BaL 22.02.14 - Haydn: Symphony no. 44

[MickyD]

The 'authentic Haydn pioneer' in the UK, the violinist-director Derek Solomons, was very much guided by HCRL in his series of recordings which started on 'Saga' ( LPs) in about 1980 and continued on CBS until about 1987,
During that time, 'Robbie' decreed that a harpsichord would be redundant after Symphony 26.
Incidentally, the Solomons recording of Symphony 44 is still available on CD so, by rights should be included not only in 'Alpie's list but in Kenyon's.

I remember collecting these LPs and finding them thrilling. I just listened to No.39 (another great Sturm und Drang work) on YouTube and find that Solomon's performances still hold up very well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've checked the score and your argument has greater merit here. It's a few bars of 2-part counterpoint, but it's quite sufficient as it is.

Just to clarify ... Thropple asked about the use of Harpsichord, and in response I quoted HC Robbins Landon's comments in the preface to his Eulenberg edition of the score of #49 (there being none such in the preface to the Philharmonia score - also edited by HCLR. Not really my (own) argument, and, in light of historically-informed research, he (and I have) changed his opinion.

When Handel composed "The People that Walked in Darkness" in 2-part counterpoint throughout, it is considered HIPP to perform in in that way. Yet when Mozart filled in the implied harmonies with beautiful passing modulations and woodwind colouring, that is regarded as the worst kind of heresy by HIPPsters.

Here they are again: those HIPPsters going around in "brigades", "beating people over the head" and calling others "heretics". I challenge (yet again) anybody to name three figures who have attempted to dictate to others how they must listen to and/or perform Music.

[kea]

I don't know about you guys, but I won't be satisfied until we have vibrato-free Mahler, Chopin on the clavichord and Brahms quartets with a continuo accompaniment.

[waldo]

Just to clarify ... Thropple asked about the use of Harpsichord, and in response I quoted HC Robbins Landon's comments in the preface to his Eulenberg edition of the score of #49 (there being none such in the preface to the Philharmonia score - also edited by HCLR. Not really my (own) argument, and, in light of historically-informed research, he (and I have) changed his opinion.


Here they are again: those HIPPsters going around in "brigades", "beating people over the head" and calling others "heretics". I challenge (yet again) anybody to name three figures who have attempted to dictate to others how they must listen to and/or perform Music.

Three seems rather arbitrary. Is that the standardly accepted threshold for a credible belief in the ferneyhough household?

[waldo]

Just to clarify ... Thropple asked about the use of Harpsichord, and in response I quoted HC Robbins Landon's comments in the preface to his Eulenberg edition of the score of #49 (there being none such in the preface to the Philharmonia score - also edited by HCLR. Not really my (own) argument, and, in light of historically-informed research, he (and I have) changed his opinion.

When did you change your opinion? Yesterday afternoon?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

When did you change your opinion? Yesterday afternoon?

Yep. That's when I became more Historically-informed by your good self and MickyD. (There you go, waldo - you can count yourself as one of those HIPP muggers you spoke of!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Three seems rather arbitrary. Is that the standardly accepted threshold for a credible belief in the ferneyhough household?

I wouldn't know - I've never been invited there. In my own household, I'm still waiting for the names of even one of the "Brigade", let alone three. Don't think I'll hold my breath waiting.

[aeolium]

I have a soft spot for the recording that first introduced me to this great symphony, that by I Solisti di Zagreb under Antonio Janigro on the Vanguard label (coupled with the "Farewell" symphony and part of a set of Sturm und Drang symphonies which they recorded). There is a restless intensity in the outer movements while the slow movement is beautifully elegiac. I presume it's not available now.*

* actually the set is, at least as a download

[verismissimo]

I have a soft spot for the recording that first introduced me to this great symphony, that by I Solisti di Zagreb under Antonio Janigro on the Vanguard label (coupled with the "Farewell" symphony and part of a set of Sturm und Drang symphonies which they recorded). There is a restless intensity in the outer movements while the slow movement is beautifully elegiac. I presume it's not available now.

