# Haydn’s true place in music history – once lost, now regained



## Sid James

I think that Haydn was a composer who got a raw deal as regards to his position and importance in the history of music. Well, until fairly recently, that is.

At the turn of the turn of the 19th century in 1800, Haydn's reputation was at its peak. With his series of twelve symphonies premiered in London behind him, as well as some superb late quartets and the oratorios _The Creation_ and _The Seasons_, he was seen by many to be the greatest living composer of that time. His trip to the UK could be no more successful, he was granted an Doctor of Music degree by Oxford and the King of England invited him to remain permanently there. Back home, a monument was unveiled to him at his birthplace at Rohrau, which is a rare thing since monuments of that sort usually appear only once the composer is dead!

Haydn died in 1809, and in his final days with the invasion of Vienna by the French, Napoleon ordered the dying composer's house to be guarded against looting amidst the general chaos and anarchy engulfing the city. I also find this amazing, since Napoleon of course was fighting against the Austrian Habsburgs, so technically he was an enemy of Haydn.

Things began to go awry once Papa was dead. Of course Haydn's old pupil Beethoven had already begun to make his mark, with music that was much more in tune with the heroic and revolutionary spirit of those times.

As the 19th century wore on though, the situation as regards to Haydn's contribution got worse and worse. His contribution to music was downplayed by many writers on music, and that of Beethoven and the Romantics coming after was upgraded. Haydn was seen as nothing much more as a jokester playing tricks with Eszterhazy's court orchestra for something like forty years. Some saw him as nothing much more than a kind of midwife to the 'real' composer who he taught, Beethoven. Even Mozart's reputation seems to have fared better during that time, and again Haydn had taught him as well.

One critic, Adolf Marx, said that Haydn's music was merely "the childlike blissful play…[that] enabled Beethoven to unlock the spiritual depths." Brahms groupie Eduard Hanslick said Haydn was nothing much more than a composer who pandered to public tastes and was too frightened to take the bold steps that Beethoven did.

The late 19th century saw somewhat of a turning of the tide. Composers such as Saint-Saens, Bizet, Grieg, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky began an enquiry into the Classical Era (listen to the latter two's Serenades for strings, which are basically homages to Mozart). I see them as keepers of the flame until Neo-Classicism proper came into force in the 20th century. The 'back to Bach' movement around the same time is also of importance to all this, that was of course instigated by Mendelssohn in the mid 19th century.

By the mid 20th century, the legacy of Haydn and Mozart came to be more respected. More composers and writers on music saw them for what they where - great composers with their own unique aesthetic and ways of doing things, and as amongst the most important innovators of Western classical music. It seems their only 'sins' in the eyes of the Romantics and some Modernists was that they belonged to a bygone era that valued restraint, gracefulness and charm above angst, overt emotion and a near obsession with profundity and depth.

Getting back to Haydn, after about 1945 it was recognized that his late symphonies prefigured in embryonic form what Beethoven was to do later. Not only in terms of using 40 to 60 piece orchestras which had immense sound and had the most intricate writing to date for instruments such as the wind sections - especially the then new clarinet and also the bassoon - and also treating things like counterpoint in a totally fresh way.

These works also displayed levels of thematic unity and highly flexible treatments of sonata form that had only been previously seen in Mozart's late symphonies. Haydn also greatly downgraded the role of the harpsichord in keeping time and the often tonally vague openings of his symphonies again look forward to not only Beethoven but also Schubert, Bruckner and even Mahler. Haydn's incorporation of sounds garnered from nature, his replication of instruments found in taverns and on street corners (from zithers to bagpipe drones and more) and incorporation of music drawn from vernacular and folk sources are also of importance here.

Another important element in all this is that in effect, Haydn worked as a freelance in London. His concerts where amongst the first public concerts there, certainly amongst the first concerts of orchestral music, of symphonies. A similar thing could be said of Mozart in his final years. Previously, historians had glossed over this and promoted Beethoven to be the first 'true' freelance to successfully break away from serving the aristocracy (yet most of his patrons where in fact aristocrats, albeit enlightened ones - but so was Papa's, no?).

I can go on (and here, I have mainly focused on his symphonies!). By the time Antal Dorati committed a complete survey of Haydn's symphonies to disc in the 1970's, it seems that the injustices of the past had been rectified. But more was to come. Haydn's music, like Bruckner's, had a big problem in terms of the inconsistencies between various editions of scores. So Dorati's - and indeed Beecham's, Klemperer's and other illustrious conductors interpretations - where often based on erroneous editions. These where not dealt with fully until the late 1970's, and since then the HIP (Historically Informed Perfomrance) brigade have made great strides in this area too.

One other thing, if I may further indulge, was Haydn's missing skull. Only days after he died, his head was decapitated by a former friend, Joseph Carl Rosenbaum. He was an amateur practitioner of the pseudo science of phrenology - which argued that the size and shape of a person's skull determined his intelligence. Rosenbaum's wife Therese, who had been Mozart's first Queen of the night, kept the skull in a glass case and bought it out for display at her private soirees. Nice!

When Haydn's body came to be moved to another cemetery in 1820, Haydn's former employer Prince Nikolaus Eszterhazy II was shocked that the head was missing. The casket was opened and all they found was an empty wig! The police searched Mrs. Rosenbaum's house but she hid it under her mattress whilst lying on it, and Rosenbaum himself managed to fool them into accepting a skull that was not Haydn's.

The real skull eventually switched hands and was later owned by the Vienna Society of the Friends of Music. In 1954, Paul Eszterhazy succeeded in reuniting the real skull with Haydn's remains. So after 145 years, Papa got his skull back, but the fake skull is still buried with him!

Maybe the bizarre story of Haydn's skull is like a metaphor for the initial negation and subsequent restoration of the man's music to the pantheon of the great composers? I see it like that, in a weird sort of way, and the dates roughly correspond.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this article! Comments on it are very welcome! What do you all think?

Sources:

Article on Haydn by Cecil Gray (Pelican, 1949).

Article on "Haydn's Missing Head" in Limelight Magazine, August 2013 issue.

Section on Haydn's London Symphonies by Martin Bookspan in his book "101 Masterpieces of Music and their composers" (Dolphin, 1973).


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## kv466

Thanks for sharing, 'Dre! I love me some good Haydn


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## Vesteralen

Yes..Thanks for the research. The parts about his assessment by later generations was somewhat new to me, but I had heard about the head before.  Bizarre, isn't it?

The neat thing about Haydn, for me, is that within the confines of what we today see as a very constricted musical language, he still found a way to fascinate. As far as I'm concerned, the very best of Mozart is better than the very best of Haydn. But, the most boring bit of Haydn is infinitely more listenable than the most boring bit of Mozart.


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## Ramako

A good read!

Haydn has clearly seen a huge restoration over the past 50 years particularly.

One figure who was a Haydn fan in the 19th century was Brahms, who wrote a theme and variations on what he believed to have been a theme to him. Various recent writers have tried to make out that the attitude was condescending, but I must admit I don't quite buy it. As a nod to that this famous portrait is in the Haydnhaus in Vienna.









My tutor complains that there aren't very many good articles on Haydn: instead they all talk a lot about the image of 'Papa Haydn', or 'Sturm und Drang', or use him to attack the Romantics. The recent trend has been to spurn formal analysis, so there aren't that many writings focussing on his works from a purely musical stand point (Webster's book on Haydn's Farewell symphony, and excellent though it is it was written over 20 years ago, remains constantly quoted because it seems to be the only book that actually talks about his pre-late style _music_ in any detail). This means that his works remain under-analysed. This stands in contrast to his contemporary Mozart, and of course his successor Beethoven, both of whom have been analysed exhaustively.

So I think there is plenty of room for Haydn to ascend even further!


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## KenOC

Ramako said:


> My tutor complains that there aren't very many good articles on Haydn: instead they all talk a lot about the image of 'Papa Haydn', or 'Sturm und Drang', or use him to attack the Romantics...


John Runciman wrote a book on Haydn over a century ago. It's a download, free from Amazon and may also be available from Project Gutenberg. It lacks all recent Haydn scholarship but otherwise should be pretty good. Haven't read it yet!

http://www.amazon.com/Haydn-ebook/d...qid=1377624216&sr=1-1&keywords=runciman+haydn


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## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> John Runciman wrote a book on Haydn over a century ago. It's a download, free from Amazon and may also be available from Project Gutenberg. It lacks all recent Haydn scholarship but otherwise should be pretty good.


