Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

Lucky # 13 Disc is my first random DRD Haydn Listen.   

Let me just say (and Karl will appreciate this one).....there is some major toe tapping going on! 

All first listens to these three symphonies:

Symphony No. 59 in A major "Feuersinfonie"
**Symphony No. 49 in F minor "La Passione"
Symphony No. 26 in D minor "Lamentatione"

**This one, for me, is a major WOW factor.  Magnificent! 

Random or not, that was a superb choice for starters. Of course, you will have forgotten it by the time you've got to the end of the cycle, and then you will have to start all over again.         

[Brahmsian]

Random or not, that was a superb choice for starters. Of course, you will have forgotten it by the time you've got to the end of the cycle, and then you will have to start all over again.         

I have compiled my list of the random discs.  Starts with disc 13, and ends with disc 11.

I won't list them all, as I think that even the most avid Haydn fan would think that a bit excessive.   

*PS - We are less than 100 posts away from hurdling pas the Havergal Brian thread.   Ssshhhh......let's keep that quiet. 

[TheGSMoeller]

**Symphony No. 49 in F minor "La Passione"

**This one, for me, is a major WOW factor.  Magnificent! 

One of the great symphonies. So glad to hear you're enjoying Haydn, Ray!

I began to type a few recommendations but deleted it. I realized that if I started to rec then everyone might follow and I didn't want you to become overwhelmed. But most importantly I realized that the best rec anyone can give is to rec all 100+ symphonies, no two sound the same, and they all carry that Haydn wit, charm and genius.

[Brahmsian]

One of the great symphonies. So glad to hear you're enjoying Haydn, Ray!

I began to type a few recommendations but deleted it. I realized that if I started to rec then everyone might follow and I didn't want you to become overwhelmed. But most importantly I realized that the best rec anyone can give is to rec all 100+ symphonies, no two sound the same, and they all carry that Haydn wit, charm and genius.

Indeed, enjoying!  I'm glad I did a random list of discs.  It will be extra interesting that way.  Many times, I do go chronologically, but when I did the Shostakovich string quartet month (back in Feb 2013?), it was great to go at it randomly! 

Really love the design and colour scheme of the DRD box as well!  Nice. 

[Madiel]

A disk like this one;



would be a perfect adjunct to your collection. Haydn's keyboard sonatas are vastly under-appreciated, except by those who have heard them.       Anyway, that is a nicely balanced group, even if you went no further (after getting a sonatas disk) you would be well-represented. 

Hmm. The sonatas are indeed on the long-term shopping list.  But perfect? That disc offends my preference for proper sets of works.  Why only 1 out of 3 sonatas from 1794 for Therese Jansen?

It seems for composers pre-Beethoven, where we don't trust opus numbers, that we go the other way and often ignore the groups in which works were either composed or published.  Haydn does okay with the string quartets of course.

But I applaud the general principle. 

[Brian]

Ray et. al., looking at my listening log, I recently had my first-ever listen to No. 49 (Fey/Heidelberg). I can't remember too much to say about it, but that was the day where I switched from Haydn to Ravel, and then got bored and turned it off, realizing that after 49 I only wanted to listen to Haydn nonstop. 100 and 99 followed immediately.

[Sergeant Rock]

*PS - We are less than 100 posts away from hurdling pas the Havergal Brian thread.   Ssshhhh......let's keep that quiet. 

I don't think any of the Havergalians^TM inhabit this thread....except me, of course, and I'm torn between the two. For now your secret is, probably, safe.

Sarge

[Brahmsian]

I don't think any of the Havergalians^TM inhabit this thread....except me, of course, and I'm torn between the two. For now your secret is, probably, safe.

Sarge

I was thinking about you, Sarge.  C'mon, you are more of a Haydn fan (I think?)  Doesn't matter, of course.

Please do not email the large GMG British contigent that only post in the Havergal Brian thread. 

DRD Random disc 2 last night:  Disc# 36, includes the #103 Drum Roll (one of my favourites, along with The Hen) and # 104 Salomon symphonies.

Outstanding!!!!! 

PS - I love the applause after each symphony.  I should join them  , as I'm enjoying it very much so far.   OK, perhaps the applause will become an annoyance after 100+ symphonies, but we shall see. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Hmm. The sonatas are indeed on the long-term shopping list.  But perfect? That disc offends my preference for proper sets of works.  Why only 1 out of 3 sonatas from 1794 for Therese Jansen?

It seems for composers pre-Beethoven, where we don't trust opus numbers, that we go the other way and often ignore the groups in which works were either composed or published.  Haydn does okay with the string quartets of course.

But I applaud the general principle. 

