Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

Absolutely.  Completely mature, in charge of his craft, firing on all cylinders.  Personally, I don't feel Beethoven ever surpassed them, even if he matched them with a couple of his.  Same with Mozart.

I'll have to transfer these to computer files one day when I have the time.

Papa puts the piano player to task with the fast movements of these Trios. Dreyfus was up to the task.  Would love video of these guys performing Haydn.

Oh yes, I would too like to actually see them performed. Sometimes you hear things being played on a recording and you really want to SEE someone actually do that.

This is the kind of thing Brilliant Classics should try to license.  Sigh.

Yes, they are the sort who could do it. There are some things 'in the vault' of these companies which may never again see the light of day. Such a pity...

[Scion7]

That's why I don't shed tears for OOP releases being ripped and posted.
Although there isn't any date for that last French LP --> -- if they were issued after 1990 I would be surprised.  MHS used to issue CD's but they've ceased operations from what I last heard, and doubt they renewed their lease from Valois (or whoever owns them now.)

[Jo498]

To go back to the appreciation of Haydn. I think what is needed for perspective is also that Haydn was very famous in the last 25 years of his life. So his popularity dropped from the highest possible level. (His music was obviously still fairly influential for some musicians of the Beethoven/Hummel generation, after that mainly for explicitly classicist composers like Mendelssohn and Brahms) Whereas Mozart probably became even more famous for about 20-30 years after his death (he had not been quite as famous as Haydn) and then the popularity dropped (or rather was concentrated on a few pieces). It's also hardly a shame to be overshadowed posthumeously by Mozart.

But the most important point seems to me that, as I said, in a musical culture where roughly contemporary music rules with very few exceptions it is perfectly normal that Haydn's popularity dropped and was confined to a few large scale late works (and also remained central for domestic music making). Recall that when we talk of a "Bach Renaissance" following Mendelssohn we are referring also only to a few works that were usually heavily edited and arranged. Except for those few (mostly large choral works) by Bach and Handel and two or three Gluck operas Haydn was the oldest composer regularly performed throughout the 19th century. (And that many works are hardly performed in concert is not surprising, especially considering how much Haydn wrote. Recall that hardly any Schubert piano sonata was regularly performed in concert until the mid-20th century.)

It is also normal for such a culture to consider some formerly famous composers as of mere historical interest (again with important exceptions by more historically oriented composers or music lovers or in some sections like domestic music making). We should not be led astray by our very strange and unusual perspective that is almost completely focussed on music older than 60 (usually older than 100) years and with the help of recordings has almost the whole history of music at its disposal.

[Scion7]

Didn't have time to scan so just used the digital camera - but they are legible.
I am sure MHS just took the liner notes from the Valois LP's and put them in their box as a sheet.
click-expand

[Gurn Blanston]

Didn't have time to scan so just used the digital camera - but they are legible.
I am sure MHS just took the liner notes from the Valois LP's and put them in their box as a sheet.
click-expand

Thanks! Those were better notes than one usually gets in a more modern recording. I would agree with you, very likely this is exactly what MHS did. I have quite a few of their recordings, from such very cool labels as Amon Ra, and that's for sure what they did there.

I wonder if Haydn House would consider doing some chamber music instead of symphonies... hmmmm

[Gurn Blanston]

Something goes 'click' when a classical music fan hears the words 'folk songs'. The brain shuts off! I thought so too, but what I learned this time opened my eyes to what was really going on there. Check it out!

Haydn creates a Scotland for himself

Thanks!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

To go back to the appreciation of Haydn. I think what is needed for perspective is also that Haydn was very famous in the last 25 years of his life. So his popularity dropped from the highest possible level. (His music was obviously still fairly influential for some musicians of the Beethoven/Hummel generation, after that mainly for explicitly classicist composers like Mendelssohn and Brahms) Whereas Mozart probably became even more famous for about 20-30 years after his death (he had not been quite as famous as Haydn) and then the popularity dropped (or rather was concentrated on a few pieces). It's also hardly a shame to be overshadowed posthumeously by Mozart.