I'll add it to the list--thanks for the recommendation. I think Project Gutenberg also has some writings by D.F. Tovey on Haydn, who I've always found worth reading. Also, I just noticed yesterday that they're selling very cheap used copies of Charles Rosen's The Classical Style on abebooks, which has a great tutorial in how to listen to Haydn's string quartets. Neither of these are up to date, of course.

By the way, Haydn's collected letters are entertaining and well worth the read.


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## Ramako

KenOC said:


> John Runciman wrote a book on Haydn over a century ago. It's a download, free from Amazon and may also be available from Project Gutenberg. It lacks all recent Haydn scholarship but otherwise should be pretty good. Haven't read it yet!
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Haydn-ebook/d...qid=1377624216&sr=1-1&keywords=runciman+haydn


I have downloaded it.

To put things in context, though, I have a 35 page document which simply _lists_ (some of the) things written about Beethoven's Eroica symphony. Haydn just doesn't have that attention. I'm not sure all the things written about Haydn's music adds up to the amount written about the Eroica, although the late works garner a lot more attention than earlier ones.


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## Sid James

Thanks for all your responses, and for reading my article.

With this article, my plan was to convey some of the ways in which Haydn lost the respect he had at the end of his life, and how it was eventually regained. I mentioned some things such as the nature of his music and employment which prejudiced the view of people coming after, those believing in aspects of Romantic and Modernist ideology.

Some other things didn’t help Haydn, nor many composers of the Baroque and Classical eras throughout the 19th century until the mid 20th century. I suppose the idea of art for art’s sake is one. The notion that music is just music, without any purpose and ultimately negating the need for an audience. This idea would have been anathema to Haydn, Mozart and so on. Ironically, Stravinsky’s famous quote about music being about nothing but itself feeds into this. I say ironic because he was one of the foremost Neo Classicists, of course. However it is true that Neo Classicism came about in good part as a reaction against the perceived excesses of late Romanticism. So Stravinsky's line is understandable, he saw Haydn's and Mozart's music as being wholly objective.

The composers who wrote ‘music made to order’ where acutely aware of the different purposes of different types of music. A divertimento’s length and complexity, for example, could vary according to the occasion for which it was composed. If it was simply as accompaniment to a game of cards played after dinner, it would most likely be short and for a small chamber sized group. If it was for a grand occasion like a wedding, larger forces would be called for, as well as more movements and perhaps soloists.

This sort of thinking applies to all the genres in which the pre-Beethoven composers worked in. In terms of sacred music, knowledge of such purposes was totally necessary, composers often given a limited time to work with (otherwise the length of the church service, with music plus everything else, would blow out in terms of length). Witness how Bach's Mass in B minor was not performed as part of a mass or as anything else. Art for art's sake in Bach's time had little use, so things like that are wholly unique in that era. 

Generally, there was no such thing as art for art’s sake pre-Beethoven. That came to be known as composers began to conduct other composers’ – often dead composers’ – music rather than their own. Also to teach it. This trend really got going in the late 19th century. Many composers at that time earned their living not from their own compositions, or not so much from performing their own compositions, but from playing and conducting others music (especially that of dead guys). Or teaching it at universities. So music made to order kind of went out the window, if it hadn’t already. So too a composer focusing on his own music.

So you get what I was alluding to in my opening post. How Romanticism and later Modernism downgraded Haydn’s contribution to music largely for ideological reasons. They looked back upon music of previous eras and said that they where tainted by money, by composers merely being the equivalent of sewing machines churning out music, and of course such music cannot be worth much, can it? It can’t be ‘real’ or profound. It can only be for tricks, for jokes and entertainment. These types of fallacies and distortions, allied with the ivory tower mentality, relegated Haydn to the dustbin of history – to being a relic or museum piece ‘curio’ like his ill-fated skull – for a long time.

Haydn got the rawest deal here, and also Boccherini, who was called ‘Haydn’s wife.’ In other words, just rehash of Haydn, which isn’t true.

Another thing is that Haydn’s life wasn’t without some struggle, and neither was Mozart’s. 

Haydn was actually one of the very few composers who grew up in abject poverty (most composers where or are middle or even upper class, in other words born into financially well off or at least comfortable families). Papa’s father was also a bully, he was beaten regularly, and he was one of twelve children. There must have been many mouths to feed and many nights without dinner in that family! It was sheer luck that a better off relative, a cousin, noticed Haydn’s musical talent and sent him to a distant town to study music. Haydn never received a formal musical education, however he sang in a church choir and eventually took up playing instruments as well.

Mozart was not poor but his childhood was more or less spent traveling from one place to another, entertaining the aristocracy of Europe. Travel in those days was arduous and grueling, not just a matter of getting on a plane or train and traveling in comfort as we do today. Carriages could easily get bogged down in mud, since the roads where often bad, and if you had shoddy suspension you where literally thrown around the carriage like a test dummy. Wolfie’s dad was also a bully in the sense that he pushed his son – and daughter – to perform, thus exploiting them to the max.

In the early 20th century, as I mentioned, Classical and Baroque era composers contribution to music became more and more recognized, and also became a source of influence for many composers. In some ways, the politically and economically unstable inter-war period slowed down the rapidity of this more helpful assessment of history. Composers, like everyone else, where fighting in an age of extremes – Fascism on the one hand, Stalinism on the other.

Once World War II was over, things got better. Technological developments such as the long playing vinyl records meant that people could listen to music, including pre-Beethoven stuff, and discover the riches it offered with repeated listening.

To conclude, I would encourage what people have been talking about above, of getting your hands on analysis of Haydn’s symphonies – or Mozart’s for that matter. The book which the Cecil Gray article on Haydn is from is very good, and the Bookspan one is good too. The former is titled The Symphony (edited by Ralph Hill) and has articles on symphonies from Mozart and Haydn through to composers of the mid 20th century who where still alive when it was published in 1949 – Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Bax. There is some interesting stuff there, such as the article on Liszt by Humphrey Searle, the British serialist. In his analysis of the Faust Symphony, Searle (in effect) shows how Liszt prefigured Schoenberg's 'invention' of serialism by something like 80 years with that work, incorporating melodies derived from all 12 tones of the chromatic scale.

So many of the innovations of the 20th century where prefigured in that way by innovations of the 19th century. Same goes for the 19th century, composers like Haydn and Mozart in the 18th century in effect foresaw what came to be done in the next century. But have they been given proper credit for that? Or is innovation something just 'born now,' bought about a heroic composer who nobody understands? This may be good fodder for cult builders or for a movie, but more often than not history and reality as it happened was very different.

I see the fact that so many people don’t know, or don’t seem to know, the sheer volume of innovation, audacity, creativity in the “warhorse” type repertoire to be a real shame. Its as if, because everybody (or almost everybody here?) knows for example Haydn’s late works, we think they’re free of content, they’re just innocuous ear candy. This ironically is at a time when we got more recordings of the stuff than ever before. My parent’s generation, not to speak of my grandparent’s, had just a fraction of recordings I have. However what they had they tended to know well, there was a genuine knowledge of things there, the basics, which I think gets weaker with every generation.

I am not speaking as an expert or a snob. You all would most likely own more Haydn than I do or ever did, judging from what many of you regularly post on current listening thread. I have probably listened to more of his stuff on radio over the years compared to what I own on cd. However in recent years I have been increasingly bolstering my collection of his music and other “essential classics” type stuff. I am now slowly going through books and rediscovering them, their content, history and innovations. It is fascinating and I am hearing these things almost as if they’re fresh and new to me. But the thing is, if you don’t read about this stuff, how do you know what amazing things these composers did? That’s what kills the formalist ‘art for art’s sake’ type ideology for me, totally. If you don’t know what is the content of the music – and you can’t know just from listening, not even expert musicians can – then what’s the point of the whole exercise, beyond just providing ear candy?

