# The Symphonies of Haydn the Great



## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

Hiydn was the contempury of Bach and Beehoven but widely considerd much better than both cumbined. his symphony string songs are better than Wagner's songs and better than beethovns big loud songs and a probly the best ever wrighten by humen beings.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Yip, hi wrute muny griat symphonis, I dunt kniw all of thim but I rully enioi Lindon symphonis and sume uthers frum various era of his compuser carir whuch he spund a lit time he ciuld be a buker or maibe a pustman but hi wus cumpuser I thunk this beru cuul.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

yer I totully agriie, Hadn had sum grayt albums. The wun cold surpaise symfunie is reli kool, I luv track too cold largeo - iz da bestes song evar! has grate tune, beter than "oops I did agen" from britni speer


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Highdin wroat two meny songz. Hes a litel betur thin Moatzart tho.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

I sink Hayden is de best composer ever to hev livd in de word. Hi didn' rigt to mach, onry mede enouf musik too us apreciate.


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

Stop it you guys... It's a nice topic. Why screw it up?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Yeah, this is really silly...


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

Honestly.. some people. Ruining my serious thread.


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

Bach said:


> Honestly.. some people. Ruining my serious thread.


Come on, it's just a thread. You can always ruin my threads if you want


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

yea serusly, wats ur probem? If yu dint liek hadn thann u jus ignr te thred.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Looks like some people are still VERY bored, doing this...

As for Haydn, I just listened to some of his Symphonies (94,95,97) with the ECO/Tate. Absolutely superb!


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2009)

pLeedy Aorses, whats wrong with a bit of humor? Seriously do you prefer Haydn on period or modern instruments, PS the spell check was of no use


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Nothing wrong with a bit of humour, but dedicating a whole thread to this type of thing seems silly.

Period or modern? Probably modern, as I grew up with Dorati's interpretations & am pretty happy listening to this type of interpretation...


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Andante said:


> pLeedy Aorses, whats wrong with a bit of humor? Seriously do you prefer Haydn on period or modern instruments, PS the spell check was of no use


Hard to know, the Creationm the Seasons and the masses sound much better in period instruments (I don't know if it is my fault, but large choral works sound to me so dull with modern instruments and large choruses), but in the symphonies I have both complete sets modern and period and it is hard to pick a global trend. In the piano sonatas, though, I'm all for the modern concert grand, an instrument so more rich in sound and subtle in tone than poor pianoforte.


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## Guest (Jul 15, 2009)

Generally I prefer period for the Symphonies and choral, an Orch of say 130 playing a haydn sym *can* smother it, whereas a small orch on period instruments sound more earthy and the individual sections seem easier to hear. I do prefer Fortepiano for the sonatas also for Bach.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I think the Concertgebouw has the greatest recording of the London Symphonies


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

Andante said:


> Generally I prefer period for the Symphonies and choral, an Orch of say 130 playing a haydn sym *can* smother it, whereas a small orch on period instruments sound more earthy and the individual sections seem easier to hear. I do prefer Fortepiano for the sonatas also for Bach.


How can you say that? The fortepiano sounds like a quiet honky tonk!


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## Bach (Jun 2, 2008)

Bach has so much more to offer than that instrument provides.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2009)

Bach said:


> How can you say that? The fortepiano sounds like a quiet honky tonk!


What! played by Winifred Atwell
*Bach* it sounds OK to me much better that the Harpsichord which I am not too fond of, the thing that I do like is that it does not sustain the notes as does a grand and so is much clearer especially in Bach and Haydn I realise that the Grand can be played without the use of the sustaining pedal but it is not the same.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Sorry, but Haydn's late sonatas call for a sustained pedal.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> Sorry, but Haydn's late sonatas call for a sustained pedal.


Oh I didn't know that but then I am not a pianist, thanks.


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## HAYDN107 (Dec 8, 2008)

emiellucifuge said:


> I think the Concertgebouw has the greatest recording of the London Symphonies


I absolutely agree, both Davis and Harnoncourt have done a great job, but I prefer Harnoncourt, he's the expert, nobody can deny it.