But the most important point seems to me that, as I said, in a musical culture where roughly contemporary music rules with very few exceptions it is perfectly normal that Haydn's popularity dropped and was confined to a few large scale late works (and also remained central for domestic music making). Recall that when we talk of a "Bach Renaissance" following Mendelssohn we are referring also only to a few works that were usually heavily edited and arranged. Except for those few (mostly large choral works) by Bach and Handel and two or three Gluck operas Haydn was the oldest composer regularly performed throughout the 19th century. (And that many works are hardly performed in concert is not surprising, especially considering how much Haydn wrote. Recall that hardly any Schubert piano sonata was regularly performed in concert until the mid-20th century.)

It is also normal for such a culture to consider some formerly famous composers as of mere historical interest (again with important exceptions by more historically oriented composers or music lovers or in some sections like domestic music making). We should not be led astray by our very strange and unusual perspective that is almost completely focussed on music older than 60 (usually older than 100) years and with the help of recordings has almost the whole history of music at its disposal.

Yes, excellent post, Jo. Right on the money. Haydn enjoys a degree of popularity other composers (and artists in general) would kill to have!

[Madiel]

Those were better notes than one usually gets in a more modern recording.

Personally I really appreciate it when notes bother to tell me things like "these were published together as a group, as opus 70". I know that opus numbers are quite inadequate for many composers, not least because they don't cover everything and/or contradictory numbering was used when the same work was published in different markets, but to me it's still damn useful to know that were presented and often conceived as a set.

[Scion7]

Hmmm ... still no Florestan.
Usually they rise on the 2nd nite . . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

Hmmm ... still no Florestan.
Usually they rise on the 2nd nite . . . .

FYI, I wrote to Haydn House about it yesterday. The engineer replied that if I sent him the LP's, he would rip and master the CD's and give them to me free, while maintaining the rights to sell the result. Apparently that's how they work there. If I had the LP's.... 

[Scion7]

What's Haydn House?
Did the eng say he would keep and sell the LP's you send him in return for 'free' CD rips, or that he was free to sell the rips to others on CD?
ç1969 -- they are still under copyright -- living on the edge / danger / danger, Will Robinson / you're in danger little stranger / Danger! Cliffs! Sheer drop! No railing! /   


Haven't done this in a while - let's see if it works:

    "Arise, Florestan, arise!  I command you to ... rise!"

Worth a shot.   
That is, if his neighbors did not do a pre-emptive staking/decapitation/stuff mouth with garlic procedure.
Those Bucharestians can be an angry lot!

[Gurn Blanston]

What's Haydn House?
Did the eng say he would keep and sell the LP's you send him in return for 'free' CD rips, or that he was free to sell the rips to others on CD?
ç1969 -- they are still under copyright -- living on the edge / danger / danger, Will Robinson / you're in danger little stranger / Danger! Cliffs! Sheer drop! No railing! /   


Haven't done this in a while - let's see if it works:

    "Arise, Florestan, arise!  I command you to ... rise!"

Worth a shot.   
That is, if his neighbors did not do a pre-emptive staking/decapitation/stuff mouth with garlic procedure.
Those Bucharestians can be an angry lot!

I don't know how they stand vis-a-vis copyright laws. I bet they know about it though. They sell thousands of mastered LP's as CD's. I have all the Solomons Symphonies from them that CBS/Sony never released, for example.

http://www.haydnhouse.com/

Go ask them and see what they say. They are easy to get in touch with and you get a prompt email reply. Lock your wallet up before you go there, though...

[Scion7]

I was just curious.
I have a USB turntable and Audio-Technica software, plus Roxio Toast, to make transfers.
Just have to get motivated to sit down and record the entire set in one go.   

[Mookalafalas]

I'm having a mini Bruno Weil (conducting Haydn Symphonies) binge.  They are so frothy and charming--light but brilliant. I am not sure how much of what I like is Weil and how much is Wolf Erichson's terrific engineering.  A combo, no doubt. 

[Gurn Blanston]

I'm having a mini Bruno Weil (conducting Haydn Symphonies) binge.  They are so frothy and charming--light but brilliant. I am not sure how much of what I like is Weil and how much is Wolf Erichson's terrific engineering.  A combo, no doubt.

That's a great set, another one of those disappointments in that they did just 20 or so symphonies when they could have done so much more. Erichson is the Godfather of period recordings. Between Vivarte and SEON, he sure did us all some good! 

[carlito77]

Though, Johann Michael Haydn never achieved the notoriety of his elder brother, what were his best achievements? I was searching for Haydn's famous trumpet concerto performed  by Wynton Marsalis in E flat major on Youtube but discovered that Michael Haydn also composed a trumpet concerto in D major also performed by Marsalis.