But there is hope in that books, liner notes, internet and so on can be very informative about these things. We also have a wealth of recordings and opportunity to go to concerts is another thing. There are many resources out there to discover the music and get rid of the accretions of ideology and agenda-driven thinking which has sadly been a hallmark of classical music and its often divisive history.

Anyway I will leave you with that point, it is a digression, but goes to explain how I came to write this essay in the first place.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

Ramako said:


> A good read!
> 
> Haydn has clearly seen a huge restoration over the past 50 years particularly.
> 
> One figure who was a Haydn fan in the 19th century was Brahms, who wrote a theme and variations on what he believed to have been a theme to him. Various recent writers have tried to make out that the attitude was condescending, but I must admit I don't quite buy it. As a nod to that this famous portrait is in the Haydnhaus in Vienna.
> 
> View attachment 23683
> 
> 
> My tutor complains that there aren't very many good articles on Haydn: instead they all talk a lot about the image of 'Papa Haydn', or 'Sturm und Drang', or use him to attack the Romantics. The recent trend has been to spurn formal analysis, so there aren't that many writings focussing on his works from a purely musical stand point (Webster's book on Haydn's Farewell symphony, and excellent though it is it was written over 20 years ago, remains constantly quoted because it seems to be the only book that actually talks about his pre-late style _music_ in any detail). This means that his works remain under-analysed. This stands in contrast to his contemporary Mozart, and of course his successor Beethoven, both of whom have been analysed exhaustively.
> 
> So I think there is plenty of room for Haydn to ascend even further!


Brahms was a great admirer of Haydn, actually. In his late life he complained about how misunderstood Haydn was and said that '100 years ago, he wrote all of our music' - I'm not sure if the quote is exact, but that was the sense of what he said. Brahms held the Op. 20 quartets in very high regard.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

Ramako said:


> I have downloaded it.
> 
> To put things in context, though, I have a 35 page document which simply _lists_ (some of the) things written about Beethoven's Eroica symphony. Haydn just doesn't have that attention. I'm not sure all the things written about Haydn's music adds up to the amount written about the Eroica, although the late works garner a lot more attention than earlier ones.


As great as the Eroica is, I enjoy listening to any London symphony more, hehe.


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## Sid James

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> As great as the Eroica is, I enjoy listening to any London symphony more, hehe.


Well that reflects what is apparently a famous quote in the notes to one of my Haydn cd's. The French painter Jean Ingres was a devotee of Haydn and said this about him: "Whoever studies music, let his daily bread be Haydn. Beethoven, indeed, is admirable, he is incomparable, but he has not the same usefulness as Haydn. He is not a necessity."

That quote feeds into the conversations about Brahms as well. I hear many similarities between Haydn and Brahms. For example, that autumnal quality in Brahms'string writing, I can hear a kind of precursor to that in Haydn's string quartets. There's also that kind of vigorous counterpoint, for example in the final movement of Papa's Emperor Quartet, and that kind of thing can be found all over Brahms' own chamber music, especially the final movements. There's also the Hungarian gypsy type element (especially in terms of rhythm) that's common to both of them, both of them incorporated it into their music. Haydn growing up on what is now Austria's border with Hungary and Croatia, and of course working at Eszterhazy's palace in Hungary, and Brahms having some musician friends from Hungary, notably Joachim and Remenyi. Brahms evidently liked going to Hungary to perform his music, he loved the culture and the people, and he was feted there.

Haydn influenced many composers, he's one of the bedrocks of symphonic and string quartet genres. Mozart is another. Although Haydn didn't actually invent these - you know the saying that he's the "father"of these genres - he and Mozart elevated them from being mere entertainments to something more substantial. The string quartet started life as the divertimento, whilst the instrumental symphony as the overture (although its choral precursors go back to the Renaissance, to Gabrieli for example).

Another thing I'd add is Brahms was another one of those early types of neo-classicists. Mendelssohn was similar in the first part of the 19th century. Brahms'quote about Bach's chaconne for solo violin bears this out. He wrote to Clara Schumann "On a system for a small instrument, a man writes a whohle world of the deepest thoughts and the most tremendous emotions. If I could imagine that I could have accomplished such a thing, could have conceived it within myself, I know surely that the excitement and the shock would have driven me insane."

Notice how Brahms focuses on the emotional qualities of Bach, whilst people like Stravinsky looked at the Baroque and Classical eras as more or less objective, a move away from the emotional qualities inherent in Romanticism. I am kind of conflating that inquiry back to the Baroque and Classical eras because it kind of happened at once, althogh Haydn had to wait longer than Bach to be given his full due as one of the great composers.


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## rborganist

Those who would downgrade Haydn--and I see this as at last part of the point of this excellent essay--forget that without Haydn's developments in the string quartet and the symphony, Beethoven and Brahms would have had no starting point. Certainly if Beethoven had invented the symphony and the string quartet, musical history, not to mention Bethoven's work itself, would be very different. I am very glad the Mendelssohn resurrected Bach's work which probably--if I am reading the article correctly--paved the way for giving Haydn his proper due.


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## Roi N

If there is one thing that I never understood is the treatment Hanslick gave Haydn. Hanslick was perhaps the greatest conservative to ever live, and one expects him to praise Haydn. I think Hanslick just didn't know most of Haydn's better works (most were lost for a long time, I believe only 25 of his symphonies were known at that time), because if he had seen all the marvelous works Haydn composed, he wouldv'e used Haydn as his cavalry, not Brahms.


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## elgar's ghost

I don't know if the comment attributed to Hanslick is a quote or paraphrase but I would have thought the prospect of any composer taking 'bold steps' would have given him apoplexy.


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## TinyTim

A book about Haydn and his music, written for the general reader, has just been published, _Playing Before the Lord: The Life and Work of Joseph Haydn_(Eerdmans) by Calvin Stapert, a professor emeritus of music at Calvin College. I read and liked his book on Handel's Messiah, and am looking forward to reading this book on Haydn.


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## Vaneyes

TinyTim said:


> A book about Haydn and his music, written for the general reader, has just been published, _Playing Before the Lord: The Life and Work of Joseph Haydn_(Eerdmans) by Calvin Stapert, a professor emeritus of music at Calvin College. I read and liked his book on Handel's Messiah, and am looking forward to reading this book on Haydn.


Thanks, Tim...and just how Tiny might you be?


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## hpowders

I think I have that Haydn hidden somewhere...


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## Funny

One thing lost in discussions of Haydn's formal innovations (which were actually many), his defining of the standard for symphonic structure and/or instrumentation, is that he was developing to a very high degree an aesthetic that wound up getting completely steamrolled (and no, not by a Mannheim steamroller) in the 19th century, nearly forgotten until John Cage brought it back to the forefront in the 1940s. And that is music as a collaboration between composer and listener (as well as, but in a different way, its performers).

Haydn's "games" or "tricks" that he was so known for are often gags explicitly based on listener expectations. In the fakeout ending and fakeout continuation of the "joke" quartet, in the 'surprise' chord that is so gratuitously inserted into a quiet second movement, in the rhythmic fakeout of the finale of Symphony 80, in the many moment-to-moment times he turns 180 degrees from the direction you expect the phrase to go - all these are acknowledgments that he knows what you (based on the cliches that he has to work with) are going to expect and that he has subverted them. It becomes a kind of conversation between him and you, the listener, with him breaking the fourth wall to elbow you directly in the ribs - "get it?" This wasn't something only he came up with, of course - it was part of the 18th century's context of music as a social nexus - but he carried it further and pulled it off better than anyone else.