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

Bach said:


> Honestly.. some people. Ruining my serious thread.


Dear "Bach", I must tell you that Haydn always inspired people to play silly pranks. Himself was partly responsible for that since he would happily do the same thing. For example once he sent two serenade orchestras to the same spot in Vienna, or close to each other, and came to watch them coming to blows. Or when he was young and only began being famous, he walked in a pub together with his friend Dittersdorf and asked the musicians what they were playing. The violinist answered: This is a menuetto of Haydn. Haydn said: "This is a **** menuetto." The violinist started to beat him with the bow; Dittersdorf had to save the author of the menuetto from the musicians' ire. He set to music the Decalogue and for the Commandment "You shall not steal" he didn't invent a melody but stole one from another composer… He was in his lifetime and posthumously punished for his lightheartedness: he became the hero of stupid anecdotes and many of his greatest and most serious symphonies and quartets were given silly nicknames like "The Bear", "The Chicken", and even worse: "The Frog", which, together with the somewhat less flippant "Bird" and "Lark", make up a whole musical zoo. (When Mozart wrote a symphony in the same key as "The Bear", in an analogous tone and spirit and possibly directly inspired by it, nobody thought of an animal but of nothing less than Jupiter! Of course: the Divine Infant Prodigy Mozart and the good-natured Papa (grand-pa) Haydn... to whose tale-telling, as wrote Schumann, we always happily listen but from whom we have nothing to learn. Haydn was not bumptious, not mournful, and not dyspeptic enough for the modern era.)

Now while the statement that "_his symphony string songs are better than Wagner's songs and better than beethovns big loud songs and a probly the best ever wrighten by humen beings_" was obviously meant as a joke, as well as that "[_he is] widely considerd much better than both [Bach and Beehoven] cumbined_", I really "widely consider" that his symphonies are far better than every other symphonies I ever heard, with the exception of Brahms' 4th which in my opinion is the greatest. As to Brahms' 2d and 3d, Haydn's might or might not be better, but at any rate they are not _far_ better.

But not all of his 106 symphonies, only a "small" part of them, about a dozen, roughly the "1st level" down here.

I would ask you, dear Everybody, to confess publicly which one(s) of Haydn's symphonies you most like.

With your permission I would begin, as one of the dear Everybodies. Since an order of preference would be too difficult to decide upon, I simply distribute my favourite Haydn-symphonies into three groups, even though this is not easy either: First best, Second best, Third best.

1st level: No 53, 64, 66, 67, 68, 83, 85, 87, plus the 2d movement of 76, 86 and 93.
2d level: 43, 51, 54, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 73, 82, 84.
3d level: 22, 26, 28, 42, 49, 57.

(The whole with Doráti.)


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Has anyone got that Haydn set with Antal Dorati on Decca? It came out last month I think and it's 30 something discs. Looks interesting.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> Has anyone got that Haydn set with Antal Dorati on Decca? It came out last month I think and it's 30 something discs. Looks interesting.


HAYDN107 does.

As of now, I'm am through Symphony 66 in my Haydn survey of the Brilliant boxed set. I will list the ones I've noted so far as those that I particularly like. I appreciate Efraim posting his list as it will allow me to go back for a second listen to those which he has but I don't. Two that I really liked that I note that you don't have, Efraim, is 44 and 45. I really liked those two. Maybe it was me but somehow I didn't seem to like the ones in the 60's as much but I suspect it might have been that I was overdosed on Haydn at that time. Anyway, here is my list. I don't have them with "levels".

6, 8, 34, 35, 40, 44, 45, 48, 49, 55, 64, 65

I noted that I was going to come back to 64 and 65 to see if I could "get them". Also, the adagaio (movement 1) in 49 is particularly beautiful.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

haydnguy said:


> HAYDN107 does.