[Gurn Blanston]

Though, Johann Michael Haydn never achieved the notoriety of his elder brother, what were his best achievements? I was searching for Haydn's famous trumpet concerto performed  by Wynton Marsalis in E flat major on Youtube but discovered that Michael Haydn also composed a trumpet concerto in D major also performed by Marsalis.

Michael had both a good and a bad situation, as far as we modern listeners are concerned. He was employed by the Archbishop of Salzburg as Capellmeister. Therefore, he was always the direct superior of Leopold Mozart, and for a considerable time, Wolfgang's boss too, most notably when Wolfgang came back from Paris to be the Court Organist.

He wrote quite a bit of very good chamber music, some string quartets and quintets. His choice of using 2 violas instead of 2 cellos is credited by most historians as the influence on Mozart doing the same. He wrote quite a few symphonies too (in the 40's I think), which are also very good, if slightly less inspired, perhaps, than Joseph's. Plus a couple of orchestral serenades which are as good as any from the time.

But mostly, he wasn't called on to write secular music. His forte was sacred music, and he was as good as anyone and better than most, including his brother in all but the last 6 masses, when it comes to that. He wrote a great many outstanding masses (listen to the Mass for Saint Hieronymous (Jerome) for example). He also wrote a lot of adjunct mass music like motets, vespers etc. I have a lot of it and can't fail to appreciate the real quality of it.

His concertos are mainly early works, from the 1760's before he went to Salzburg. He was in Vienna as a freelancer at the same time Joseph was, between the Morzin years and Esterházy employment. He wrote horn concertos too, quite fine. And many little divertimentos which are quite enjoyable too. He certainly got his share of the Haydn family talent, but his career simply took a different path.

[Florestan]

the demise of pan-Europeanism with the rise of Nationalism

Franz Liszt is THE poster boy of Romanticism. He was born in Raiding, Hungary yet he never spoke Hungarian. He was German by birth, yet he moved to Paris and most of his life he spoke and wrote French (he was even a naturalized Marseille citizen). He led a nomadic lifestyle all through his life, roaming all around Europe --- North and South, East and West. He was a benefactor to Chopin, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Borodin, Grieg and Ole Bull. He was a Freemason, just as Haydn and Mozart had been, ie a member of a cosmopolitan organization. He was a devout Roman Catholic, ie a devout member of the most cosmopolitan Christian Church. His music maps the cultural geography of Europe in his time. It is hard to find a more pan-European figure in the whole history of music. Haydn himself is provincial when compared to Liszt. 

(runs away towards the secure retreat of my salon)

[Jo498]

I have never heard any of Michael's church music (Joseph supposedly said that Michael's was better in that genre). I have about 3 discs with symphonies which are pleasant but hardly comparable to the better ones by Joseph. Overall his style is (I think) often more similar to early Mozart or Joh. Chr. Bach than to Joseph.
(I was admittedly so bored by the chamber music disc with Archibudelli that I got rid of it...)

A rather interesting piece by Michael is a huge "serenade" probably even longer than Mozart's "Haffner" and "Posthorn" serenades and including concertante movements with trombone! Those large-scale serenades apparently were a Salzburg tradition.

[asin]B000001WLF[/asin][asin]B000NA835G[/asin]

[Gurn Blanston]

Franz Liszt is THE poster boy of Romanticism. He was born in Raiding, Hungary yet he never spoke Hungarian. He was German by birth, yet he moved to Paris and most of his life he spoke and wrote French (he was even a naturalized Marseille citizen). He led a nomadic lifestyle all through his life, roaming all around Europe --- North and South, East and West. He was a benefactor to Chopin, Berlioz, Saint-Saens, Borodin, Grieg and Ole Bull. He was a Freemason, just as Haydn and Mozart had been, ie a member of a cosmopolitan organization. He was a devout Roman Catholic, ie a devout member of the most cosmopolitan Christian Church. His music maps the cultural geography of Europe in his time. It is hard to find a more pan-European figure in the whole history of music. Haydn himself is provincial when compared to Liszt. 

(runs away towards the secure retreat of my salon)

Haydn was 2 years in the grave when Liszt was born, so it really doesn't bear comparison. In Haydn's lifetime there was no one to compare him to. Anyone who came after is simply someone who came after.

Away with you, foul tempter!