Haydn's Haus

[Gurn Blanston]

Oh yes, it is batshit crazy. Haydn wrote 106 superb symphonies. Not a dud among them. Ranking them is a fool's game (yeah, I'm a fool too  ). Still, the exercise is fun, entertaining (if you don't take him seriously) and even informative. His comments, like your blog, have made me reevaluate some I hadn't given much thought to (so many slip through the cracks). For that reason alone, the article is worth reading.

Sarge

Yes, there are just so many of them, it is hard to remember where you heard that super little bit (oh, there it is, the finale of #59) that turned you on when you heard it last. I have often told people to not be put off by composers with a huge oeuvre, but seriously, it is hard sometimes not to be. And the three composers who have occupied the last decade for me (Haydn, Mozart and Vivaldi) all have humongous bodies of work, it is so difficult to get a solid grip on it all.

I just took the shrinkwrap off Antonini's newest contribution:
[asin]B01MYGSGP4[/asin]

At least Haydn was able to recognize me long in advance with his The Absent-minded Man symphony.

Il Distratto: hey, it's me!! 

Cheers, Sarge,
8^)

[Florestan]

Took a quick look at "1732 births" entry on Wikipedia. Only two other people achieved (a certain amount of) fame: Beaumarchais and George Washington. 

Have you ever heard of, and listened to anything by, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the 5th son of Johann Sebastian? 

[North Star]

Have you ever heard of, and listened to anything by, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the 5th son of Johann Sebastian? 

I have one trio sonata (in A major F.VII/2) in the HM Lumières box, will have to look into that.

[Florestan]

the three composers who have occupied the last decade for me (Haydn, Mozart and Vivaldi) all have humongous bodies of work

You really need some Schubert in your life, my dear chap! 

[Florestan]

I have one trio sonata (in A major F.VII/2) in the HM Lumières box, will have to look into that.

Please report.

[Gurn Blanston]

You really need some Schubert in your life, my dear chap! 

Well, to appreciate the volume of music on my listening agenda, let's say those 3 = 90% of my listening. That still leaves me time for Beethoven, Schubert, CPE Bach, Dvorak, my very large collection of Classic Era keyboard sonatas, 18th century Austrian (mostly) sacred music, and the very occasional Russian Romantic (1870 - ~1970). Oh, and Biber and 17th century Italian violin music. So I really don't feel deprived.   I agree though, life without Schubert is very bleak indeed!  0:)

[Gurn Blanston]

Have you ever heard of, and listened to anything by, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the 5th son of Johann Sebastian? 

Oh dear, you have been deprived! 

[Florestan]

life without Schubert is very bleak indeed! 

Amen!

[Florestan]

Missa "Rorate coeli desuper" Hob XXII:3

Boy, is this a whirlwind of a Mass! No sooner does Kyrie starts than one hears et in terra pax, followed almost immediately by patrem omnipotentem. Filioque is virtually simultaneous with exspecto ressurectionem mortuorum. No sooner one hears qui tollis peccata mundi than the final Amen has just finished. That's all, good people, ite, missa est and it lasted no longer than two Pater Noster and three Ave Maria.

The overall impression it left on me is that of a priest who just when he is about to begin saying the mass receives a handwritten note from his bishop: "Father X, get the whole thing done as quick as you can, for the Pope's just arrived and demands your presence for brunch!".

Is this one of earliest Haydn's musical jokes? 

[Jo498]

Have you ever heard of, and listened to anything by, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the 5th son of Johann Sebastian? 

Yes, I have one disk with symphonies in a Brilliant collection dedicated to Bach's sons and a few more pieces on similar anthologies. To my recollection his music while not bad is fairly "run-of-the-mill" for its time, neither as distinctive as his older half-brother Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann or as pleasantly melodic proto-Mozartian as his youngest brother Johann Christian.

[Jo498]

Thanks for the link, Dave. Although I disagree with many of his rankings (the Hen, Oxford and Farewell are absurdly underrated), his comments are intriguing and make me want to re-hear some of the symphonies.

That's another one I disagree completely with the list-making critic. 85 is one of my Top 30.

I am not even that fond of #85 (maybe a reaction to its high popularity and overshadowing pieces like 84 or 90). But while among the "lightest" later symphonies it is a brilliant piece without any doubt.

Sure, such a list can lead one to re-listen and to listen for some things one had not been aware of before but overall this particular list is so extraordinarily erratic (21,28 and 11 in the top 20? Ahead of Farewell and Oxford???) that I get the impression that this person really listened to these pieces only once, often for the first time and within a few days or weeks, often noting only first impressions.
And while this may be unpopular in this thread I think one reduces Haydn's achievement if one categorically states that "they are all great". Maybe they are (although I think that there are some considerably weaker and even rather forgettable pieces as is only to be expected for such a large body of work and the diverse objectives and circumstances of the symphonies) but that does not make them equally great. And while it may be a fool's game to debate if 45 is superior to 88 or vice versa, for me it is clear that both of them are superior to e.g. #40.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

I consistently prefer #Brüggen & #orchestra18c over Hogwood & AAM. I can't be alone in that, can I? Hogwood was a leap forward but we can leap further, still, without ending up in a 'faster-quicker-sillier' race, methinks.


