Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

I warmly appreciate your extensive researches, generally, and your year-by-year thumbnail chronology, in particular, O Gurn. The following thought certainly gives me pause:

Dangerous visions . . . .

Taking their cue from Harry's suppliers, Amazon have put a special team in place just to handle my Marketplace Haydn orders....   

[Bogey]

Taking their cue from Harry's suppliers, Amazon have put a special team in place just to handle my Marketplace Haydn orders....   

[Karl Henning]

Hoy, Bill!

[Karl Henning]

I really make an effort to only rec stuff you can actually buy. One of my pet peeves over the years stems from the folks here who always rec stuff that you can only get from 1 South Sea island in leap year, and for just $1000/disk. What good does that do me? 

Testify, brother!

[Gurn Blanston]

Testify, brother!

Just sayin'. I can't be the only who gets irked...   But seriously, I have a bunch of Haydn disks that I never rec just for that reason. What's the point? Of course, if you enjoy the hunt, and don't get depressed after the kill....

[Karl Henning]

Separately . . . .

Sure, I own many discs more of Haydn than of Brian; but I feel Sarge's pain . . . .

[Leon]

Just sayin'. I can't be the only who gets irked...   But seriously, I have a bunch of Haydn disks that I never rec just for that reason. What's the point? Of course, if you enjoy the hunt, and don't get depressed after the kill....

For me, I appreciate at least knowing about excellent recordings even if they are OOP or very hard to find.  I try to keep this kind of information in the back of my brain and occasionally look to see if the situation has improved for acquiring one of them.

But I understand your point.

[Geo Dude]

Reposted from the Purchases Today thread because I'm sure the Haydnistos in this thread will appreciate the recordings.  And the mind control device.

My orders lately have been pretty heavy on Haydn as a result of the Gurnatron5500's mind control device (patent pending), but I couldn't resist the allure of a $13 + shipping period Don Giovanni.  As a result, we have the last order of the year:

[Gurn Blanston]

Reposted from the Purchases Today thread because I'm sure the Haydnistos in this thread will appreciate the recordings.  And the mind control device.

Man, that's a nice bunch of disks there, Geo!  Op 50 is by far my favorite SQ op, and (like with all the other cycles it seems) the Festetics one is about the hardest to find. This will catch you up right from the first pulsing throb of the cello!

[Karl Henning]

Like I told Sarge, I had no listenable set of any Haydn symphonies up until now, so I decided to bite the bullet and spend the $64 on that set [Kuijken, London Symphonies].  The good news is, now that I've purchased it, the budget release will surely be expedited!

Thanks for taking one for the team!

[Geo Dude]

Man, that's a nice bunch of disks there, Geo!

I certainly hope so!

Op 50 is by far my favorite SQ op, and (like with all the other cycles it seems) the Festetics one is about the hardest to find.

It is difficult to find, but there's a trick I use (other than searching BRO) to find rare stuff for low prices:  Do an artist search and you'll often find that there are two or three different listings for the same item and some poor sellers list their stuff on the version hidden two or three pages deep in Amazon's listings.

[chasmaniac]

but if you are a boring person with absolutely no musical asthetic...

Comedy gold! 

[Karl Henning]

For entertainment purposes only . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Oh, that should tie up a certain hammer-wielder in knots! (And have us in stitches.)

[Geo Dude]

You ought to hear my '5 Minutes on Mahler' bit.

Five minutes?  I believe you mean five hours!

At least, that's how long it feels when trying to sit through one of the symphonies...

[Gurn Blanston]

Part 25

1776

From 1776 the daily programme included opera and theatre performances: between 1780 and 1790 Haydn directed over 1000 opera performances. Out of a total of 78 performed operas until 1784, Haydn wrote 15. The extensive Opera season occupied Haydn fully and reduced his creativity in nearly all other genres.
Haydn Festival Eisenstadt Website

Hard to phrase that more creatively or persuasively. Beyond scanning the list of works. The natural conclusion drawn from that over the years is that 'Haydn hit a creative dry spell'. But as we discussed a couple of years ago, the job of full time opera impresario didn't leave a whole lot of room for composition outside of it.

We are down to the next-last installment of baryton works. In another year they will disappear as though never having existed at all. Of course, pirated adaptations for other instruments were dominating the home sheet music market all over Europe at the time, and would continue to appear regularly for the next 150 years as 'string trios'. But the baryton itself would become virtually extinct outside of museums in just a few short years.

