Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

They use a software program to price, and sometimes it just goes berserk. I have seen even worse than this, although this is a good example. You have to believe that somewhere, sometime, these sellers will notice that they aren't selling anything... FWIW, I have bought from Bull Moose before at very reasonable prices. I guess that's the tip-off that they aren't like Woody's or Any_Book....  



PS - I'd love to have that disk, but maybe for $13.98...

[Uncle Connie]

They use a software program to price, and sometimes it just goes berserk. I have seen even worse than this, although this is a good example. You have to believe that somewhere, sometime, these sellers will notice that they aren't selling anything... FWIW, I have bought from Bull Moose before at very reasonable prices. I guess that's the tip-off that they aren't like Woody's or Any_Book....  



PS - I'd love to have that disk, but maybe for $13.98...

Well, yes, that would make sense - come to think on it, I've bought from Bull Moose before as well, once in fact in person when we did the Fall Foliage tour....   

So I took a chance and did some investigating, and ultimately I've ordered the disc for a total of $11.46.  I was going to message them on Amazon and ask if they'd change the price, and then I had the bright idea to see if they had a web site and sold direct.  They do.  This disc was listed at $8.97 plus $2.49 shipping.  Voila!

(Also found two used copies for sale on Amazon.de.  Price about $20 each, plus shipping.  A bit more than this was worth to me, but better than $6500.  No copies offered in U.K., but one in Canada, price CD$ 55.  Way too much.) 

[Karl Henning]

Lenny has landed! The NY Phil box, I mean (the DG box has been with me some little while already).

What to start with? Well, The Cat, bien sûr!

[Karl Henning]

The second theme, Sarge, plays as exceptionally feline here.

[jlaurson]

The second theme, Sarge, plays as exceptionally feline here.

Yay!



The cat is everywhere!

[Sergeant Rock]

The second theme, Sarge, plays as exceptionally feline here.

Indeed, phrased purrrfectly 

Sarge

[jlaurson]

Indeed, phrased purrrfectly 

Sarge

Turns out that Bernstein is good fur something, after all. I knew he'd get that pawed just right!

[Sergeant Rock]

Turns out that Bernstein is good fur something, after all. I knew he'd get that pawed just right!

I like what he does with the Trio too. It's like we're suddenly thrust 100 years into the future and we're dancing in Vienna, in the summer moonlight, outside a glittering palace. Might be all wrong but it's beautiful. Played that way it does make an effective contrast between the stately Minuet and the vivacious Finale which is entirely in the spirit (as I understand it) of the Classical style.
Sarge

[Leon]

But for me, the item I ave been working on for actually 3 years now. This book, "Haydn, Mozart & the Viennese School 1740-1780" has been OOP since at least 2006, and copies of it have been ludicrously priced at up to $700 in the AMP. I wouldn't pay that for any book! But finally, after all this time, an honest seller was vending a nearly perfect copy for a very fair price, and I couldn't refuse any longer;



It is pictured here with the other volume in the set that deals with Vienna specifically, although the middle volume is also a superb recounting of the stile galant in Europe in general. So now I can tuck in with some reading that suits me to a T. Heartz, for those who haven't read any of his books, is a very readable writer. The amounts of outright heavy music theory are nowhere near as bad as in Rosen, for example. It is music history at its best.

That is a fantastic resource, and one that I have checked out of the library, and renewed as often as I could - precisely because as you say, it has been OOP and offered at ridiculous prices.  That is until tonight when I found a copy for a little under $75.00.   Which is still a steep price for a used book, but compared to $400 or even $181 which were other copies I found, $75 was a no-brainer purchase for such a valuable source on the Classical period.

Thanks for reminding of it with your post.

[Uncle Connie]

Hi.  May I break into this symposium to post a review of a couple of CDs that just arrived?

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had finally found a source for CD reissues of the Max Goberman recordings from the early 1960s, offered by a Massachusetts firm calling itself Haydn House.  Not knowing the quality despite the hype on the web site involved, I confined myself to two of the eleven volumes.  (If you buy all eleven at once you get them for the price of ten, plus $4 total U.S. shipping.)  They arrived today and have been played.  These are my thoughts.

WOW!