Yes, that's why I said "a disk like this one...", as a suggestion that the late works would be the ones to have if you weren't going to go further. Of course, for myself, the Beghin box on Naxos is the only choice. But I don't know your preferences vis-a-vis real historical playing style. I understand there are a few people who are under-enthusiastic about it...     

[DavidW]

Lucky # 13 Disc is my first random DRD Haydn Listen.   

Let me just say (and Karl will appreciate this one).....there is some major toe tapping going on! 

All first listens to these three symphonies:

Symphony No. 59 in A major "Feuersinfonie"
**Symphony No. 49 in F minor "La Passione"
Symphony No. 26 in D minor "Lamentatione"

**This one, for me, is a major WOW factor.  Magnificent! 

Awesome!  Also try Oxford, the Bear, and Mercury.

[Brahmsian]

Awesome!  Also try Oxford, the Bear, and Mercury.

I'm sticking with my random list, David.     The Bear, I really like (one of the about 10 Haydn Symphonies I have heard so far, prior to last night).

Hmm, let me check when these are slated to play on my random disc list:

The bear is in disc # 27 in my queue, the Oxford is disc # 8, while Mercury is the 2nd to last disc in the queue. 

[Brian]

I'm going on a road trip Friday-Sunday and this box is arriving Thursday. How convenient! I'll pull out probably 4 CDs at random (rigging it a bit; want to hear the Bear) and bring them along with Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall for contrast. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Hmm. The sonatas are indeed on the long-term shopping list.  But perfect? That disc offends my preference for proper sets of works.  Why only 1 out of 3 sonatas from 1794 for Therese Jansen?

It seems for composers pre-Beethoven, where we don't trust opus numbers, that we go the other way and often ignore the groups in which works were either composed or published.  Haydn does okay with the string quartets of course.

But I applaud the general principle. 

But to your question, on a programming thing like that, who can say what the motivation is? All of the works on there arre post-1790, so they qualify as late piano works if nothing else. There also seems to be an element of the popular, since it includes the 'Kaiser Franz Variations' and 'Un Piccolo Divertimento', both hugely popular, as well as #62, easily his most popular sonata, and Hob 48 & 49, both of which are very highly thought of by listeners and players alike. So it seems like they went for a bit of a theme that way rather than the nice alternative 'Last 3 Sonatas' possibility. Those were never published that way, BTW, because he gave them to Janzen and had to recompose one or two of them later for Vienna when she refused to publish.

A lot of Haydn's works are recorded in natural groupings though. The 6 sonatas from the early 1770's that he wrote and dedicated to the Prince, for example, usually come out together. Lots of the Keyboard Trios do to (The Bartolozzi Trios for example). I'm not sure why there is a tendency to break things up, maybe they are driven more by the sound of what goes well together than by what originally went together, since of course, Haydn couldn't know that any better than anyone else in real time.

[Karl Henning]

Random or not, that was a superb choice for starters. Of course, you will have forgotten it by the time you've got to the end of the cycle, and then you will have to start all over again.         

. . . and that is part of the joy of Haydn!

[Madiel]

Yes, that's why I said "a disk like this one...", as a suggestion that the late works would be the ones to have if you weren't going to go further. Of course, for myself, the Beghin box on Naxos is the only choice. But I don't know your preferences vis-a-vis real historical playing style. I understand there are a few people who are under-enthusiastic about it...     

Honestly, I don't know. Are we talking about playing style, or historical instrument, or both?

I'm not especially either for or against historical instruments. To be honest I've scarcely heard any fortepiano recordings.  All of my Bach keyboard material is on piano (I did have some of the suites on harpsichord on a cheap disc that I think was 'gifted' to me, which I found rather dull), whereas I'm collecting the Bach cantatas from the BIS series by Suzuki and finding all the research about instruments utterly fascinating, and my Bach orchestral works use period forces as well.

I'm definitely for historical playing style, as much as possible.

EDIT: As far as works go, I have this vague rule of thumb that my Haydn collection needs to expand to cover most of the material from the 1780s and 90s, which shows a lot more signs of organised publication and intentional public consumption.  I have a vague sort of 'worksheet' which I drew up some time ago, well before I was aware of your own work here on a chronology which I have barely scratched the surface of.

I just had a look at the keyboard sonatas bit of the 'worksheet' and it looks like I've earmarked... okay what numbering system are we using here? From the Landon numbering I've marked from 34 all the way up to 62 as being of interest.  In Hoboken terms, that's 21-43 and 47-52 (with 47 being the 2nd version of it? it's so confusing).  That's actually going back into the 1770s.  The last 9 would be of the greatest interest (Landon 54-62, Hoboken 40-42 and 47-52).