I short reminder that the marionette operas here are not Italian operas at all, they are mainly German singspieln so in Die Feuersbrunst of this year, we meet a character who was beloved of Viennese audiences for decades, and conversely despised by the ruling class whom he pilloried with satire. That would be Hanswurst. You should Google up or Wiki up a little history of this character. He epitomizes the Viennese sense of humor. It is truly a pity that of the <>10 marionette operas/singspiels that Haydn wrote, only the earlier discussed Philemon & Baucis and this one survived the ravages of the 1779 tragedy.

The music of 1776;

Hob 01_061 Symphony in D
   Academy of Ancient Music / Hogwood


Hob 11_119 Trio in G for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_120 Trio in D for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_121 Trio in A for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5   
Hob 11_122 Trio in A for Baryton, Viola & Cello Book 5
   Esterhazy Ensemble


Hob 29b_A Comic opera "Die Feuersbrunst"
   Capella Augustina \ A. Spering  Katzameier - Karasiak - Gericke – Bothmer


Whoa! One symphony in 1776? Well, maybe, maybe not. It is the only manuscript with that date that survived the 1779 fire, so whatever the actual count, one is what we have. It doesn't have the depth of the works of the early 1770's, but provides a high level of entertainment anyway. The second movement has been described as an evocation of the pastoral scene of an Italian opera, and indeed that argument could be made rather easily if one is into word picture to go with the music. The rondo finale is kind of interesting, the a section is in the major mode throughout, while the b and c are in the minor. He used this effect again (and better) in some of the London symphonies, but discovered its interest here in Esterháza. Hogwood's account is the only PI one that I have ever found, the cherry pickers all passed this one by. Their loss.

A few more baryton trios, almost down to the end now. No diminishment of creativity though, these works are entertaining from first to last.

And finally, a singspiel. The Burning House is actually an interesting story, likely easily related to by the man whose houses in Eisenstadt had burned down twice already. Apparently fire was a fact of life in those days. In any case, this is quite a nice little production. The Capella Augustina / Spering are as good as they are elsewhere, which is to say very good indeed. Singspiel with human characters was a relatively new phenomenon at this time, at least according to a letter from Mozart to his father from Munich where he saw one (music by George Benda, IIRC) and enthusiastically reported home. That planted seed led to The Abduction from the Seraglio in 1781-2. But in marionette opera, this was apparently nothing new, since there are no raised eyebrows or comments made anywhere about this being something new and unique (I looked!). Of course, marionette theater was huge in Italy and probably Europe in general for a long time by then, so extending that to opera, especially German opera, seems like a natural thing if your puppeteers are virtuoso.

As always, I invite discussion, feedback, questions, answers, expansion etc.

[Gurn Blanston]

Five minutes?  I believe you mean five hours!

At least, that's how long it feels when trying to sit through one of the symphonies...

No, no, I wasn't going to do an entire movement, just a phrase or two...

[Karl Henning]

. . . The natural conclusion drawn from that over the years is that 'Haydn hit a creative dry spell'. But as we discussed a couple of years ago, the job of full time opera impresario didn't leave a whole lot of room for composition outside of it.

Exactly, a question entirely different to 'a dry spell.'

We are down to the next-last installment of baryton works.

Don't I remember a Far Side cartoon, 'The Last Day of Baryton Performance'? ; )

[Gurn Blanston]

Exactly, a question entirely different to 'a dry spell.'

Don't I remember a Far Side cartoon, 'The Last Day of Baryton Performance'? ; )

I don't, but I'm sure gonna look for it! As a concept, it's a peach.

[Bogey]

I want Haydn to stay put in his pecking order and stay away from the level of "overly known" to the masses.  It's always nice to drop Papa's name when a friend inquires of which composer to start with when venturing into classical music.  The answer is something like this:


"Well, you cannot go wrong with Mozart or Beethoven, but you may want to given Haydn a try.  Heard of 'em?"

And, just for fun, here are the number of available recordings from Arkiv Music of different composers.  I only chose the ones with 2,000 or more, but included Vivaldi because he was close.  Interesting who is ahead of Haydn considering how prolific he was with composition.:

Mozart (7,249)
Bach (6,914)
Beethoven (5,582)
Schubert  (3,855)
Verdi (3,491)
Tchaikovsky  (3,333)
Handel  (2,945)
Schumann (2,832)
Mendelssohn  (2,665)   
Debussy (2,393)
Wagner (2,363)
Haydn (2,335)
Puccini  (2,246)   
Vivaldi (1,971)