The 19th-century aesthetic inaugurated by Beethoven had no room for this, because Romanticism was focused inwardly, on the uniquely brilliant psyche of the individual composer, set on a pedestal for the mass public to admire from afar. So much of Haydn's true contribution (not to downplay his other very important contributions) has been essentially forgotten as he's reduced to, and dismissed as, "the jokester" who wrote simple, fun, pleasant confections.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

Funny said:


> One thing lost in discussions of Haydn's formal innovations (which were actually many), his defining of the standard for symphonic structure and/or instrumentation, is that he was developing to a very high degree an aesthetic that wound up getting completely steamrolled (and no, not by a Mannheim steamroller) in the 19th century, nearly forgotten until John Cage brought it back to the forefront in the 1940s. And that is music as a collaboration between composer and listener (as well as, but in a different way, its performers).
> 
> Haydn's "games" or "tricks" that he was so known for are often gags explicitly based on listener expectations. In the fakeout ending and fakeout continuation of the "joke" quartet, in the 'surprise' chord that is so gratuitously inserted into a quiet second movement, in the rhythmic fakeout of the finale of Symphony 80, in the many moment-to-moment times he turns 180 degrees from the direction you expect the phrase to go - all these are acknowledgments that he knows what you (based on the cliches that he has to work with) are going to expect and that he has subverted them. It becomes a kind of conversation between him and you, the listener, with him breaking the fourth wall to elbow you directly in the ribs - "get it?" This wasn't something only he came up with, of course - it was part of the 18th century's context of music as a social nexus - but he carried it further and pulled it off better than anyone else.
> 
> The 19th-century aesthetic inaugurated by Beethoven had no room for this, because Romanticism was focused inwardly, on the uniquely brilliant psyche of the individual composer, set on a pedestal for the mass public to admire from afar. So much of Haydn's true contribution (not to downplay his other very important contributions) has been essentially forgotten as he's reduced to, and dismissed as, "the jokester" who wrote simple, fun, pleasant confections.


To me, Haydn's humour is the greatest thing in classical music. It's utterly different and original, very few composers have that conversational aspect - another, actually, is Telemann. Telemann's humour was quite similar to Haydn's. Haydn's twists, turns and unexpected whims make his music eternally fresh. On top of that, he could write some beautiful melodies as well. A truly great composer.


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## KenOC

Haydn's reputation certainly suffered in the early 19th century. Schumann described Haydn this way: "...an old family friend whom one receives gladly and respectfully but who has nothing new to tell us."


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## HaydnBearstheClock

KenOC said:


> Haydn's reputation certainly suffered in the early 19th century. Schumann described Haydn this way: "...an old family friend whom one receives gladly and respectfully but who has nothing new to tell us."


I've recently read another quote by Schumann though - something along the lines of - in Haydn's lush fruit gardens, there are some trees so heavily laden that they are very difficult to pass by.

Foolish arrogant Schumann. However, his metaphor is quite humourous, hehe. I do like Schumann's music but I guess the romantics at the time were quite militant in 'rejecting' the structured, classical style - even though their own style came directly out of it.


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## hpowders

Yeah. That was characteristic of the time. Huge egos. The Romantics lead by Schumann thought their way was better than just about all who came before them.


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## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> Yeah. That was characteristic of the time. Huge egos. The Romantics lead by Schumann thought their way was better than just about all who came before them.


Schumann generally writes with reverence for Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, saving most of his critical comments for lesser imitators of them. And, while he can be opinionated, it's not surprising that the creator of Eusebius and Florestan should be ambivalent. He was a restless reviser of his own works--often, critics suggest, ironing out what was most original in his work--out of a lack of confidence. When he does try out conventional forms, his debts to his predecessors are evident.

Not sure why Schumann's being singled out for criticism here! He suffered enough!


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## Andreas

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> To me, Haydn's humour is the greatest thing in classical music. It's utterly different and original, very few composers have that conversational aspect - another, actually, is Telemann. Telemann's humour was quite similar to Haydn's. Haydn's twists, turns and unexpected whims make his music eternally fresh. On top of that, he could write some beautiful melodies as well. A truly great composer.


His humour might have been part of the problem. Haydn perhaps just seemed too happy and light-hearted. If you think of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, they were all tragic personalities in one way or another. They were battling diseases, died young, went deaf, depressed or insane. Now I'm sure Haydn had his fair share of personal issues. But compared to the _tragedy chic_ of the 19th century, he didn't seem very intriguing.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

Andreas said:


> His humour might have been part of the problem. Haydn perhaps just seemed too happy and light-hearted. If you think of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, they were all tragic personalities in one way or another. They were battling diseases, died young, went deaf, depressed or insane. Now I'm sure Haydn had his fair share of personal issues. But compared to the _tragedy chic_ of the 19th century, he didn't seem very intriguing.


Yes, but he's a musician!! It should be about the music and not about his personal life.


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## hpowders

Andreas said:


> His humour might have been part of the problem. Haydn perhaps just seemed too happy and light-hearted. If you think of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, they were all tragic personalities in one way or another. They were battling diseases, died young, went deaf, depressed or insane. Now I'm sure Haydn had his fair share of personal issues. But compared to the _tragedy chic_ of the 19th century, he didn't seem very intriguing.


Yes. So what? What's wrong with being "normal"?


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## Funny

hpowders said:


> Yes. So what? What's wrong with being "normal"?


I think what Andreas was saying is that in the 19th century in particular, "tragedy chic" and general concerns around a composer's personal life came to the fore, probably more than was warranted, such that from the lens of that cultural period, earlier composers with a fascinating backstory, such as Mozart, were given more attention and prominence than those who merely produced fascinating music. I wouldn't disagree with that.


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## Neward Thelman

Ramako said:


> A good read!
> 
> Haydn has clearly seen a huge restoration over the past 50 years particularly.
> 
> One figure who was a Haydn fan in the 19th century was Brahms, who wrote a theme and variations on what he believed to have been a theme to him. Various recent writers have tried to make out that the attitude was condescending, but I must admit I don't quite buy it. As a nod to that this famous portrait is in the Haydnhaus in Vienna.
> 
> View attachment 23683
> 
> 
> The recent trend has been to spurn formal analysis,
> So I think there is plenty of room for Haydn to ascend even further!


I read quite a bit of technical music analysis - I haven't seen any sign of the trend to which you refer. Would you provide more info? Very curious.

"room for Haydn to ascend even further" - Probably true, but from my point of view, Haydn's reputation is already enormously high. Everyone - short of those who just don't respond to powdered wig era music [I'm somewhat among them] lionizes Haydn.

The HIP crowd have distorted his symphonies, but they've also extended his popularity to even greater heights. Perhaps you'd like to see more academic analysis, and that's what you're talking about.


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## Neward Thelman

elgars ghost said:


> I don't know if the comment attributed to Hanslick is a quote or paraphrase but I would have thought the prospect of any composer taking 'bold steps' would have given him apoplexy.


Hah. Correct.

Severius!



hpowders said:


> Yes. So what? What's wrong with being "normal"?


Correct. The composer's life should have no bearing on how his or her music appeals to listeners.

Most folks don't like music because of some composer's life story.



HaydnBearstheClock said:


> Yes, but he's a musician!! It should be about the music and not about his personal life.


Agree. Correct.



hpowders said:


> Yeah. That was characteristic of the time. Huge egos. The Romantics lead by Schumann thought their way was better than just about all who came before them.


Wrong.

What they thought was what every new generation of artists thinks: with a nod to the past, they focus on the artistic expression relevant to their own time --- and forward. Even the rockers do that.


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## Neward Thelman

Roi N said:


> If there is one thing that I never understood is the treatment Hanslick gave Haydn. Hanslick was perhaps the greatest conservative to ever live, and one expects him to praise Haydn. I think Hanslick just didn't know most of Haydn's better works (most were lost for a long time, I believe only 25 of his symphonies were known at that time), because if he had seen all the marvelous works Haydn composed, he wouldv'e used Haydn as his cavalry, not Brahms.


The 19th century was very different from our time. Even when composers, crititcs, musicians, academics, etc. displayed an interest in, and/or a reverence for, past eras and past artists, it was with a very, very different mentality than ours.

Hanlick's cardinal points for the planet earth, the solar system, the universe, and the whole of his life was Beethoven. That led him towards composers such as Brahms.

But again, most everyone during the 19th cent shared a deep reverence for Beethoven - and were in turn influenced by him - all in different, and individual ways. For example, Brahm's symphonically polar opposite - Bruckner - also based his life on Beethoven.

Haydn had very different meaning to the Romantic century. That's why parts of Sid James's post is slightly incorrect. It's very important not to overlay present day orientation and thinking upon the past.


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## Neward Thelman

Ramako said:


> a 35 page document which simply lists some of the things written about Beethoven's Eroica symphony. Haydn just doesn't have that attention. I'm not sure all the things written about Haydn's music adds up to the amount written about the Eroica, although the late works garner a lot more attention than earlier ones.