(Elsewhere, symphonies 76-92 are in my sights, and piano trios Hoboken 15-17, 18-20 and 21-23, and probably all the sets of 6 string quartets apiece that I haven't got yet!)

[Gurn Blanston]

Honestly, I don't know. Are we talking about playing style, or historical instrument, or both?

In Beghin's case, it would be both. He uses a large variety of historical instruments (practically everything but a Tangentenflügel  ), but the interesting aspect for me (I have a ton of historical instruments recordings) is that he shrugs off a lot of the accreted 19th century performance idiosyncrasies.  At first hearing, this can be off-putting, because a lot of those stylistic traits were intended t make the music more audience friendly, I think. But after a few listens, it seems so natural this way that most others seem slick and almost contrived.

I'm not especially either for or against historical instruments. To be honest I've scarcely heard any fortepiano recordings.  All of my Bach keyboard material is on piano (I did have some of the suites on harpsichord on a cheap disc that I think was 'gifted' to me, which I found rather dull), whereas I'm collecting the Bach cantatas from the BIS series by Suzuki and finding all the research about instruments utterly fascinating, and my Bach orchestral works use period forces as well.

I'm definitely for historical playing style, as much as possible.

Beghin is clearly the choice for that. There are a few single disks available that are very nice to have, like that Cooper, or Bilson or Staier. I am very fond of those. Another full box set is Christine Schornsheim on Capriccio. If I couldn't get Beghin this would be my second choice. She also uses harpsichord and clavichord wherever appropriate, although not quite the array that Beghin uses.

EDIT: As far as works go, I have this vague rule of thumb that my Haydn collection needs to expand to cover most of the material from the 1780s and 90s, which shows a lot more signs of organised publication and intentional public consumption.  I have a vague sort of 'worksheet' which I drew up some time ago, well before I was aware of your own work here on a chronology which I have barely scratched the surface of.

I just had a look at the keyboard sonatas bit of the 'worksheet' and it looks like I've earmarked... okay what numbering system are we using here? From the Landon numbering I've marked from 34 all the way up to 62 as being of interest.  In Hoboken terms, that's 21-43 and 47-52 (with 47 being the 2nd version of it? it's so confusing).  That's actually going back into the 1770s.  The last 9 would be of the greatest interest (Landon 54-62, Hoboken 40-42 and 47-52).

Don't worry about the #47, it's extremely likely that it's bogus anyway, the creation of a publisher from the earlier work. Go with the original.

I have a hard time not using Hob numbers, but in the sonatas the Landon numbers are more widely accepted, since most of the sheet music is published with them. Not that they are gospel either  (I have a blog article about chronology of the sonatas, it's just a primer Click the link, still in progress, since it is just the pre-Esterházy stuff right now). That's a good place to start anyway, those ~1774 sonatas were the ones dedicated to the Prince, the first works ever 'legally' published.

Cheers,

[Brahmsian]

Now, onto disc 32 of the DRD set.

Another three touchdowns! 

Symphony No. 96 in D major "The Miracle"
Symphony No. 95 in C minor
Symphony No. 93 in D major

On deck:  Disc 7

Symphony No. 108 in B flat major
Symphony No. 14 in A major
Symphony No. 40 in F major
Symphony No. 12 in E major

I expect more positive toe-tapping to take place! 

[Gurn Blanston]

Now, onto disc 32 of the DRD set.

Another three touchdowns! 

Symphony No. 96 in D major "The Miracle"
Symphony No. 95 in C minor
Symphony No. 93 in D major

On deck:  Disc 7

Symphony No. 108 in B flat major
Symphony No. 14 in A major
Symphony No. 40 in F major
Symphony No. 12 in E major

I expect more positive toe-tapping to take place! 

Yet another nice lineup, Ray. #12, the one I bolded, is an especially nice work. It has been speculated (probably for cause) that it began life as the overture to an opera or some sort of production and expanded out from there into a full-blown symphony. It dates from 1763, so not as early as its number would imply. Anyway, it's all good!   

[DavidW]

I'm going on a road trip Friday-Sunday and this box is arriving Thursday. How convenient! I'll pull out probably 4 CDs at random (rigging it a bit; want to hear the Bear) and bring them along with Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall for contrast. 

Nice Brian! (along with the coupling)

[Brahmsian]

Yet another nice lineup, Ray. #12, the one I bolded, is an especially nice work. It has been speculated (probably for cause) that it began life as the overture to an opera or some sort of production and expanded out from there into a full-blown symphony. It dates from 1763, so not as early as its number would imply. Anyway, it's all good!   

Agreed here, it is very lovely!  From the very opening, I could see how perhaps it being an Overture of an opera.  At least, it seems to have that feel.

Very interesting!