Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

What about personation? 

OK, well I try to do that. Working out what it consists in right now, but then...!

[Madiel]

Well, I have 23 Haydn symphonies... now neatly organised on iTunes so that each symphony is a separate 'album'... iTunes tells me it's 9 hours and 50 minutes worth.

I'm seriously considering putting it all on shuffle to help me cope with travelling halfway around the world.

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, I have 23 Haydn symphonies... now neatly organised on iTunes so that each symphony is a separate 'album'... iTunes tells me it's 9 hours and 50 minutes worth.

I'm seriously considering putting it all on shuffle to help me cope with traveling halfway around the world.

Well, I wouldn't travel halfway around the world, but if I did, I can scarcely imagine a better traveling companion than Haydn. He brought me to New York and back last autumn...

[Karl Henning]

I'm still so bewildered trying to get a handle on the symphonies, I should be hopeless if I let them shuffle.

Of course, I may be hopeless, there, no matter what . . . in which case the shuffle would do me no actual hurt . . . .

[Madiel]

Well, I wouldn't travel halfway around the world

Why on earth not, hmm? I mean, if us Antipodeans can visit you...

[Gurn Blanston]

Why on earth not, hmm? I mean, if us Antipodeans can visit you...

Oh, I'm just a homebody, don't mind me. Generally speaking, I think people travel too much. I would like to visit Australia and Austria though, and play a round of golf in Scotland...   If I could take the train, it would be a clincher! 

[Gurn Blanston]

I'm still so bewildered trying to get a handle on the symphonies, I should be hopeless if I let them shuffle.

Of course, I may be hopeless, there, no matter what . . . in which case the shuffle would do me no actual hurt . . . .

Anyone who claims to have all of them perfectly squared away is either lying or supernatural. Throw in the remainder of his work and you can just give it up!  

[Wakefield]

Yesterday, I purchased this Norrington set, not usually mentioned here:

Haydn: Symphonies 99-104
London Classical Players
Roger Norrington
Erato Disques, Veritas x 2

[asin]B003BKF6DW[/asin]

Brisk and abrupt seem Norrington's trademarks. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Yesterday, I purchased this Norrington set, not usually mentioned here:

Brisk and abrupt seem Norrington's trademarks. 

I have the 3 individual disks of those. I agree, they are both those things. Doesn't seem to bother me though; I like a variety of approaches. They do a very nice #100.

[Gurn Blanston]

Other than unexpected key shifts within a work from movement to movement, I would think there is a certain interchangeable aspect.  I know this is heretical.

You would think that, until you listened closely and discovered it was hard to find places where A copies B, so to speak. Even in works which are reminiscent in one way or another. As I wrote the other day about #83 in g using a pattern in the first movement which was pioneered the year before by #80 in d, a sort of diffusion of energy by breaking off regularly and playing something mild mannered, the MEANS of doing that; in the d minor by playing a silly little country dance and in the g minor by having the oboe clucking around, are very different. So even when the intention is the same, the means of realizing it aren't interchangeable. And those 2 works are only a year apart. If you play the 2 of them back to back you will see just what I mean (plus, have a nice listen!).

[Karl Henning]

This is what makes Haydn such an especially fascinating and serviceable study for me.  All the work sounds "of a piece," and yet (so far as my humble studies have discerned) he never just "riffs";  he is a master of finding new expression, without the need to reinvent himself for every piece (that would have been a gross anachronism in his epoch, I do realize). 

[Karl Henning]

Yes, and levity becomes the thread.

[Gurn Blanston]

If  I remember my music history correctly, wasn't Haydn known for using the same thematic material in various movements?  There was even a term for it.  I hope you know I was being facetious.

Monothematicism. Harrumph...

[Justin]

Any idea why the Hogwood Haydn box is, according to Amazon, being released next month? It was released a good year or so ago, wasn't it?

[Jo498]

Using similar themes in several movements of a multi-movement work is often called "cyclic". The most obvious and famous example may be Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique with the "idee fixe".
This is actually quite rare in Haydn, and connections, if present, are usually not that obvious. A few examples might be found, one of them is the symphony #46 in b major where a variant of the menuetto theme returns in the finale (and the material of first movement, menuetto and finale is related). Another one where the "cycle" is closed by means of literal quotation of the first movement horn call is the finale of symphony #31 "Hornsignal".

[Karl Henning]

The Berlioz is a good example, though it is (as in other matters, which Berlioz himself freely owned) a pointer to Beethoven, the famous recurring motive in the Op.67.

Without in any way detracting from the younger composer's protean originality, "Papa's" occasional (frequent?) motivic economy was quite likely a seminal influence . . . and again, the full extent of "Papa's" potential influence is little understood, because his body of work is so delightfully and blessedly unwieldy.

[Karl Henning]

Another one where the "cycle" is closed by means of literal quotation of the first movement horn call is the finale of symphony #31 "Hornsignal".

A wonderful example . . . without at all opposing your point, perhaps a case of the older Suite freshly influencing the younger genre?

[Florestan]

These days I´ve been listening to Hob XVIII:1, 2, 5, 8 & 10 from the set above.

The musicmaking is of the highest quality, the instrumental balance perfect and the organ is a delight to hear. Highly recommended.

[Jo498]

Thanks for the rec, I haven't any of the organ concertos yet (maybe some in the guise of other keyboard instruments).

[Florestan]

Thanks for the rec, I haven't any of the organ concertos yet (maybe some in the guise of other keyboard instruments).

Actually, they were written specifically for organ and were intended for church service.