"a 35 page document which simply lists some of the things written about Beethoven's Eroica"

Amazing, isn't it? And, you're correct; just *some* of the writings. Everything written - a ton of it in German - along with French, Russian, etc., etc., would fill a tome.

"Haydn just doesn't have that attention"

Nobody does. Nobody. The next runners up might be Mozart and Mahler. Classical "rock" stars. After that, everyone else - trailing behind.

Don't feel badly. As popular as Tchaik is, his 3rd sym and 2nd piano con - favs of mine - are hardly even noticed.



Funny said:


> completely steamrolled (and no, not by a Mannheim steamroller)
> 
> Haydn's "games" or "tricks" that he was so known for are often gags explicitly based on listener expectations...in the many moment-to-moment times he turns 180 degrees from the direction you expect the phrase to go - all these are acknowledgments that he knows what you (based on the cliches that he has to work with) are going to expect and that he has subverted them. It becomes a kind of conversation between him and you, the listener
> 
> The 19th-century aesthetic inaugurated by Beethoven had no room for this, because Romanticism was focused inwardly, on the uniquely brilliant psyche of the individual composer, set on a pedestal for the mass public to admire from afar..


"completely steamrolled (and no, not by a Mannheim steamroller) "

The Mannheim Orchestra was one of the crucibles of the classical era symphonic style - perhaps the most important - since it provided Haydn himself the foundation on which he built his art.

"moment-to-moment times he turns 180 degrees from the direction you expect "

Excellent point. Thanks.

"Romanticism was focused inwardly"

Do you buy that? It's exactly what's been written about Romantic era poetry, prose, painting, and of course music. Especially music. At least for music, that's pretty much the judgement passed on the century since at some early point in the 20th cent [would you happen to know exactly when? My guess would be after WWI, since before that, composers were still more or less part of the 19th cent - even when, like Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc. - they were mightily breaking away from it].

That little kernel of cliche's in pretty much every history and treatise on Romanticism. Ever question it, tho? Ever try to think "out side the box", as they say these days?

I don't buy it. I think it's total crap.

Here's an idea. Far from being focused "inwardly", the 19th cent - in all of the arts - turned it's gaze --- inclusively. It swept up all of the emotions, the thoughts, the experiences, the perceptions of human kind. All of that - *that* - made the music of the 19th cent what it was. It made it more human - because it was closer to the human experience --- of life.

That's why romantic music continues to dominate music to this very day - from cinema [especially] to rock and roll. Think about it - rock and roll surely isn't in any classical mold - nor the mold of any other period - except the Romantic era.

So - where does that leave us? The classical era has been called universal; it's music is "universal".

Really? You know many folks listening to it? It's highly available. Anyone may hear tons of it at any time. Yet, most folks prefer music from Beethoven and forward in time.

I've done observational studies of my own over many years. Most folks, if played a piece by Haydn or even Mozart and played a piece by Tchaik or even Saint-Saens will show a marked preference for the latter group.

Think about it: when was the last time you heard a classical film score? Yet, romantic ones are the rule - every other movie has one [Hollywood's other option's rock and roll - a degenerated form of romanticism].

Several years ago I worked for a real piece of crap company which played music in the office 24 hours/day. The music they chose wasn't some form of rock. Incredibly, it was all 100% classical era stuff. All of the employees hated it. HATED IT. Their perception of it was that it was cheery, squeaky, souless fluff. As my co-worker who sat across from me said, "Irritating, isn't it?".

Sure, they'd have prefer cowntry or some other awful form of pop/rock - but that's not the point. The point's how they perceived that music. Not as background noise - but as an irritant.

So much for the universality of the classical era.

I'm not saying that I dislike the classical era, or that I'm hostile to it. I am, however, saying that both the classical and romantic eras have been seriously misunderstood and mis-characterized, and it's high time we got it right.



HaydnBearstheClock said:


> I've recently read another quote by Schumann though - something along the lines of - in Haydn's lush fruit gardens, there are some trees so heavily laden that they are very difficult to pass by.
> 
> Foolish arrogant Schumann. However, his metaphor is quite humourous, hehe. I do like Schumann's music but I guess the romantics at the time were quite militant in 'rejecting' the structured, classical style - even though their own style came directly out of it.


You completely misunderstand the early romantic period. Doing so will prevent you from understanding any other subsequent artistic period.

Schumann, in addition to being a composer [and one of the greatest], was also a music critic and music writer. His writings that I've read show enormous insight into music - and have helped to shape my own views.

"militant in 'rejecting' the structured, classical style"

So, you're suggesting that time should've gone backwards. 50 years after Haydn's death, music and the arts should've stopped its direction, and gone backwards --- straight into the classical period?

Let me ask you something. Did Haydn dive straight back into the Baroque?

What the early romantics were doing was discovering a new mode expression in music. Every era does that - in almost every style - even in rock and roll [as primitive as it is]. Even the so-called neo-classicism of the early to mid 20th century is still a move forward. No one would ever mistake Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex or even Prokofiev's Sym 1 for a Haydn piece.

Schumann was hardly "foolish arrogant" [sic]. He was, in actuality, a creative genius and an insightful arbiter on musical issues. Our role - yours and mine - is to gather enough IQ to try to understand and appreciate what he wrote - in prose as well as in music.



Sid James said:


> Another thing I'd add is Brahms was another one of those early types of neo-classicists. Mendelssohn was similar in the first part of the 19th century. Brahms'quote about Bach's chaconne for solo violin bears this out. He wrote to Clara Schumann "On a system for a small instrument, a man writes a whohle world of the deepest thoughts and the most tremendous emotions. If I could imagine that I could have accomplished such a thing, could have conceived it within myself, I know surely that the excitement and the shock would have driven me insane."
> 
> Notice how Brahms focuses on the emotional qualities of Bach, whilst people like Stravinsky looked at the Baroque and Classical eras as more or less objective, a move away from the emotional qualities inherent in Romanticism. I am kind of conflating that inquiry back to the Baroque and Classical eras because it kind of happened at once, althogh Haydn had to wait longer than Bach to be given his full due as one of the great composers.


"Another thing I'd add is Brahms was another one of those early types of neo-classicists."

Incorrect. You're not the first person to say that about Brahms. Many have said that before. Each one made the mistake of overlaying 20th century [in your case, 21st century in time - but 20th century in origin] perceptions and thinking on a 19th century artist and man.

The two time periods are very, very different.

Just because Brahms has an interest in, and was influenced by, the classical era, doesn't automatically make him a neo anything. Despite all of Brahm's alleged conservatism [and really, it's probably due to his stubborn style of orchestration more than anything else], he was a romantic artist. All you need to do to prove that is to play a Haydn piece and then play a Brahms piece. The massive romantic emotion in Brahms jumps out right away. While it may have all kinds of influences - which actually enrich his music, rather than making it merely unoriginal or derivative - the sheer romantic emotional wallop hits your ear like a pile of bricks.

Neo-classicism, as we know it, is something else entirely. Its sound, feeling, expression, and objectives are extremely different from anything Brahms wrote. If you need clarity on that, spend some time listening to Milhaud, Stravinsky, or Elliot Carter. Actually, neo-classicism spawned an army of now long forgotten neo-classicists who squandered their lives pouring out endless piles of crap that's long forgotten [in many cases - perhaps most - never even published]. Many of them were academics - so that's how they made their living [no need to mourn them as suffering composers - they didn't starve]. If you really want to dive into it, the CRI and Louisville record label recorded a lot of mid 20th century neo-classicists. I have some of those records - do I'm very familiar with the style and its objectives.

"Notice how Brahms focuses on the emotional qualities of Bach"

Exactly my point. Correct.

"I am kind of conflating that inquiry back to the Baroque and Classical eras because it kind of happened at once"

The Baroque and the classical period did not happen at once, kind of or in any other way. As a clue, Rococo or Style Gallant came between the two.



Sid James said:


> I think that Haydn was a composer who got a raw deal as regards to his position and importance in the history of music. Well, until fairly recently, that is.
> 
> .


I understand your objectives and I appreciate your efforts toward expressing them. In a minor way I find 2 small but significant problems with your post. Firstly, you tend to overlay present-day thinking and perception on very different periods of time, very different cultures and countries, all living in economically and politically extremely different circumstances.

