Haydn

[adventsnore]

WQXR's "104 Days of Haydn" looks like a useful prompt for an exploration of the many symphonies.

"It's good." "I didn't like it." "Very organ-like" ... it's something, but an exploration it ain't. Max might as well be telling us about his bus journey that morning ... he doesn't consider how the symphonies compare, how Haydn's style changed, or give an indication of how his own response to Haydn developed. It's almost disrespectful to the creatives involved in performing and recording that music.

[smittims]

Agreed, but is it any worse than Mark Forrest's irritating habit of describing naively in his own pictorial terms the music we've just heard? I've no doubt he's doing that just now. Seroius analysis, in fact anything intelectually demanding,is right out of fashion these days.

[adventsnore]

If it's his own pictorial terms, that's an interpretation and I get something from that. Music is notoriously difficult to say anything about

[Hitch]

... it's something, but an exploration it ain't.

I described it as a useful prompt, no more than that. It should go without saying that more substantial information and opinions on the symphonies are to be found elsewhere.

[oliver sudden]

I described it as a useful prompt, no more than that. It should go without saying that more substantial information and opinions on the symphonies are to be found elsewhere.

Less substantial information can of course be found in my bluesky thread from a year or so ago

https://bsky.app/profile/carlrosman.bsky.social/post/3lbr7pqfol227

[MickyD]

I'm very late to this rebooted discussion. The early symphonies are by far my favourites...lithe, agile and witty. We are so lucky to be able to hear them in so many excellent period recordings, particularly those Solomon ones that are now available again. I would advise everyone to get hold of that box before it vanishes.

So many positive things have been said on here about the man and his music. I would just add that every time I listen to a symphony or two, I end up feeling that life, for all it's challenges, is well worth living.

[Hitch]

oliver sudden Bravo!

I'm very late to this rebooted discussion. The early symphonies are by far my favourites...lithe, agile and witty. We are so lucky to be able to hear them in so many excellent period recordings, particularly those Solomon ones that are now available again. I would advise everyone to get hold of that box before it vanishes.

So many positive things have been said on here about the man and his music. I would just add that every time I listen to a symphony or two, I end up feeling that life, for all it's challenges, is well worth living.

Symphony no. 22, "The Philosopher", is the latest one to charm me. Its adagio is a contradiction for it plods sublimely, like an unhurried butler. Having recently come round to Haydn's symphonies, I am tempted to buy a "doorstop" box set of the works. Sadly, post-Christmas budgeting austerity dictates that my Spotify subscription (yes, I know, don't hit me) will have to suffice. The more I hear of Haydn, the more he epitomises the Enlightenment; no other composer makes me feel so outright civilised for listening to him.