#morninglistening to @orchestra18c in @deccaclassics' #Haydn107:http://a-fwd.to/6N4wVGb

Terrific stuff altogether... http://ift.tt/2olpmwH

[Jo498]

Brüggen was always among the more flexible and expressive HIP musicians whereas Hogwood can be stiff and perfunctory. In the symphonies it's basically that for many of them Hogwood is the only HIP game in town. If other options are available I usually find them more convincing. Solomons has a similarly small and smallish sounding ensemble but his interpretations seem far more intense and committed (I said before that it is a great pity that his set was abandoned and only a little available on CD). Pinnock's Archiv box has wonderful sound with a somewhat bigger ensemble and while also straightforward and middle of the road beats Hogwood in the tonal beauty and weight department. And even while the sometimes overly prominent harpsichord on Goodman's tends to annoy me, they also sound more pleasant and more fun than Hogwood. Still, Hogwood's are usually not bad and some are quite good (the Nr.31 "Hornsignal", for instance)

[North Star]

Have you ever heard of, and listened to anything by, Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the 5th son of Johann Sebastian? 

I have one trio sonata (in A major F.VII/2) in the HM Lumières box, will have to look into that.

Please report.

Well, it's an 11 minute trio sonata (2 vn, vc, hpd) in three movements, (allegro, andante, tempo di minuetto - all performed at roughly the same tempo) and it's all very gallant and pleasant, but the overall impression I get is that I'm hearing the same conversation repeated three times, once in a minor key. 

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Fey & his Heidelbergers Continue!

Volume 23
Symphonies 6-8, 35, 46, 51
Hänssler Classic

Hänssler has published Volume 23 of this Haydn series: The three early symphonies 6 – 8 (Le Matin, Le Midi, and Le Soir) were still recorded by Fey but no longer edited. This has now been done for him – and the orchestra organized itself to record Symphonies 35, 46, 51 "in the spirit of Thomas Fey". Fey is still recovering and his return to active duty has been delayed again and again, but there is apparently still reason for hope that he WILL fully recover and see this to its end -- and then some.

[Madiel]

this particular list is so extraordinarily erratic (21,28 and 11 in the top 20? Ahead of Farewell and Oxford???) that I get the impression that this person really listened to these pieces only once, often for the first time and within a few days or weeks, often noting only first impressions.

This is the entire point of the list, as is clear from the introduction, and frankly it bewilders me that some of you are taking it so seriously.

[Gurn Blanston]

Since 1795 was one of the most successful years of Haydn's career, I sort of had the impression that he must have written lots of big music. But the reality is different, as I discovered this time...

Quality trumps quantity any day!

Thanks,

[Florestan]

Nowadays, we have a modest snicker over this kind of storytelling, but what if it is, in fact, exactly what Haydn had in mind? You scoff? Consider then how we find descriptions from Haydn's own lips, such as this in The New Grove Haydn. James Webster tells us:

    Haydn was also a master of rhetoric. This is a matter not only of musical 'topoi' [NB – a rhetorical convention or formula] and rhetorical 'figures' but also of contrasts in register, gestures, implications of genre and the rhythms of destabilization and recovery, especially as these play out over the course of an entire movement. Referential associations are common in his instrumental music, especially symphonies (nos.6–8, 22, 26, 30–31, 44–5, 49, 60, 64, 73, 100); they invoke serious human and cultural issues, including religious belief, war, pastoral, the times of day, longing for home, ethnic identity and the hunt. Haydn told Griesinger and Dies that he 'often portrayed moral characters in his symphonies' and that one early Adagio presented 'a dialogue between God and a foolish sinner' (unidentified; perhaps from no. 7, 22 or 26). In his vocal music Haydn (like Handel) was a brilliant and enthusiastic word-painter. This trait is but one aspect of his musical imagery in general: in addition to rhetorical figures and 'topoi' it comprises key associations (e.g. E with the hereafter), semantic associations (e.g. the flute with the pastoral) and musical conceptualizations... [snip]

In our far more sophisticated modern musical society, it is far more interesting to me to get some sort of a picture of how Haydn and his contemporaries perceived music, both in its construction and its subsequent deconstruction. We have survived the philosophical and technical onslaught of countless Romantics and post-Romantics, who have reduced music appreciation into an endless stream of jargon which is completely exclusive rather than inclusive, so maybe the 18th century had a point. In Momigny's view, Haydn is telling a story, one we can all relate to. He is as matter-of-fact in the telling as if it was a short story rather than a symphony. And we can relate to it because, while we may have largely outgrown small town bickering and hiding in the village church, storms and coping with them are still an everyday fact of life.

So, if Berlioz, Liszt, R. Strauss et al. tell stories in / with their music, it's no good, because they were Romantics --- but if Haydn does the same, it's a magnificent thing, because he was Haydn...   

Otherwise, great as usual. 

[Gurn Blanston]

So, if Berlioz, Liszt, R. Strauss et al. tell stories in / with their music, it's no good, because they were Romantics --- but if Haydn does the same, it's a magnificent thing, because he was Haydn...   

Otherwise, great as usual. 

Thanks.

The storytelling was Momigny's, not Haydn's.  Haydn merely used those sorts of ideas in order to establish a rhetorical framework for himself to fill in. As I am told, the Romantics abandoned the use of rhetorical principles, so their ideas of musical storytelling have a different basis than the Classicists. I know, this is a scab you really want to pick at, but I can't help you with it. 

[Florestan]

We have survived the philosophical and technical onslaught of countless Romantics and post-Romantics, who have reduced music appreciation into an endless stream of jargon which is completely exclusive rather than inclusive

All jokes aside, and very seriously now, dear Gurn, I really can't make any head or tail of the above. Would you be so kind as to clarify what you meant? TIA.