Consider that most of the time periods and societies on which you're passing judgement weren't even democracies, and had little if any such thing as 'human rights', or social or techlogical structures such as motorized vehicles and cell phones.

In fact, European society was highly stratified in every way; both formally and [especially] informally. The closest equivalent we may have of the latter today might be the experience [for many] of high school and its popularity hierarchy.

I think many of the judgments you pass and conclusions you reach are incorrect to a degree - not way off, but just enough to be skewed away from accuracy - due to the trap of imposing present day mentality on a very different time.

Your second problem is that you've adopted a quasi-informal writing style, and in the process you've oversimplified some very complex issues and points in history. With simplification comes inaccuracy.

So, the 2 items together - contemporary distortion and oversimplification - weaken your argument and render it somewhat off in terms of accuracy.

"I think that Haydn was a composer who got a raw deal"

Maybe. But, not recently. In the 20th cent, Haydn was always recorded to some degree, and also performed in concert. Not as much as Beethoven, but hardly neglected. With the appearance of Dorati's cycle - followed up with the punch of the HIPs in the 1980s and 1990s, Haydn's a major player in the classical world.

"the childlike blissful play…[that] enabled Beethoven to unlock the spiritual depths."

True. The romantics mostly [but not all] regarded Haydn [and any other of his colleagues] as good for infants. The century idolized Beethoven. They weren't alone. Beethoven's music continues to move people right down to our EDM/rap/rock/cyber age. Beethoven's never stopped. What we should be doing is using the historic data of how Haydn was viewed in the first half of the 19th cent to help us understand romanticism better, rather than a means to disparage the romantic century.

"Haydn also greatly downgraded the role of the harpsichord"

You might want to inform Adam Fisher and the rest of the HIPs. Seems they've completely missed that one.

"Haydn worked as a freelance in London"

That's actually an extremely important and complex issue in not only the history of music, but also society in general. What you're touching on is the shift of musicians [especially composers] from servitude to an aristocratic master to what we might now call 'self-employed' musician [also somewhat inaccurately, but good enough for the present discussion] that accompanied the rise of romanticism and potently influenced the direction of music. That process continued until after Schubert's death.

You may want to consider analysis published since 1949. A good resource is also a Pelican book:

"The Symphony - Haydn to Dvorak". My edition is from 1973. The editor is the estimable Robert Simpson.

It comes in 2 volumes. Note that it starts with Haydn, which implies Haydn as the foundation of the symphony. Author and analyst Harold Truscott is particularly inclined to Haydn:

"Haydn was the first supreme master to make the symphony and sonata the foremost vehicle of his though...No later symphonists have improved upon Haydn's position; no one can do more than equal him; even Beethoven, in some ways, scarcely surpassed him...he is the 'Father of the Symphony'. He first perceived and expressed the heights and depths this kind of music could attain". [p. 49].

I don't particularly agree with all of that, but Dr. Truscott was way smarter than I.


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## Vaneyes

Re Krummie's "mpm". Somebody? TIA

http://www.acronymfinder.com/MPM.html


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## Xaltotun

Haydn is one of my favourite composers, but I also love the Romantics and understand why they felt the way they did. I didn't really like this thread until this guy Neward Thelman came along. Bravo, Sir! Excellent analysis.

If I may add a tiny bit of my own, it could be this: classicism is the universality of _Reason_ (as in concepts and language - and: conversation!). It is as universal as this Reason is universal. It's like Kant. It's all true and complete on its own playing field but it's not the whole picture. Kant already realized this and left the _Ding an sich_ outside our grasp. Trying to grasp what remains outside concepts and language, romanticism is the universality of _human personality or experience_, the acceptance of a larger pre-existing and shared whole that comes before Reason. _"Sum, ergo cogito."_ It's the analysis of this elusive _sum._ It's _deine Zauber bindet wieder was die Mode streng geteilt._ It's Wagner and Freud.

So they're equally universal in a way, but one covers more than the other, and thus is more ambitious.


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## Neward Thelman

Xaltotun said:


> So they're equally universal in a way, but one covers more than the other, and thus is more ambitious.


Clarification. Thanks.


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## Marc

hpowders said:


> Yeah. That was characteristic of the time. Huge egos. The Romantics lead by Schumann thought their way was better than just about all who came before them.


Schumann, like Mendelssohn and Brahms f.i., was a huge admirer of Bach.


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## Funny

As for the OP's "raw deal" for Haydn until recently: Here's a very interesting book I recently finished reading, Reviving Haydn by Bryan Proksch.

It's very pertinent to this topic, and though I knew the basic outlines of this story - how Haydn's sterling reputation sank down as it became encrusted with the quaint, bewigged "Papa Haydn" cliche - Proksch pulls in many historical sources to show when it hit bottom, what household names were involved, and what factors brought his reputation as an innovative, passionate artist back up to a reasonable level.

There's an in-depth discussion of how Schumann's (or really, the Schumanns') thinking evolved and a look at the roles played by people like Saint-Saens, D'Indy, Schoenberg and Schenker. In the overall unfolding of events, "fake news" about Haydn's Croatian heritage turned out to be a surprisingly large factor.

Recommended for any fan of Haydn or of musicological trends in general.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt155j3qq
https://www.amazon.com/Reviving-Haydn-Eastman-Studies-Music/dp/1580465129


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## hammeredklavier

Neward Thelman said:


> "The Symphony - Haydn to Dvorak". My edition is from 1973. The editor is the estimable Robert Simpson.
> It comes in 2 volumes. Note that it starts with Haydn, which implies Haydn as the foundation of the symphony. Author and analyst Harold Truscott is particularly inclined to Haydn:
> "Haydn was the first supreme master to make the symphony and sonata the foremost vehicle of his though...No later symphonists have improved upon Haydn's position; no one can do more than equal him; even Beethoven, in some ways, scarcely surpassed him...he is the 'Father of the Symphony'. He first perceived and expressed the heights and depths this kind of music could attain". [p. 49].


It's interesting to note though, all the "testimonies" about the supposed "innovation" of Joseph Haydn come from the 20th century as "second-hand" (such as those of Donald Francis Tovey and H. C. Robbins Landon), and NOT from the 18th century, the actual period when the supposed "innovation" was taking place. 
(I'm not saying J. Haydn wasn't innovative; I'm just skeptical about just how much more effective the supposed "innovation" of his was compared to his contemporaries' during the century. Though, I think that in the last decade of the century J. Haydn did some things that anticipate Beethoven).

I've always been curious; if Joseph Haydn had created such a "sensation" across Europe in the 18th century as those 20th century scholars claimed; how come other major composers of the century never talked about it in their letters?** How come Mozart never copied a work of J. Haydn (K.291, K.444; look whose symphonies Mozart actually copied out. K.551, K.626; look whose works Mozart pays homage to), if J. Haydn really was such a huge source of inspiration for him?

**some people claimed that Mozart's dedication letter for the "Haydn quartets" was proof that Mozart considered J. Haydn the most important. I think Mozart was just saying in it; "Since you're a good friend of mine, I'll dedicate these six quartets to you. I've been their father, but from now on, you'll be their father." Even here, Mozart doesn't talk of J. Haydn's prowess and greatness as a composer. He just calls J. Haydn a "celebrated man". He could just as well have done the same to Puchberg.



Sid James said:


> Even Mozart's reputation seems to have fared better during that time, and again Haydn had taught him as well.


J. Haydn never taught Mozart. This is just another wide-spread (nonsensical) myth surrounding their relationship.



hammeredklavier said:


> there's a valid reason why, in terms of musical linguistics, Mozart derived more from composers other than Joseph Haydn.


Although it could be argued J. Haydn has a unique style; I find it to be too "alien" from Mozart's.


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## Kreisler jr

It is simply a fact that Haydn had become extremely famous and popular already in the 1770s. I doubt that any of his contemporaries has a similar number of inauthentic works that were published/copied under their name because as "Haydn" they were sure to get a boost because he was so popular (e.g. the "op.3" from the mid-1770s or so by R. Hofstetter). 

