Haydn's Haus

[Sergeant Rock]

Brilliant! Play it again!

It's playing right now, actually. Mrs. Rock should be home in about 20 minutes. I may repeat it...or try the Paukenmesse to see if she responds positively to that one too.

How is that even possible?

She claims Haydn is too happy    It's hard to argue with that opinion--although, of course, Haydn has his darker moments too. Her favorite music tends to be dark and tragic, or somber, or romantically passionate: the Herrmann Symphony,Tchaikovsky Manfred, Dvorak 7, Brahms 4 and the Requiem, Prokofiev 7 and R & J, Puccini Turandot, Verdi Macbeth and the Requiem, Sibelius 1 & 3 & Kullervo, Weber Freischutz (especially the Wolf Glen scene), Beethoven 7. She likes the Medieval and Baroque eras. She thinks Bach is the greatest composer. Although she's not attuned to the atonal, she likes much of the 20th century's music.

I've been trying for 35 years to make her understand the Classical language but so far without much success. I played a mini-Haydn marathon recently, concentrating on the Sturm und Drang symphonies but even those works, which logically should have appealed to her sense of dark drama, failed to move her. She thanked me profusely after I switched to another composer 

I have to say, though, she's a trooper: she just grits her teeth and bears it whenever I play Haydn. She doesn't complain...until its over 

Sarge

[Opus106]

A truly commendable effort, Sarge.

[Karl Henning]

The sound samples suggested a light-tread-MI recording, so I've pulled the trigger on the Naxos issue of Die Jahreszeiten. And this revisitation to the Masses is paying off, in a musico-spiritual way . . . .

[Karl Henning]

She claims Haydn is too happy 

Got to commend her honesty! I don't think I ever considered the matter with such clarity . . . but as we've found with discussion of the Grabsky In Search of ... films, the drama of Mozart and Beethoven is an easier sell.

[Sergeant Rock]

....the drama of Mozart and Beethoven is an easier sell.

Indeed. And Mrs. Rock is the poster child for that.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

Telling them, When they did his portraits, he had them paint out the nose polyp just doesn't have the same cachet . . . .

[mszczuj]

She claims Haydn is too happy    It's hard to argue with that opinion

You can tell that it (I mean his music) is so happy for the sake of being complicated. It is just impossible to being so complicated without being happy.

[Karl Henning]

Just a wee dacha for a change of scenery from the Haus . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Well, no surprise, really:  Having viewed In Search of "Papa" has primed me for keen appreciation of the Masses. No idea why they didn't 'click' for me earlier . . . but life's like that, isn't it?

[Karl Henning]

By coincidence most curious, I was listening to the d minor quartet from Op.76 on the way in to the MFA, to watch In Search of Haydn.

The movie is so good, I snagged a DVD of In Search of Haydn. I've not yet [re-]watched it, though I am keen to (busy week, natch).  One bit which was nice to watch was a performance of the ending of the Farewell Symphony, with the players gradually leaving the stage.  The DVD's extras are complete movements from which bits in the finally-edited film were derived . . . I'm hoping this symphony movement is among those.

[Gurn Blanston]

The movie is so good, I snagged a DVD of In Search of Haydn. I've not yet [re-]watched it, though I am keen to (busy week, natch).  One bit which was nice to watch was a performance of the ending of the Farewell Symphony, with the players gradually leaving the stage.  The DVD's extras are complete movements from which bits in the finally-edited film were derived . . . I'm hoping this symphony movement is among those.

I can hardly wait to see that, Karl. Even without the dramatic tension this has promise!   You know, Haydn actually had an abundance of the traits which movie-makers and critics should love; he was damn near a rake, and his financial dealings with publishers would have made Beethoven blush. Funny, Mozart had an unearned reputation as the first of those things, and Beethoven for the second, yet Haydn actually did both in spades and gets no credit for it.

[Karl Henning]

I can hardly wait to see that, Karl. Even without the dramatic tension this has promise!   You know, Haydn actually had an abundance of the traits which movie-makers and critics should love; he was damn near a rake, and his financial dealings with publishers would have made Beethoven blush. Funny, Mozart had an unearned reputation as the first of those things . . . .

I wasn't there, and couldn't say for certain, of course; but meseems that it is possible, simply, that Mozart was completely faithful to Constanze.  I cannot figure why there are so many people who are eager to disbelieve that . . . .

Grabsky references some juicy bits of Haydn's correspondence, BTW.

[Gurn Blanston]

I wasn't there, and couldn't say for certain, of course; but meseems that it is possible, simply, that Mozart was completely faithful to Constanze.  I cannot figure why there are so many people who are eager to disbelieve that . . . .

Grabsky references some juicy bits of Haydn's correspondence, BTW.

I have never seen even 1 bit of documentary evidence that Mozart was anything but a faithful husband. I think those rumors started early times, when the Romantic Generation felt that Constanze was undeserving of a genius husband and that for that reason, he surely couldn't have possibly really loved her or been happy married to her, so he must have played around. Yet every available document oozes his complete happiness being married, and to her.

Well, there are certainly some juicy bits to reference.

[Karl Henning]

I have never seen even 1 bit of documentary evidence that Mozart was anything but a faithful husband. I think those rumors started early times, when the Romantic Generation felt that Constanze was undeserving of a genius husband and that for that reason, he surely couldn't have possibly really loved her or been happy married to her, so he must have played around.

It was only a later generation which was to be shocked at the revelation that it was really Constanze who wrote all that music . . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

It was only a later generation which was to be shocked at the revelation that it was really Constanze who wrote all that music . . . .

Newman!

But really, the implication that only a genius wife would have been suitable for him is ludicrous! Can you imagine what life would have been like?   Actually, the more that I have read about the philosophy of the Romantics, the more repelled I am by it.

[Karl Henning]

Well, I have a wife of artistic genius, so I don't need to imagine it : )  I rather like it; but Mozart mightn't have . . . maybe Haydn would not have . . . .

[chasmaniac]

Newman!

But really, the implication that only a genius wife would have been suitable for him is ludicrous! Can you imagine what life would have been like?   Actually, the more that I have read about the philosophy of the Romantics, the more repelled I am by it.

Never wandered lonely as a cloud? or swum the Hellespont? 

[Opus106]

[Haydn] was damn near a rake...

Somehow I never got that impression from you series, Gurn. Did you not emphasise the quality much or was it me who didn't read between the lines?

[Gurn Blanston]

Never wandered lonely as a cloud? or swum the Hellespont? 

No. Freakin' loonies.

[Gurn Blanston]

Somehow I never got that impression from you series, Gurn. Did you not emphasise the quality much or was it me who didn't read between the lines?

No, I didn't really emphasize it at all. In some cases I would suspect that it is much like Mozart's situation; intimations without proof. But OTTOMH, Polzelli & Schröter for sure, and Genziger possibly, and some of the singers at Esterháza probably; he told Dies that 'for some reason, women have always loved me, I don't understand why...'. Since he got married in 1759 (IIRC), this was all extramarital. I just didn't want to sidetrack the story. I also didn't talk much about how he screwed the publishers, since I felt like it was ample payback for how they screwed him. Music publishing was a dirty and devious business back in those days.