Is Haydn the new Beethoven?

[Tetrachord]

Haydn isn't Beethoven or anybody - just himself. And this is a typical example of just how wonderful Haydn can be:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YgIccBjLZE

[aeolium]

I completely agree about the pointlessness of comparisons between composers.

I think it a pity that, while there are now many more ensembles that appreciate the quality of Haydn's string quartets, few of them are prepared to put them centre stage as it were in a concert. The Lindsays were IIRC the last ensemble to do that, indeed to mount a whole series of concerts devoted exclusively to the cycle of quartets (from op 20). I was lucky enough to attend some of those concerts at Wigmore Hall and they still stay in my memory. All too often, a Haydn quartet is seen almost as the equivalent of an overture in an orchestral concert, an hors d'oeuvre to the main course.

[cloughie]

My apologies ...


Replace "seemed to be overlooking" with "demonstrated a severe lack of appreciation for", then?

I also have a great appreciation for Haydn's works and got to know his late symphonies way back via the wonderfully vibrant Beecham recordings, which no doubt now you feel he took too many liberties with a full RPO, rather than the more minimal HIPP versions. There was also a very good 22/90 by Ansermet.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I also have a great appreciation for Haydn's works

Then why suggest that Haydn's "evolution over 104 [sic] Symphonies" was less than Beethoven's over Nine?

[Beef Oven!]

I completely agree about the pointlessness of comparisons between composers.

I agree, but that's not what I meant when I started this thread. Comparison is pointless - as I said, in the future it could just as easily be Salieri who is considered the pre-eminent, or primus inter paras, or the guvnor (the title is up to the individual and not defined necessarily by one's social class or culture). I'm just saying that I'm sensing a change.

[ahinton]

I agree, but that's not what I meant when I started this thread. Comparison is pointless - as I said, in the future it could just as easily be Salieri who is considered the pre-eminent, or primus inter paras, or the guvnor (the title is up to the individual and not defined necessarily by one's social class or culture). I'm just saying that I'm sensing a change.

OK, but a change in what, exactly? Fashion? Many composers whose work has been comparatively well known at any time will have gone in and out of fashion from time to time and will accordingly have been better and more widely represented in one era than in another; this applies in varying degrees to Bach, Haydn, Liszt, Alkan, Bruckner, Mahler, Busoni, Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams, Medtner, Roslavetz, Szymanowski, Weinberg and heaven knows who else. Changes in general public perception are one thing whereas the intrinsic value of the music itself is another.

Anyway, mindful of the German-Amercian composer and Hindemith pupil Bernhard Heiden (1910-2000), is Heiden the new Beef Oven!?

Yup - got me coat already...

[Richard Barrett]

in the future it could just as easily be Salieri who is considered the pre-eminent

But that specific turn of events is extremely unlikely - it isn't just by chance that artists are or aren't recognised as preeminent in future times. Salieri's influence on subsequent generations of composers was massive, especially in terms of establishing a musical/dramatic vocabulary for the opera of his time and beyond, in which I suppose he could easily be compared with Haydn - but there the resemblance ends I think, which exposes the limitations of looking at influence, or ground-preparing or whatever, as centrally important to a creative musician's achievement. As Aeolium says, this is often how Haydn's work is used in concerts, whether of chamber or symphonic music, with Haydn followed by Beethoven or Bruckner or whoever (to name two examples i've personally witnessed), whereas it might be more interesting to for example put Haydn at the culmination of a programme of earlier 18th century music.

[Daniel]

I love Haydn but I think he may get sidelined a bit by programmers and a broader listening public, partly because his music/melodies don't seem to be headline grabbing in the way that those of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven can be*, and partly perhaps because one senses in his music a less assertive, less demanding aspect to his psyche.

Although to my ears his music overflows with melody/wit/rhythm/compassion etc, I wonder if there's something in its nature that doesn't insist one listens in quite the way that the others do. If Haydn's played correctly but without sensitivity, would its treasures be perhaps more buried than those of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven played similarly, the latter still communicating enough of themselves to stand out somehow? Subjective and lumpish generalisations, but just wondering about a possible connection between the music and its reception.

I remember seeing an Andras Schiff recital in a school gym in Amersham somewhere in the mid 70's, when he played Haydn's G major sonata (Hob XVI :40) and feeling I had never heard such a perfect thing.

*(There is Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, but that seems a slightly different case.)

[cloughie]

Then why suggest that Haydn's "evolution over 104 [sic] Symphonies" was less than Beethoven's over Nine?