To break those thoughts down into their components:  The CDs are produced using original pristine LPs, and presumably engineered a bit to minimize surface noise and remove any lingering clicks.  Products like this are always a bit of a crap shoot, but in this case the result is absolutely magnificent.  There was a reason the Goberman performances were legendary among old-time Haydn freaks in the first place; and sonic quality was one element that made us all sit up and take notice back when they were new.  Haydn House does not disappoint; their hype isn't puffery at all, it's flat fact.  I will gladly give them their $12 per disc for the rest of the set, as my budget allows; but see on for why this may take me a while.

To discuss briefly the specific works I got, and what's left to buy:  Goberman managed to record 41 of the symphonies, plus a couple of overtures, before his untimely death.  He did the first 24, less only 18 for some reason, plus H.I.108 (called in those  days "Symphony 'B'").  The others were scattered, mostly in the 30s, 40s and 50s.  Of the late works, he did none of the 'Paris' set, and of the 'Salomons' just 96 and 98.  There's also an 'Oxford.'  (My guess is that the "great" late symphonies were to have been used to anchor the volumes that also contained some of the lesser works, e.g. 68, 76, 79 and like that.)  The two volumes that I received today contain:  3, 12, 24, 41, 51, 56 and 96.  At the time, only Nos. 12, 56 and 96 had been done before, and by then 56 was deleted already.  The orchestra was the "Vienna State Opera," meaning presumably the Vienna Symphony operating outside their contract to Philips; No. 3, however, was done by Goberman's own New York Sinfonietta, with which he had already recorded a lot of other things (notably Vivaldi, and an early effort at authentic performance of the Brandenburgs). 

With only two exceptions - 12 and 96 - these performances were revelations at the time, and I would cheerfully put them up against anything that has come since.  If you must have modern "period performance," then you will disagree on that level at least; but with the love and care and intensity that Goberman and his players showed for every phrase, I cannot imagine that merely bowing it better and using replica winds would ever make things any better.  Obviously Haydn nuts won't settle for just one version of anything, and that includes me.  But I am very, very thankful that I can now include these gems as one of the prizes on my shelves. 

(And what's wrong with 12 and 96?  Nothing.  They're gems too.  It's just that, honestly, I don't much like 96; and as for 12, of all things there was an even earlier (mono) LP on the Lyrichord label which I still consider one of the monuments of Haydn recording.  The conductor was Wilhelm Loibner, and he also did 23, 29 and 30.  I would kill to have that one reissued.)

But in my earlier posts, before hearing these, I made at least one mistake of memory:  I had thought that Goberman followed what was considered "standard" at the time in adding a continuo to the first 40 and not thereafter.  In fact he didn't use one at all apparently, until he made his final recordings of early ones in New York; then he did add an unobtrusive harpsichord.  For the present discs that I acquired, this means simply that 3 has one, 12 and 24 don't. 

The Haydn House also has all the Leslie Jones recordings made for English Pye (Nonesuch in America), and he did 53 of them!  I'm not as taken with Jones's versions as with Goberman's, finding Jones frequently more uneven and occasionally a bit too smooth; but at his best he was exceptional as well.  And then you'll find about 20 screens full of other reissued LPs (and a few 78s), some Haydn but also myriad other composers in classic much-touted performances long out of print.  My own next order will include, for instance, a treasured Berwald 'Singuliere' which just happens to be the only known version that I don't have.  Haydn House is to be thanked for rectifying this. 

The product you get is a professionally-made CDR with label and front and back papers nicely printed.  There are no booklet notes.  Web address:  www.haydnhouse.com   

I promise not to ramble on like this too often on somebody else's thread; but to me, this once, it's worth it.  Sorry, Gurn.   

[Gurn Blanston]

My dear Conrad; it's your thread too. I find your excavations of recordings past to be highly interesting. I'm sure the other Haydnistas do too. As a practical and pragmatic person, I am only too well aware that not everyone likes what I like, and many like what YOU like too. For me the only thing that is necessary for total concord is that we all like Haydn. A lot.   Anyway, you have brought some balance here, which is sorely needed. I'm betting that you also like later recordings, like from the stereo era. Lot's on interest in those here too.

[Gurn Blanston]

That is a fantastic resource, and one that I have checked out of the library, and renewed as often as I could - precisely because as you say, it has been OOP and offered at ridiculous prices.  That is until tonight when I found a copy for a little under $75.00.   Which is still a steep price for a used book, but compared to $400 or even $181 which were other copies I found, $75 was a no-brainer purchase for such a valuable source on the Classical period.