What Haydn symphony sets do you own, haydnguy. Perhaps you can give me some recommendations? I'm not too familiar with Haydn's work outside of his concerti and the "London" Symphonies.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> What Haydn symphony sets do you own, haydnguy. Perhaps you can give me some recommendations? I'm not too familiar with Haydn's work outside of his concerti and the "London" Symphonies.


M.I. before I got the Brilliant set I just had a couple of 2-fers of the London Symphonies and a few other odds and ends. Nothing to write home about. I have heard a number of people say that the Dorati set is an excellent set. Probably a notch above the Fischer but not by much. At least that's what I have heard others say.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

haydnguy said:


> M.I. before I got the Brilliant set I just had a couple of 2-fers of the London Symphonies and a few other odds and ends. Nothing to write home about. I have heard a number of people say that the Dorati set is an excellent set. Probably a notch above the Fischer but not by much. At least that's what I have heard others say.


Thanks for the help.

Well when that Dorati set comes down in price, if it ever does, then I'm definitely going to try and get it.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

I like both Brilliant and Dorati sets, both are complementary. I hear to both.

But perhaps I think a better intro to Haydn must be a good set of Londoners and this one:


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> I like both Brilliant and Dorati sets, both are complementary. I hear to both.
> 
> But perhaps I think a better intro to Haydn must be a good set of Londoners and this one:


bdelykleon, I've heard nothing but good things about Pinnock's interpretations especially in regards to Corelli, Handel, and Mozart. How do you rank these performances?


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

This one and Volume 2 are the ones I had before.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> bdelykleon, I've heard nothing but good things about Pinnock's interpretations especially in regards to Corelli, Handel, and Mozart. How do you rank these performances?


Pinnock is a great conductor, but in Haydn he is even better, these symphonies and his recordings of the masses are among my favorite discs. Very good indeed.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

bdelykleon said:


> Pinnock is a great conductor, but in Haydn he is even better, these symphonies and his recordings of the masses are among my favorite discs. Very good indeed.


I actually heard a recording with Pinnock a few weeks ago of Handel's "Ode to St. Cecilia's Day" and it was quite enjoyable. I was able to only hear a few movements, but I enjoyed it.


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

haydnguy said:


> As of now, I'm am through Symphony 66 in my Haydn survey of the Brilliant boxed set. I will list the ones I've noted so far as those that I particularly like. I appreciate Efraim posting his list as it will allow me to go back for a second listen to those which he has but I don't. Two that I really liked that I note that you don't have, Efraim, is 44 and 45. I really liked those two. Maybe it was me but somehow I didn't seem to like the ones in the 60's as much but I suspect it might have been that I was overdosed on Haydn at that time...


Hi, haydnguy and Mirror Image,

I have the whole Dorati on LPs except for the 12 London Symphonies which I have on CDs. (The whole set consists of 48 LPs or of 33 very cheap CDs; you can get a big treasure for an insignificant sum.) If you buy the Brilliant Classics, for about 1 $ a CD, you get, on top of the complete Symphonies with Adam Fischer, the complete Piano Sonatas, all but six String Quartets in an interpretation that is probably the best of all, and a lot more. I don't have this monster collection and never heard a single note with Fischer or with any of the performing pianists but I read in some blog a surprisingly serious, pertinent and professional analysis of this set : the guy wrote that the last symphonies are played in an unconvincing way - sonority: poor, the whole business: rather pale - but that the earlier symphonies (which were recorded later) are better played, nevertheless not on the level of Dorati, though.

I once had a problem: as I wrote here in another thread, I have a very biased taste, so that for decades I listened to music all the time but practically to a few dozens of works only, of 6 or 7 composers (and even, for a period of 7 or 8 months, exclusively to the 3d and 4th movements of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, several times every and each day, nothing else at all. This was not too far from madness.) At the end I became unable to listen to _any music_ for a few years. Today with Haydn, whom I discovered gradually during the last, say, twenty years, I have the opposite problem: there are too many works to listen to.