I also wonder why there are not plenty of both "Paris" and "London" commissions for contemporary composers if Haydn was just one among many. Or how the young Beethoven and his supporters (such as Graf Waldstein) obviously took Mozart and Haydn as the most important composers in the 1790s. For this status of Haydn it is not very important how much of a direct connection/influence there was between Mozart and Haydn. (If anything we should expect a composer of Mozart's stature to be comparably more independent of Haydn as lesser composers.) Or why in the first two decades of the 19th century the "trinity" Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven was formed. For some reason it was never "Stamitz, Gyrowetz, Beethoven". Neither "Michael Haydn, Myslivecek, Hummel"

According to Rosen Mozart noted down the incipits of three Haydn symphonies 47, 62 and 75 (and it is probable that he had planned to have them in one of his concerts, in any case had some interest in these pieces). The slow movement from 47 is supposedly quoted/alluded to in Mozart's gran partita. Then there is Haydn #78 - KV 491. There are a few other connections. E.g. K 593,i <- op.64,5i (without the "lark"), K 614, i <- op.50,3i, K 614,iv <-op.64,6iv and the slow movement from K 614 also sounds Haydn-like, maybe the variations from symphony 84 or some similar piece. Unlike many others I am always wary of supposed quotations or allusions, partly because the style has so many formulae that similarities don't have to mean much.

It would be a lot of work to track influences from Haydn among lesser composers. One obvious example is the symphony in C by Friedrich Witt that used to be attributed to Beethoven (as "Jena symphony") which is almost a clone of Haydn's #97. I am pretty sure there are lots more works inspired by Haydn from between ca. 1780 and 1815. I also think that Beethoven's 2nd symphony is indebted both to Mozart's "Prague" and Haydn's #104.


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## hammeredklavier

Btw (like Donald Francis Tovey**, H. C. Robbins Landon**, etc; I believe one of these even claimed "Mozart said that he learned how to write a string quartet from J. Haydn"), the "Pianist" Charles Rosen** is another of these "critics" whose words I take with a bit of grain of salt when it comes to the Classical-period history, because they** sound like they rely too much on their own "unprofessionally" subjective opinions regarding various topics. (the only part I'm sure he's completely right is his utterances about the 18th century practice of counterpoint, which all scholars agree)

How can we even rely on him as an "authority" on these topics?
_"I'll only focus on J. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven in this book because I think all the others were charlatans"_ is pretty much what he said in "The Classical Style", I believe (I just worded it differently). He blatantly belittles Classical-period liturgical music as "pastiche", ignoring stuff (important in terms of J. Haydn's influence on Beethoven) such as:








(Btw, I didn't say Joseph Haydn wasn't influential, I'm just questioning just how influential he was *during the 18th century.* I've said it time and time again: I DO NOT question J. Haydn's influence on Beethoven.)

Among the late 18th century composers, J. Haydn was the one benefited the most from the revival of early music during the 20th-century Neoclassical era. Finding about other, obscure composers (whose music weren't even being recorded back then) took far more personal time/money/effort. It was easy for these critics of the 20th century to make an excuse to justify their "laziness"; not wanting to spend personal time/money/effort to do research about composers they personally didn't care about.
Yes, Mozart "took ideas" from J. Haydn, (I actually talked about J. Haydn's 78th symphony and Mozart Fantasie K.475 and other examples) just like how he did from Gluck (whose opera reforms affected so many, from Mozart, to Berlioz, Wagner), J.A. Hasse, the Bach brothers, and to a lesser extent, Myslivecek, G. Paisello, L. Gatti etc. Joseph Haydn's way to handle variations is different from Mozart's. J. Haydn keeps repeating the original theme but changes the accompaniment figures (the Surprise symphony, Kaiser quartet). Mozart doesn't do that.



Kreisler jr said:


> Or why in the first two decades of the 19th century the "trinity" Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven was formed. For some reason it was never "Stamitz, Gyrowetz, Beethoven". Neither "*Michael Haydn*, Myslivecek, Hummel"


You can indulge in the outdated, Joseph-Haydn-centrically limited view of the history all you want. 
The FACT still remains that Mozart's "base" is Michael Haydn. This is a fact we cannot change no matter whether we like it or not. His own letters tell us which Haydn he was more interested in. You can point to some bits to show Mozart is connected with J. Haydn; but those all those examples will be very minor/minuscule compared to the Mozart-Michael Haydn connection, which is far more significant and numerous in terms of quality and quantity of examples. There are similiarities between English and Spanish (the languages), but compared to Portuguese, English is not very similar to Spanish.




 (think of Mozart K.543/iv)




 (think of Mozart K.550/i)





Dittersdorf also wrote 100+ symphonies, but he doesn't share a _lingua franca_ with Mozart. 
"His symphonic and chamber compositions greatly emphasize sensuous Italo-Austrian melody instead of motivic development, which is often entirely lacking in his works." (wiki)

There was no such thing as the "Trinity" back then (It's only an "illusion" we created in our minds today) - Only the "Viennese Classicists" or the "Viennese School". 
J. Haydn was popular simply because he was working in one of those "musical capitals", writing music for the public. But also, J. Haydn was a good example of composers in history who were popular and sometimes "respected" but NOT really admired by many of their "successors". Berlioz and Schumann were famously critical of J. Haydn and thought that Beethoven was a vast "improvement" on J. Haydn (but Berlioz admired Gluck wholeheartedly). Schubert admired Michael Haydn (and wrote a letter to Schubert's brother that he wept after a visit to Michael's grave), both he (Deutschemesse) and Beethoven (Missa solemnis and late modal stuff) paid homage to Michael. Michael taught Weber and Reicha. I think that Michael's dramatic use of chromaticism, which is more memorable than Joseph's, might have had influence on Weber.



Kreisler jr said:


> The slow movement from 47 is supposedly quoted/alluded to in Mozart's gran partita. Then there is Haydn #78 - KV 491. There are a few other connections. E.g. K 593,i <- op.64,5i (without the "lark"), K 614, i <- op.50,3i, K 614,iv <-op.64,6iv and the slow movement from K 614 also sounds Haydn-like, maybe the variations from symphony 84 or some similar piece.


By the time J. Haydn gets to stuff like Op.50 (1787), Op.54 (1788), it's more like J. Haydn who is taking stuff from Mozart more. But again, he just "*can't sound" like Mozart to the extent his brother does, because of the difference in base language*. 
Mozart quotes his Spanish-born colleague, Vicente Martín y Soler's Una Cosa Rara, 1786 (which was more popular than Le nozze di Figaro back then) in the supper scene of Don Giovanni; so what? Taking some melodic snippets from their popular contemporaries was something everyone was doing back then.



Kreisler jr said:


> It would be a lot of work to track influences from Haydn among lesser composers. One obvious example is the symphony in C by Friedrich Witt that used to be attributed to Beethoven (as "Jena symphony") which is almost a clone of Haydn's #97.


Yes, J. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven were popular in those times as "Viennese Classicists". There was NO such thing as the "Trinity" (a "nonsensical myth" created during the 20th century). Publishers in those times often published obscure composers' works under popular composers' names because they thought the scores would sell better that way.

Btw, why are you now trying to argue there are actually striking similarities between Joseph Haydn and Mozart when you've said in another thread:


Kreisler jr said:


> More than in the case of Joseph, Michael can appear a "lesser Mozart" as it is often a bit closer, less quirky, more melodic.


Aren't you contradicting yourself? Didn't you agree that Michael was the one more influential to Mozart. (Michael reached his "maturity" earlier than Mozart. "Michael sounds like Mozart" sounds more like a compliment to Michael in this context as well.)
So when "Joseph sounds like Mozart", he's NOT being a "lesser Mozart", but when "Michael sounds like Mozart", he's being a "lesser Mozart"?


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Then there is Haydn #78 - KV 491.


I actually find that to be a generic Sturm-und drang expression. Listen to this bit from Mozart's K.345, Incidental music from Thamos (1779): 




And when Joseph Haydn does his "Sturm-und-drang arpeggiated figures", he sounds different from Mozart. (also, btw, I want to stress that Joseph Haydn did not invent Sturm-und-drang in music. Gluck and the others had been doing it before Joseph Haydn did)

These are unmistakably "Joseph Haydn":








 (the 4th movement "Presto" from this symphony and the concluding movement of the 44th in E minor "Trauer" are "Joseph-Haydnesque", and never "Mozartian").

