In honor of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Haydn, Giovanni Antonini is recording all the symphonies with the Kammerorchester Basel and Il Giardino. Honestly, I think the only reason Haydn isn't always in the top ten of composers is that he just isn't gloomy enough.
THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...
2 comments:
two questions (one rhetorical):
1. Wasn't Haydn, for a short time, the most popular trans-Atlantic composer of his time during his London Symphonies period as well as well-known through copious bootleg editions of his work and
2. Wasn't during the philosophical and aesthetic shifts of the long 19th century that Haydn was politely and respectfully set off to the side by ardent proponents of the cult of Beethoven? :) Mark Evan Bonds' book The Beethoven Syndrome detailed some of the process but it seems it can be easy to forget that back in the day Haydn was probably No. 1 in his lifetime for a time.
Potential 3., since Haydn was born March 31 is this post getting him in at the start of the month for some kind of month-long memorial project? :) I surely wouldn't object since Haydn's been one of my musical heroes pretty much my whole adult life.
Yes, as I recall reading, at the time of his death in 1809 he was the most popular composer in Europe. Those were the days! As for his decline, it is almost certainly a consequence of the Romantic era's change to music with an inward focus and a tendency towards blurring formal structures and harmonic clarity. No, Wenatchee, I wasn't intending to launch a Haydn project, but that's not a bad idea. I think it was a recording of the "Drumroll" Symphony No. 103 that I purchased in 1970 or so that turned me on to Haydn. I've been a fan ever since. In the late 70s I spent an entire summer listening to nothing but the string quartets.
Post a Comment