Among the abovementioned few dozens of works I tolerated there was also a Piano Sonata of Haydn, C Minor, in Sviatoslav Richter's demonic performance, and one String Quartet from Op. 20, but when I learned that this person wrote more than 100 symphonies, I didn't think for a while that I should try to know them. Not that I was influenced by the then general disrespect or patronizing disinterest for Papa Haydn; I was not or only a little, but even so I probably had the unconscious misty feeling that one hundred of something could not be serious, that this could be only some honest mass production. - A lot of years later, when I had stopped listening to music, I was struck by an extraordinary piano playing which started suddenly to pour out from my wife's radio: this was Brendel, with Haydn's Sonata No 47 in B Minor - a genuine miracle -; then I chanced on the Quartet in d from Op. 9 with Festetics, then on other SQs in equally exciting new interpretations, so that I decided that I must have all of these quartets, as well as the most possible sonatas. Nonetheless I still didn't take into account the symphonies - besides, I never was a symphony addict -, until the day when crossing an open-air bazaar I saw in the junk and bought for 3 dollars or so a CD with three symphonies in a Minor key, No 26, 44 and 49, performed by some never-heard-of musicians. For 20 dollars I surely wouldn't have bought it… When I put it on the CD-player, I almost fell from the chair: these were masterpieces! a new discovery, a new surprise! I hadn't expected that at all. Then only I decided that I must have _a few _of Haydn's symphonies too. Today I have all of them - No 26 and 44 became less prominent in this illustrious company -, and this is a new problem since it is not possible to go seriously through a hundred works, when you can not resist listening to almost the half of sixty quartets, to as many piano sonatas and to some other things… What a good luck that at least the 125 baryton trios and the countless divertimenti are only well sounding and amusing pieces but not on such a high level!.. And if in addition you wanted to compare the different interpretations of all that, you would have to stop any other activity.

All that to explain why I didn't list Symphonies 44 and 45: these are perhaps very great works but there are too many others… That's the problem. (Perhaps they are exceptionally not so well played in the Dorati-set, as is the case of No 49, which I like with the Tatrai Chamber Orchestra but not with Dorati).

You have no choice. You must buy several recordings of the same work to increase your chance of discovering the true Haydn in it, because if you happen to have some less than brilliant interpretation of some piece, you will think it is only a honest but little exciting grandpa's tale.

I strongly recommend to everybody buying at least the Dorati-set (cheap), the complete piano sonatas with Buchbinder (cheap), and the String Quartets with Buchberger (extremely cheap, every album excellent) or Festetics (less cheap, not every opus equally excellent).

(I hope nobody will indict me for having spoiled this symphony-thread with non-symphonic topics.)


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I'm listening to his symphony no. 104 'London' again. I was surprised to find that I actually liked it. I though I didn't like classicism. It's sounded crystal clear on the first listen; unlike late romantic composers like Mahler or Bruckner, whose symphonies sound rather incoherent and confusing at first usually.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Efraim said:


> Hi, haydnguy and Mirror Image,


Thanks for your post Efraim. I had heard reviews about the London Symphonies in the Brilliant set that they were the ones they started recording with so they didn't do as good a job. I will judge, of course, when I get to them.

As you say it's a monumental job going through all of Haydn (especially if you want to listen to anything ELSE!).  But I found that I need breaks from Haydn in order to keep my listening fresh. (i.e. so it all won't run together in my head.) I guess you could say I'm just enjoying the journey.

I just noticed that Amazon (U.S.) isn't selling the Dorati set anymore except through third party sellers. (It also doesn't say their getting any more in.) I'll have to think about that set and decide if I really need it. I've got two versions of the London Symphonies (counting the Brilliant set) and can probably find a good set of just them if I'm not satisfied. I may just let the Brilliant set be my version of Haydn. 

Thanks again for the post.


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## Efraim (Jun 19, 2009)

haydnguy said:


> I just noticed that Amazon (U.S.) isn't selling the Dorati set anymore except through third party sellers.


Amazon.co.uk does, for £ 67. But what is wrong about buying from third party sellers? Same thing, often even cheaper than buying from stock.