Me too, aeo, though I seem to recall waldhorn (on the old boards) pointing out issues with the notes that the horns played! I shall play it this morning.

I've already reviewed ASMF/Marriner (too polite for my taste) and Tafelmusik/Weil (too hasty and metronomic, as though the piece was written for concerted knitting machines). Saving Dorati till last.

[MickyD]

Yep. That's when I became more Historically-informed by your good self and MickyD. (There you go, waldo - you can count yourself as one of those HIPP muggers you spoke of!)

The notes included in the AAM cycle by Prof James Webster are well worth a read...I wonder if it is possible to get hold of them other than in the CD booklet?

[waldo]

The notes included in the AAM cycle by Prof James Webster are well worth a read...I wonder if it is possible to get hold of them other than in the CD booklet?

I don't know if they are the exact same notes, but you can read his article "On the Absence of Keyboard Continuo in Haydn's Symphonies" (Early Music, Vol 18) here.

In the light of Ferneyhough's "three" rule, perhaps we had better find two more articles just to be on the safe side. One is just one and two, well, two is only two. But three! Ah! That's the magic number........

[verismissimo]

... In the light of Ferneyhough's "three" rule, perhaps we had better find two more articles just to be on the safe side. One is just one and two, well, two is only two. But three! Ah! That's the magic number........

Woke up feeling particularly sarcastic this morning, waldo?

[MickyD]

I don't know if they are the exact same notes, but you can read his article "On the Absence of Keyboard Continuo in Haydn's Symphonies" (Early Music, Vol 18) here.

In the light of Ferneyhough's "three" rule, perhaps we had better find two more articles just to be on the safe side. One is just one and two, well, two is only two. But three! Ah! That's the magic number........

Thanks, Waldo...I would suspect that the article shares pretty much the same content as the CD booklet notes, for the publishing date is around much the same time as the appearance of the first box of the AAM cycle.

[Bryn]

Woke up feeling particularly sarcastic this morning, waldo?

Indeed, after all, the HCRL/JW tussle was within, not against, the HIPP brigade.

[It's worth mentioning that the Tafelmusik/Weil recordings of the Trauer, 14 other middle period and 'Paris' symphonies recorded in the early '90s had HCRL as their "musicological and artistic consultant". Fear not, there's no keyboard continuo here. Debate happens, evidence emerges and views change. There are still many big 'HIPP' band performances and recordings of Beethoven symphonies and concertos around, yet the size of the venues in which the works were heard were far to small to hold bands of such size. Hurrah for Arthur Schoonderwoerd and Alpha!]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In the light of Ferneyhough's "three" rule, perhaps we had better find two more articles just to be on the safe side. One is just one and two, well, two is only two. But three! Ah! That's the magic number........

Well, as a "St Valentine's Weekend Offer", I'll make it easier for you if it's all proving too much: can you find even one - just one - figure from this "brigade" that you mention? I don't see how anyone could construe the Webster article you kindly link to (and for which my thanks) as beating anybody around the head, referring, as it does, to "the forces we believe Haydn wrote for" and ending "so I shall conclude by stating my opinions forcefully". The article gathers and presents the evidence and documentation that Webster has found to support his opinions - and, as it is written for a specialist Journal, it is intended for informed debate and counter-arguments; has anyone produced any evidence in support of the use of Harpsichords in the Haydn Symphonies? If not, was this because they were they all cowed by Webster's fearsome reputation as a head-basher?

Webster's position (which is that of the entire HIPP ethos) is summed up in his comment:

As scholars, we have the duty to determine the facts as far as we can and if there are no compelling reasons to the contrary, "historical" practitioners should attempt to reproduce them in performance.

It would be a feeble head that considered that it had been "beaten" by such a rational comment. It makes no demands on how "everyone" should perform the works, nor proscribes any listening preferrences - instead, it gathers evidence and says that this now offers new opportunities for those performers who wish to perform the works in a manner as close to the conditions in which their composer imagined for them (hence "'historical' practitioners").


(By the way, just to clarify, "ferneyhoughgeliebte" isn't "Ferneyhough".)