Haydn Szell

[Conchis]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2IaFaJrmno

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I knew someone was going to post that! :)

As a tune, I don't think it's that great, or that memorable. We remember it because it fortuitously became a national anthem and hence gets heard a lot.

[Conchis]

Not sure about this. I tend to agree that the "peaks" of Haydn are lower than the peaks of Mozart. On the other hand, he was FAR more consistent. I don't think I've EVER heard a bad piece by Haydn (except those written for the Baryton....)

I don't dislike anything I've heard by him but I find it all washes over me a bit. It's pleasant, it's unobjectionable and has many plain, unglamorous virtues, but...that's about it, for me at least.

When I was younger, older people would tell me I'd 'come to love Haydn'- well, I'm now well into middle-age and it still hasn't happened.

I've heard his operas are fearful, though I believe even they have their advocates.

[jayne lee wilson]

I have quite a few Haydn sets, though none complete. Szell's recordings are not among them.

Haydn is the 'relaxing' composer par excellence. I once heard a programme on R3 about how listening closely and without distractions can yield dividends. 'Haydn is not a composer for lazy minds', the presenter concluded.

I don't think he could write a tune to save his life and all of his works commit the fatal sin of 'lacking genius' but I can entirely understand why more energetic listeners than me enjoy him. An elderly friend of mine had the ideal death - in bed, reading while listening to Haydn on the radio.

Well I'll say this for you - you are an innovator.... we have to invent a new term for For3-musical trolling....

Hans Keller was probably not the first to point out that, if you spot some symphonic innovation (structural or otherwise) in a later or even 20thC composer, it is almost certainly there in Haydn somewhere....( trio developing minuet, 2nd subjects only appearing in medias res of developments, monothematicism etc) too many examples to list....).

As for tunes.... he's one of my composers.... a talisman.....whose very memorable tunes & turns are often in my head, very beneficially to the storm and stress of the suffering soul within us....
(my top 10/20 etc.....26, 39, 44, 45, 49, 58, 59, 65, 78-81........I'm sure like many here I really can sing a tune from every single movement....even before we get to Paris or London....)

Brahms said, after hearing the slow movement of No.88: "I want my 9th Symphony to be like this".....
Thus one towering, all-encompassing musical genius pays his respects to another.

Bow down before Haydn, offer him your love, for we are not worthy...
Well y'know what? Some of us are, and he nourishes us continually....

[Richard Tarleton]

... for me - the masses, quartets, piano sonatas, and symphonies of Haydn are even more rewarding than those of Mozart. I grant you Mozart's superiority when it comes to operas.

And the baryton works are a joy ....



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...two glorious cello concertos.... My beloved Alfred Brendel is a great champion of his piano music, and when my concert-going career in London started in earnest, circa 1971-2, barely an RFH concert but started with a Haydn symphony (our recently departed A Previn a champion of those). Couldn't write a tune - the string quartets are full of 'em.

[cloughie]

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...two glorious cello concertos.... My beloved Alfred Brendel is a great champion of his piano music, and when my concert-going career in London started in earnest, circa 1971-2, barely an RFH concert but started with a Haydn symphony (our recently departed A Previn a champion of those). Couldn't write a tune - the string quartets are full of 'em.

Though I love much of Haydn, and there is a lot of it, maybe a lifetime’s listening, but I am not overkeen on The Creation or The Seasons and his operas, which I don’t really know are not on my ‘must listen to’ list.

[rauschwerk]

I don't think he could write a tune to save his life and all of his works commit the fatal sin of 'lacking genius'...

I have seen some singular opinions on this forum but that one tops them all!

[LeMartinPecheur]

[H]is operas, which I don’t really know are not on my ‘must listen to’ list.

I don't have much knowledge of JH's operas but really feel I ought to give him time, for this reason. One evening a good few years ago I was driving home, listening as usual to In Tune. Out popped a most brilliantly exciting virtuoso bass aria which was totally unfamiliar, but which I decided just had to be Mozart - who else could write like that in what was obviously WAM's period? Perhaps a late concert aria awaited my discovery?

WRONG!! - it was Haydn, but I can't recall which opera

[mathias broucek]

... for me - the masses, quartets, piano sonatas, and symphonies of Haydn are even more rewarding than those of Mozart. I grant you Mozart's superiority when it comes to operas.

And the baryton works are a joy ....



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They complement each other, I think.

Haydn for Symphonies, Quartets, Masses, Piano Sonatas and Piano Trios. Mozart for Concertos, Operas, String Quintets (and other non-standard chamber combinations) , Serenades

[cloughie]

They complement each other, I think.

Haydn for Symphonies, Quartets, Masses, Piano Sonatas and Piano Trios. Mozart for Concertos, Operas, String Quintets (and other non-standard chamber combinations) , Serenades

No no no - what a dreadful compartmentalisation - in no way does that work for me !