that is the most amusing thing that can be imaged. The last movement of this symphony begins normally with the whole orchestra, but it does not end the same way, for one sees all the musicians leave one after another, until the first violin finds himself all alone to finish the symphony. The audience is astonished to see just one person in the orchestra. This joke made the audience laugh heartily when we played it at the Concert Spirituel. Here is the origin of this symphony, for Monsieur Le Comte really needs to know it:

    Haydn was music director of Prince Stérazie [sic – (Esterházy)], and one day this prince told him that he had become tired of music and that consequently he wanted to dismiss all the musicians, keeping only Haydn. Thus the prince charged him with announcing to his colleagues the sad news. As a man of genius, Haydn wanted to do this with a dramatic act. So he conceived of this symphony, to be performed at the orchestra's last concert, as the means by which the musicians would be dismissed. The prince, surprised to see all the musicians leave until only the first violin remained at the end of the symphony, asked what it meant. Haydn responded: "Did you not order me to dismiss all the players? Well, they obeyed your orders." This symphonic joke pleased the prince so much that he kept his orchestra.

    Variations of this same story were published in the Mercure de France in 1784, when the symphony was originally performed. Being a cellist who had already vacated the stage by then, Hivart may not have known it was actually 2 violins left at the end.

I got this story from a musicologist, John Rice, and I asked him about it. He didn't say a whole lot, just led me to believe that it would have been very typical of the Parisians, Viennese or Londoners to find that part to be a big joke at the Prince's expense, one which he got and shared in. If my memory serves, it was not until Griesinger's description came out, around 1810, that there came an element of pathos to it, feeling sorry for the poor musicians etc. I think that the fact that Haydn meant it as a joke, and the Prince took it as one, is the reason that he capitulated and let everyone go home for the season.

[Karl Henning]

Probably said this before, but the Adagio of the Lamentatione is exquisite.

[Gurn Blanston]

Probably said this before, but the Adagio of the Lamentatione is exquisite.

Even if you did, it bears repeating. Whatever else can (and is) said about Haydn's music, one common thread is that he wrote the most beautiful slow movements of any composer I know. Someone should highlight those on record. It could be called "Adagio" or something...  

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[kishnevi]

Finished a traversal of this tonight
[asin]B0000041LO[/asin]
As I said in the WAYLT thread, the only flaw is not a flaw: it's not PI.
A great cycle, and I think Papa would approve of it.

[Gurn Blanston]

Finished a traversal of this tonight
[asin]B0000041LO[/asin]
As I said in the WAYLT thread, the only flaw is not a flaw: it's not PI.
A great cycle, and I think Papa would approve of it.

Yes, that was my first piano trio experience and it sold me on Haydn's trios. Well, I have the BAT in every important piano trio they ever recorded, and everything they touched was golden. I agree with your estimation of the 'flaw': for the concert hall where it is played today, it is certainly not a flaw.

[Brian]

CC on a conversation from New Releases:

6, 7, 8 were recorded in March 2014, Fey conducting (before his accident). 35, 46, 51 were recorded in June 2016, no conductor listed, but Benjamin Spillner credited as Concertmeister. A local boy, Timo Jouko Herrmann, is conducting the next scheduled concert, one of only two on the calendar this year.

Sarge

[Parsifal]

CC on a conversation from New Releases:

A sad state of affairs, and very frustrating that it is impossible to get any information on Fey's condition. I guess at this point all hope that he will return is lost.

[Parsifal]

Today, listened to Opus 76 No 1 (String Quartet in G) twice.

[asin]B001QBXFTA[/asin]

[asin]B00NB8L0E8[/asin]

I enjoyed both. The outer movements were particularly engaging. Although I am usually an enthusiast for period instrument performance, the difference in timbre is not as noticeable to me for a string quartet as when a keyboard or wind instruments are involved. As expected, the Aeolian was a bit more graceful, the Festetics a bit more spirited. One nice thing about the Festetics set is that the first and second violins are seated left and right. The separation makes it possible to hear them distinctly, compared with the conventional seating arrangement where first and second violins are both seated on the listeners left. Sadly, the Festetics set, which I got only a year or so ago, is now nla, apparently.

I think I will go through the Op 76 quartets using this dual method.