Did Haydn over his 104, produce anything on the scale of Beethoven 3, 5 or 9 as examples? To which your response will probably to baffle me with complex musical examples.

[Richard Barrett]

Did Haydn over his 104, produce anything on the scale of Beethoven 3, 5 or 9 as examples?

Why should "scale" (whatever it means in this context) be a measure of achievement?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I agree, but that's not what I meant when I started this thread. Comparison is pointless - as I said, in the future it could just as easily be Salieri who is considered the pre-eminent, or primus inter paras, or the guvnor (the title is up to the individual and not defined necessarily by one's social class or culture). I'm just saying that I'm sensing a change.

I don't think so (he said, with all the confidence of someone who is subsequently proven wrong) - Haydn was always, in name at least, revered as one of the great Classical "trinity". Even in the 19th Century, when most of his work was unplayed (and, that which was, was patronised), there was a consensus that he had a significance that Salieri never really had.

Vivaldi is another interesting figure as far as "reputation history" is concerned. In the days when just a handful of his works were performed (and then in the manner that Bach was performed - ie, as if it was Brahms) it was easy to dismiss him with the "one concerto a hundred times" jibes. Now that so many more works are known, and in such better performances ("better" in the sense that they bring out the individuality of this Music in ways that couldn't be done when only around a dozen pieces were known), Vivaldi has taken his place amongst the names of composers who repeatedly create Music that persistently delights and astonishes.

I don't think the same can happen with Salieri - BUT, I'm suddenly uncomfortably aware that I'm basing this airily confident prediction on a knowledge of considerably fewer than a dozen of his works!

[Sir Stanford]

Most of us living today were brought up on the belief that Beethoven is the guvnor. Something that I have never really questioned. However, I'm sensing something of a sea-change. Haydn seems to be the composer who more and more is being talked about in the highest of terms. This is palpable on this forum, for example. Much more talk about his string quartets these days and as for his symphonies, his are the ones that generate most interest.

Perhaps that's just the way it goes. In 200 years, the received opinion might be that Salieri is the be all and end all of classical music.

Hiya Beefy,

I'm not sure that Haydn changed the face of music like Beethoven did Beethoven.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Did Haydn over his 104, produce anything on the scale of Beethoven 3, 5 or 9 as examples? To which your response will probably to baffle me with complex musical examples.

Ah, sorry! I thought you were referring specifically to a sense of "evolution" in style and methodology over the course of the two composers' symphonic careers.

OK - if you're using length as a criterion, then yes - Haydn's Symphonies are of lesser greatness than Beethoven's. So, where does that leave Gliere's Third Symphony?

[ahinton]

I don't think so (he said, with all the confidence of someone who is subsequently proven wrong) - Haydn was always, in name at least, revered as one of the great Classical "trinity". Even in the 19th Century, when most of his work was unplayed (and, that which was, was patronised), there was a consensus that he had a significance that Salieri never really had.

Vivaldi is another interesting figure as far as "reputation history" is concerned. In the days when just a handful of his works were performed (and then in the manner that Bach was performed - ie, as if it was Brahms) it was easy to dismiss him with the "one concerto a hundred times" jibes. Now that so many more works are known, and in such better performances ("better" in the sense that they bring out the individuality of this Music in ways that couldn't be done when only around a dozen pieces were known), Vivaldi has taken his place amongst the names of composers who repeatedly create Music that persistently delights and astonishes.

I don't think the same can happen with Salieri - BUT, I'm suddenly uncomfortably aware that I'm basing this airily confident prediction on a knowledge of considerably fewer than a dozen of his works!

I believe that you're right about Haydn in what you write here. As with Vivaldi, so with Liszt and Rachmaninoff - and even, to a lesser extent, Haydn himself; household names in music whose status was once nevertheless by no means reflected in widespread appreciation of most of their works. Sorabji once wrote of Liszt that 95% of his works were unknown to the public and, at the time of writing, he was probably more or less correct, yet the musically interested public all knew well who Liszt was; he also observed, with much delight tinged with barbed criticism, that during Rachmaninoff's centenary year BBC were airing their first broadcasts of several of his works yet, again, most people had long known who Rachmaninoff was.

[ahinton]

Ah, sorry! I thought you were referring specifically to a sense of "evolution" in style and methodology over the course of the two composers' symphonic careers.

OK - if you're using length as a criterion, then yes - Haydn's Symphonies are of lesser greatness than Beethoven's. So, where does that leave Gliere's Third Symphony?

Or Brian's first? (no, not THAT Brian, whose early Symphony in B flat has never submitted itself to listener evaluation and is hardly likely to do so!)