> I'll have to think about that set and decide if I really need it. I've got two versions of the London Symphonies (counting the Brilliant set) and can probably find a good set of just them if I'm not satisfied. I may just let the Brilliant set be my version of Haydn.
> Thanks again for the post.


You're welcome. As to whether we really need such things, well, I think we "really" need air, water, food but we don't "really" need whisky, drugs, music, books, chat, ideas, ideals, friendship, love... If there is no relevant difference of style and quality between Fischer and Doráti, which is not impossible, so you don't need both at the same time even in the sense of needing whisky. This depends also on how much money you have. If you have not too much of it, you would perhaps really do better buying the piano sonatas with Buchbinder instead (10 CDs), except if they are equally well played in your Brilliant box. Anyway Buchbinder is absolutely reliable; he is like a very intelligent as well as a very sensitive professor who knows everything about style, values, originality and knows how to communicate all that to your brain. If in the few greatest sonatas that Richter, Brendel or Lili Kraus recorded he does not prove to be such an overwhelming genius (but who else does?), or such a provocatively original thinker as eg Alain Planes who recently published a selection of 17 sonatas (Harmonia Mundi), nevertheless his reading of these great works is far more than a honest and flawless academic presentation. (You can have it from stock for £ 28 at Amazon.co.uk.)

Good buy!


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Efraim said:


> Amazon.co.uk does, for £ 67. But what is wrong about buying from third party sellers? Same thing, often even cheaper than buying from stock.


Hi Efraim!
Oh, nothing wrong with buying from third parties. It just worries me (maybe it shouldn't) when Amazon stops selling so quickly. It is still coming up on my "New For You" list from Amazon and they've already stopped selling it. It makes me think that anyone who wants it might want to hurry and get it.

Thanks for the heads up on the Buchbinder and the Planes! I will definitely check them out.

~hg~


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I grew to like more Haydn symphonies this year. Listen to period instrument groups like Pinnock performing the symphonies and you hear more of the energy and character that this music should have. Haydn and Mozart are two of the very finest symphonists.


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

Decca had a sale in '08, I think, where they offered the Dorati box set at almost 50 off.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Dorati is quite good, I'd definitely put him ahead of Fischer. But the period instrument performances I would have to put ahead of him for alot of the symphonies. But he is one of the few that has recorded all of them and he is quite consistent.


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## Bill H. (Dec 23, 2010)

Another set now being recorded is that by Thomas Fey leading the Heidelberger Sinfoniker, on Hannsler Classic. 

I was never sure about whether this was a Period Instrument group, but the playing is influenced by that style, and is VERY energetic--I love the way the timpanist in these performances really lets loose. Don't recall that they use any keyboard continuo in the earlier symphonies, but I could be wrong. I believe they have about a dozen disks recorded so far. I generally like what I've heard to date.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Bill H. said:


> Another set now being recorded is that by Thomas Fey leading the Heidelberger Sinfoniker, on Hannsler Classic.
> 
> I was never sure about whether this was a Period Instrument group, but the playing is influenced by that style, and is VERY energetic--I love the way the timpanist in these performances really lets loose. Don't recall that they use any keyboard continuo in the earlier symphonies, but I could be wrong. I believe they have about a dozen disks recorded so far. I generally like what I've heard to date.


Agree. Thomas Fey has very stylishly performed the Haydn symphonies. I have been slowly collecting this fine series. As for the composition of instruments, the strings are modern isntruments, as are the wind. The only period instruments are the horns, and when needed, trumpets and drums, too (Fey argues these insturments make more significant differences in sound than other instruments when using their modern counterparts). But more importantly are the manner in which all instruments are played and pitched, and they are historically informed performances in that sense.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

My beloved Schumann was very wrong in his estimation of Haydn's music...

Going through the monumental output, what never ceases to amaze me is the wonderful wealth of invention and imagination. I find nothing boring in Haydn's symphonies, and I found Ramako's excellent survey and overview of the whole corpus a fitting tribute to Haydn's genius.


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