Thanks for reminding of it with your post.

You're welcome. That's a great deal; I paid $90 and felt like I got an outstanding bargain, all things considered. It is very strange; I have been watching that book for nearly 4 years now, and the lowest price I ever saw in that entire period of time was $388. Now I have seen 4 or 5 different copies for under $200 in the last month or so.  Makes you wonder what broke loose?   I just started reading it this evening, so I have a long way to go before I've absorbed it all.

[Leon]

You're welcome. That's a great deal; I paid $90 and felt like I got an outstanding bargain, all things considered. It is very strange; I have been watching that book for nearly 4 years now, and the lowest price I ever saw in that entire period of time was $388. Now I have seen 4 or 5 different copies for under $200 in the last month or so.  Makes you wonder what broke loose?   I just started reading it this evening, so I have a long way to go before I've absorbed it all.

Well, there was a mistake with the site and actually it wasn't the 1740-1780 book, but the one for the period after it, Haydn, Mozart and Early Beethoven.     So, I am trying to cancel the order since I had already ordered the other two books from somewhere else.  Bummer.

[Uncle Connie]

My dear Conrad; it's your thread too. I find your excavations of recordings past to be highly interesting. I'm sure the other Haydnistas do too. As a practical and pragmatic person, I am only too well aware that not everyone likes what I like, and many like what YOU like too. For me the only thing that is necessary for total concord is that we all like Haydn. A lot.   Anyway, you have brought some balance here, which is sorely needed. I'm betting that you also like later recordings, like from the stereo era. Lot's on interest in those here too.

But Gurn - Goberman IS stereo era.  And bloody good stereo it is too.

And yes  of course I am much fond of modern (digital / period perf.) as well.  Just not as fond, except in the religious music for some reason or other. 

Anyway - thanks for letting the Old Codger get his two cents worth in here, and you're absolutely right, this really is about the Man and his Music and not nearly as much the Means of Delivery.

[Karl Henning]

Well, there was a mistake with the site and actually it wasn't the 1740-1780 book, but the one for the period after it, Haydn, Mozart and Early Beethoven.     So, I am trying to cancel the order since I had already ordered the other two books from somewhere else.  Bummer.

Argh.

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, there was a mistake with the site and actually it wasn't the 1740-1780 book, but the one for the period after it, Haydn, Mozart and Early Beethoven.     So, I am trying to cancel the order since I had already ordered the other two books from somewhere else.  Bummer.

Damn their eyes! I've had that happen on the AMP with books a couple of times, and CD's as recently as 2 weeks ago. Never fails to irritate

[Gurn Blanston]

But Gurn - Goberman IS stereo era.  And bloody good stereo it is too.

And yes  of course I am much fond of modern (digital / period perf.) as well.  Just not as fond, except in the religious music for some reason or other. 

Anyway - thanks for letting the Old Codger get his two cents worth in here, and you're absolutely right, this really is about the Man and his Music and not nearly as much the Means of Delivery.

Conrad,
Oh, I know, I was just having a bit of fun with you. I'm known for it, actually.

What I was really thinking about was the big stars of the pre-PI era, like Szell and his cohort, who still performed Big Band Haydn off from the old B & H scores. I know little of them, but they are very popular, enough to deserve more informed discussion than I am capable of.

Since I am entering codgerhood myself, my respect level for the world's codgers has risen tremendously.

[Madiel]

Psst. Can I throw a quick plug in for the Opus 50 blind listening that's going on in the recording review part of the forum?

Fascinating exercise, but it would be great if we could get a couple more votes in, particularly for Group B. The overall results are too much at the mercy of my personal quirks at the moment!

[jlaurson]

Psst. Can I throw a quick plug in for the Opus 50 blind listening that's going on in the recording review part of the forum?

Fascinating exercise, but it would be great if we could get a couple more votes in, particularly for Group B. The overall results are too much at the mercy of my personal quirks at the moment!

A link would help.

[Uncle Connie]

Just discovered this and, as the only copy I saw was cheap, ordered it.  I have no idea if it's worth the effort, though if nothing else the novelty of Bomtempo might offset a lousy Haydn.  (Assuming the photo comes out blurred, it's the 'Missa cellensis' H.XXII.5.)

[asin]B00018ZRX6[/asin]



Oh, and - Gurn, take my word that becoming an old codger ain't so bad once you get used to it, assuming you can remember what you got used to.