These are unmistakably "Mozart":















Kreisler jr said:


> There are a few other connections. E.g. K 593,i <- op.64,5i (without the "lark"), K 614, i <- op.50,3i, K 614,iv <-op.64,6iv and the slow movement from K 614 also sounds Haydn-like, maybe the variations from symphony 84 or some similar piece.


Sure, they're "Haydn-like", it's just that it's questionable if Joseph is the right "Haydn" in all those cases.




 (think of Mozart K.551/ii)




 (think of Mozart K.465/ii)












 (think of Mozart K.551/iv, the dissonant false recapitulation)


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Or why in the first two decades of the 19th century the "trinity" *Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven* was formed. For some reason it was never "Stamitz, Gyrowetz, Beethoven". Neither "Michael Haydn, Myslivecek, *Hummel*"


Decided by whom?

"Chopin continued to express, in both words and deeds, his admiration for Hummel. For example, on December 10, 1842, five years after Hummel's death, Chopin would proclaim that Hummel was one of the "masters we all recognize." *It is noteworthy that the only other names on Chopin's list were Mozart and Beethoven.* Chopin also showed his high regard by using so many of Hummel's works to teach his students, as his pupil Adolf Gutmann recalled: "Chopin held that Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, Bach's pianoforte fugues, and Hummel's compositions were the key to pianoforte-playing, and he considered a training in these composers a fit preparation for his own works. He was particularly fond of Hummel and his style. The two great pianists were also in complete agreement on many aspects of playing the keyboard. One was fingering, a matter of great importance to Chopin, who wrote in his own unfinished piano method "everything is a matter of knowing good fingering. "Chopin considered Hummel to be the master of this art, writing that one should be able to produce "as many different sounds as there are fingers…. Hummel was the most knowledgeable on the subject.""

"The roots of Liszt's compositional style for the piano - the extensive use of ornamentation and keyboard coloratura, the brilliant passage work written in small notes - can be traced to the piano music of Hummel and his contemporaries. The approach of the two virtuosos to the keyboard may also have been more similar than we think. William Mason, one of Liszt's American pupils, tells us in his book Touch and Technic (1889) that Liszt considered a "two-finger exercise" by Hummel to be the source of his technique. The exercise consisted of playing a scale with two fingers, alternating accented and unaccented notes and using an elastic touch by pulling the fingers in towards the palm. Liszt's high opinion of Hummel as an artist and as a man never diminished. It is evident in a letter he wrote to Weimar's Grand Duke Carl Alexander in 1860, reminding his employer that "he should be proud to create works that resemble [Hummel's]."

"Schubert must have been delighted to finally have personal contact with the composer of music he had known and admired for more than a decade. After all, Hummel had lived in Vienna for many years and still enjoyed a huge popularity there as a composer and pianist. One of the works that Schubert knew quite well was Hummel's Septet in D minor, op. 74, his most popular chamber music composition. Schubert, in fact, used the quintet version of this work as the model for his famous Trout Quintet. The solo piano music that Schubert composed between 1816 and his death in 1828 also reveals the strong influence of Hummel's brilliant, virtuosic style of piano writing, culminating in the last three piano sonatas (D. 958-60). Schubert intended to dedicate these works to Hummel but died before they were published. When Diabelli finally brought them out in 1838, Schubert and Hummel had both passed away, so he made the practical business decision to dedicate these works to Schumann."

"the young Schumann, the aspiring virtuoso pianist studying with Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig in 1829, desperately wanted to become Hummel's student. Despite repeated attempts, he never realized this goal, but Hummel would remain Schumann's idol through-out his student years. He was also his role model, as we read in Schumann's letter to his mother of 15 May 1831: "I can have only four goals: Kapellmeister, music teacher, virtuoso and composer. With Hummel, for example, all of these are combined." Schumann's diary also tells us that he practiced Hummel's Clavierschule with a devotion bordering on obsession, once even writing that he planned to play all the exercises in succession. There are over 4,000 in the Clavierschule! Schumann did not realize that goal either, and he eventually moved on to become, well, Robert Schumann. Nevertheless, he maintained a lasting admiration for a select group of Hummel's works, such as the piano concertos in A minor and B minor, the Septet in D minor, op. 74, and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 81. The F-sharp minor sonata had a particularly significant impact on Schumann's early piano compositions, as can be seen by the striking similarity of the examples below (Fig. 1). Schumann acknowledged his admiration for Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik of April 26, 1839, predicting, "this sonata will alone immortalize his name.""

"Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin - these emblematic symbols of the Romantic era are indeed indebted to Hummel. The same can be said for many other 19th-century composers, including César Franck, who graduated as a prize-winning pianist from the Paris Conservatoire by playing Hummel's music. Some critics have even found similarities between Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 2, of Brahms. Hummel the Classicist, Hummel the Romantic - both descriptions are correct. His life spanned two eras, and so did his music."

-Hummel and the Romantics (by Mark roll)

On what grounds are you suggesting these composers found J. Haydn more inspiring and admirable than Hummel?


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Or how the young Beethoven and his supporters (such as Graf Waldstein) obviously took Mozart and Haydn as the most important composers in the 1790s.


Beethoven wanted to make Vienna his home, and the first step was to gain expertise as a composer by studying with the Viennese masters. Originally he had hoped to study with Mozart, and allegedly had met Mozart in 1787, but due to his mother's illness, he had to return to Bonn. By the time Beethoven returned to Vienna in 1792, Mozart was dead. So Beethoven reluctantly chose to study with J. Haydn, encouraged by Count Waldstein, who told him to "Receive the spirit of Mozart from Haydn's hands".

But it's interesting to note that *J. Haydn was never one of Beethoven's "heroes" to the extent Handel, Mozart, Bach were.* The "Pianist" Charles Rosen claimed _"it would appear as if our modern conception of the great triumvirate had been planned in advance by history"._**-A lot of such bizarre claims have been made by people like D.F. Tovey during the 20th century Neoclassical era to elevate J. Haydn to the status of Mozart, Beethoven. 
Don't get me wrong; I think J. Haydn is good, but the extent people have to resort to history distortions in order to elevate a composer baffles me.

**: The only part I agree about Rosen's statement is that the "triumvirate" is only a "modern conception"; a conception only created in our minds today, and devoid of any absolute/objective significance.
I think people in the 19th/20th centuries would have thought like; _"So, in the Classical period, we have Mozart and Beethoven. Who else do we have? I guess we should just include another "Viennese master", J. Haydn into the group cause he was super-prolific and popular."_ <- I think J. Haydn had been "chosen rather arbitrarily" by them in this manner.



Kreisler jr said:


> The slow movement from 47 is supposedly quoted/alluded to in Mozart's gran partita. Then there is Haydn #78 - KV 491. There are a few other connections. E.g. K 593,i <- op.64,5i (without the "lark"), K 614, i <- op.50,3i, K 614,iv <-op.64,6iv and the slow movement from K 614 also sounds Haydn-like, maybe the variations from symphony 84 or some similar piece.


I just listened to those pieces again, but I still maintain this view:
https://www.talkclassical.com/54405-haydn-muscular-mozart-19.html#post2034349
Try, for example:








I can cite literally dozens of cases of similarity between Mozart and Michael just in vocal music alone (even though much of Michael's music still hasn't been recorded); and unlike the ones between Mozart and Joseph, quite a number of them are not just "superficial borrowings of melodic snippets", but rather, mutual sharing of textural, structural language. (Feel free to ask for them).
The slow movement of K.614 reminds me of Mozart's "Wenn der Freude Tränen fließen" (K.384) more than anything, btw.



Sid James said:


> Brahms groupie Eduard Hanslick said Haydn was nothing much more than a composer who pandered to public tastes and was too frightened to take the bold steps that Beethoven did.


It's true the Romantic Viennese master Brahms was somewhat interested in J. Haydn, but then he was rather a "peculiar Romantic" for being obsessed with Neoclassicism. In an era where "artist individuality" was upheld more than any other values, Brahms made Neoclassicism the most fundamental aspect of his individuality. And J. Haydn was still relatively "over-popular" compared to his contemporaries (except Mozart) during Brahms' time due to the reasons I described in Posts [ #30, #33 ] in <How do important composers get flatlined?>.


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