Haydn: 4-8 June

[Tony Halstead]

Haydn's keyboard and horn concertos

Err... don't 'hold your breath'; there's only ONE authenticated Haydn horn concerto and it's an early,( 1762 I think), somewhat dull piece at that, apart from its slow movement which has some lovely moments.
Even the great Dennis Brain didn't consider it worth recording (commercially - although there is a gritty, hissy old BBC tape of it with DB and the BBC Midland Light orchestra that briefly had an outing on 'BBC legends').

[Suffolkcoastal]

I agree with aeolium, Haydn is much preferable to Mozart in the symphony the string quartet and choral music. With Mozart generally preferable in the concerto, piano sonata and opera. We still don't hear enough of Haydn's operatic output though, especially as it was the mainstay of his output in the later 1770's and in to the 1780's.

[AmpH]

I particularly love Haydn's musical output, but have tended to neglect many of his concertos over the years ( suspect I may not be alone here ), so have recently been listening to this Naxos box of concertos which has proved to be a very enjoyable guide to these works. No doubt there may be better individual performances available elsewhere on labels such as Eloquence etc but these performances are well worth acquiring IMV.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8506019

[LeMartinPecheur]

Err... don't 'hold your breath'; there's only ONE authenticated Haydn horn concerto and it's an early,( 1762 I think), somewhat dull piece at that, apart from its slow movement which has some lovely moments.
Even the great Dennis Brain didn't consider it worth recording (commercially - although there is a gritty, hissy old BBC tape of it with DB and the BBC Midland Light orchestra that briefly had an outing on 'BBC legends').

waldhorn: thanks for that. I dimly thought I had two different Haydn horn concertos in my library, both on authentic instruments, but on closer inspection they're the same one, recorded by Timothy Brown/AAM and Ab Koster/L'Archibudelli Perhaps the fact that I didn't spot this bears out your comment on unmemorability!

Checking in Grove, there's a lost concerto for 2 horns from 1784: now that might be fun!

[Rolmill]

...Mozart generally preferable in the....piano sonata.

Can't agree here, I'm afraid sc - the marvels of Haydn's piano sonatas have been demonstrated by a number of recordings over the past 30 years, including Brendel, Schiff, Pletnev, Andsnes, Brautigam and (more recently) Hamelin and Bavouzet. I would also recommend Christine Schornsheim's complete period instrument set at bargain price on Capriccio. To my mind Haydn's solo piano music shows much more variety, intensity, humour and pathos than does WAM's. Which makes the reversal of this position in the piano concerto form quite strange - presumably there are reasons for this?

[JohnSkelton]

Which makes the reversal of this position in the piano concerto form quite strange - presumably there are reasons for this?

The fact that Mozart wrote most of his fortepiano concertos for public subscription concerts and had a (freelance) career as a virtuoso performer of his music (unlike Haydn) are pretty strong reasons. The form and developing the form engaged Mozart's creative and performing energies; there was no reason for that to be the case with Haydn.

[Rolmill]

The fact that Mozart wrote most of his fortepiano concertos for public subscription concerts and had a (freelance) career as a virtuoso performer of his music (unlike Haydn) are pretty strong reasons. The form and developing the form engaged Mozart's creative and performing energies; there was no reason for that to be the case with Haydn.

JS, yes that makes sense - I suppose what I don't really understand is why WAM's well known keyboard virtuosity didn't generate solo music of the range, quality and quantity of (the less virtuoso) Haydn's, or indeed of his own concertos.

[JohnSkelton]

JS, yes that makes sense - I suppose what I don't really understand is why WAM's well known keyboard virtuosity didn't generate solo music of the range, quality and quantity of (the less virtuoso) Haydn's, or indeed of his own concertos.

I agree with you in finding Haydn's sonatas fascinating and in more various ways than Mozart's (Haydn's have a more experimental feel, perhaps: they also map a wider range of styles, almost from C.P.E.Bach to Beethoven op. 2!). Not sure that's completely fair about the Mozart sonatas, though. The A minor sonata K.310 and the C minor K457 are especially significant works. The other piano pieces are very interesting, too.

[aeolium]

I love Mozart's solo keyboard music, and it does seem to me to have a lot of variety, not only within the sonatas but also the fantasias and variations and works like the Adagio in B minor K540. And the 2-piano sonata K448 is a glorious work, full of wit and a delight in the interplay between the instruments. The keyboard music does depend a great deal on the performer and perhaps has suffered from an over-precious or Dresden-china approach by some pianists. I am very fond of Gulda's recordings, mainly of the earlier sonatas, and I have enjoyed some of Andreas Staier's performances as well as some historical recordings like Lipatti's of the A minor sonata K310 and Schnabel's of K570.

[JohnSkelton]

I love Mozart's solo keyboard music, and it does seem to me to have a lot of variety, not only within the sonatas but also the fantasias and variations and works like the Adagio in B minor K540. And the 2-piano sonata K448 is a glorious work, full of wit and a delight in the interplay between the instruments. The keyboard music does depend a great deal on the performer and perhaps has suffered from an over-precious or Dresden-china approach by some pianists. I am very fond of Gulda's recordings, mainly of the earlier sonatas, and I have enjoyed some of Andreas Staier's performances as well as some historical recordings like Lipatti's of the A minor sonata K310 and Schnabel's of K570.

The 'Gulda Tapes' opened my ears to music that I'd taken for granted I knew. Staier's excellent; the Kristian Bezuidenhout recordings are good, too. Agree about the freer pieces, fantasias etc. Some of them have the feel of Mozart improvising, or of personal sketches, elaborations.

[rauschwerk]

JS, yes that makes sense - I suppose what I don't really understand is why WAM's well known keyboard virtuosity didn't generate solo music of the range, quality and quantity of (the less virtuoso) Haydn's, or indeed of his own concertos.

Had Haydn died at 35 he would have left only 14 keyboard sonatas and a couple of other pieces, none of them anywhere as momentous as Mozart's finest sonatas.

Mozart wrote concertos mostly for himself to play at concerts at which he could dazzle his public. Sonatas were not in those days performed in public - he wrote them to publish and sell to the amateur market and was more than once asked to produce 'easy' pieces which would sell readily. The fact that he was constitutionally incapable of doing this (see the notoriously tricky K576/i) does not affect the general case. That said, I'm very fond of a number of the sonatas and think that in general they have had a bad press, perhaps aided by indifferent performances.

[Roehre]

...Sonatas were not in those days performed in public - he wrote them to publish and sell to the amateur market and was more than once asked to produce 'easy' pieces which would sell readily. The fact that he was constitutionally incapable of doing this ... does not affect the general case. ....

The same applies to piano trios and piano quartets. From the latter we've got only two works, though 3 were commissioned.
That commission was cancelled after the publisher received the quartets KV478 and 493, as these were considered too difficult to play for an amateur as well as musically too difficult to understand.

[Rolmill]

Thanks for the various comments regarding the differing contexts within which Haydn and Mozart composed their piano works - they are all helpful and interesting. In particular, I take the point that widening the scope to cover all solo piano works (not just sonatas) evens the balance somewhat (though it brings Haydn's wonderful F minor variations into the equation). I also agree that too many "pretty" performances of Mozart's sonatas (especially by amateurs such as myself!) have not helped his cause. Despite all, I still can't find it in myself to accept the original contention that Mozart's piano sonatas/music are preferable to Haydn's - perhaps the honours are more even than I stated earlier, though . It's not a competion, after all...