Haydn vs Mozart?

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:
1. Do any other forum members feel the same way?

2. What are the reasons for this preference?

To the first question, no, I don't feel that way.

For the second, I can see people preferring Haydn because I find him more down-to-earth, more "direct," more human and humane. Mozart, if anything, suffers from being almost too perfect.

I must have both. Haydn's strenghts seem best suited to string quartets, where he is the supreme master, and symphonies, though for different reasons. His quartets are meticulously crafted, of course, but he constantly injects wit and verve, sometimes at the expense of perfect polish. His symphonies can be a rollicking good time.

Mozart, at least for me, seems better able to balance different elements. For that reason, his piano concertos (and concertos generally) sound far more compelling than Haydn's. Everything fits perfectly, with nary a note out of place. And though you are (unfortunately) operaphobic, Mozart is matched by few in his ability to balance all the elements in stage works.

Perhaps strangely, I prefer Mozart's solo piano works to Haydn's. Given their overall strengths and weakness, it would seem that Haydn would be the better fit, and though he has some extraordinary works, Mozart's are gems.

Bottom line: any fight would be a draw.


--

for me it's mozart. perfection doesn't disturb me. in fact, i enjoy it!

opera allergies aside, "The Magic Flute" cements Mozart in my affections for the duration.

This is such a difficult one as Mozart's greatest music arguably is found in different forms to Haydn's.

There is a significant body of opinion that in their time[s] Mozart was the Master of Opera, and Concerto, and Haydn was the Master of the String Quartet, and Symphony. That I happen to find myself in agreement with this view is by the way, as really it comes down to which of the two one prefers as a matter of personal taste.

I would not want to be deprived of Mozart's Piano Concertos, Don Giovanni, The Marriage Of Figaro, Cosi Fan Tutti, and The Magic Flute. Nor the last twenty or so symphonies of Haydn [I do not know them all!], or his String Quartets.

But for me I find the synthesis of humanity, wit, and consolation in Haydn, which is framed in music that seems always to leave the listener feeling he or she has fewer worldly cares, leads me more often to listen to Haydn's music than Mozart's.

Both are musical giants, but not very similar apart from superficially, writing music at much the same time, and in much the same formal style, but there could hardly more contrasted in the way their music leads the listeners emotions, and I do not entirely mean only my own emotional response in saying that.

It is not hard to find the angst in Mozart or the sub-text of biting irony, which aspects are entirely alien to Haydn's music. Of course Mozart wrote music that is pure life-enhanncing joy, and Haydn does occasionally brush with very emotionally charged and tragic statements. Only in the F Minor Variations for Piano does Haydn really not cloth his clear understanding of sadness in a formal structure that musically resolves this in a wise and wonderfully humane way in a resolution pointing to joy, which really does raise the listener.

Mozart wrote a siginificant proportion of his greatest works in a mode of of politely stated but never the less unremitting tragedy. One example is the C Minor Piano Concerto. Even when being much less deep Mozart is full of shadows, like doubts about the stability of the pertaining good humour.

George

slight tanget, apologies,

George what are your favourite (available) Haydn string quartets?



SJB

Distinguishing between Mozart and Haydn:

(1) Using Jung's Psychological types, Haydn is more a thinker than a feeler and Mozart more a feeler than an thinker.
Of course, there's plenty of emotion in Haydn (not least in the Sturm und Drang period) and plenty of structural rigour in Mozart. I am talking about emphases.
That's why, arguably, Haydn is strong in "intellectual" structures such as symphonies and string quartets.
Mozart is strong where there is a voice declaiming emotions, not just in the operas but in the concertos, too, where even (or perhaps particularly) the piano is the emotive human voice pitted against the rigour of the orchestra. (I simplify to make the point.)

You can extend this game. I suggest that Haydn is extravert, Mozart introvert (using the terms in their original senses of where mental energy is directed: externally and internally respectively).

(2) The Greek mythology viewpoint. Haydn is Apollonian, Mozart Dionysian.

Incidentally, noone has commented on how many jokes there are in Haydn. So much for the Germans not having a sense of humour.

After making a really nice post, before hitting the "post now" icon my comuputer crashed, so a filleted version for SJB:

Haydn String Quartets
- Six quartets opus 33, Six, opus 71/74, Six opus 76, Two opus 77, and Last Seven Words From The Cross: Tatrai Quartet on Hungaraton
- 27 Quartets (plus two by Hoffstetter!), including all the really big late works: - Pro Arte Quartet HMV 1930s Studio.
- Two quartets opus 77 and two fragments opus 103: Mosaïques Quartet.


From my record library, which may be found in full here:

http://forums.naim-audio.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3801938...712915517#6712915517

The Quartet situation has not altered, but quite a lot else has evolved.

Dear SJB,

May I suggest you start with the two quartets, opus 77 and two fragments opus 103: Mosaïques Quartet on Astree Auvidis 8799. No more enticing recording [musically or as a recording] is easily going to be found in at least the classical repertoire. The perfect introduction, IMO.

Sorry about the cut and paste posting here. The first [lost] one was much better, and went into musical details. Maybe we should start a Haydn Quartet thread in a week or so. Has not happened for a while.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Marchant:


(2) The Greek mythology viewpoint. Haydn is Apollonian, Mozart Dionysian.

Incidentally, no-one has commented on how many [musical] jokes there are in Haydn. So much for the Germans not having a sense of humour.

I disagree. Am I the only one two see the dissonance between the two statements? If Haydn shows a sense of musical humour [which I think he does] then he is a Dyonisan in Greek mythologocal terms! On the other hand, it may be that this analogy is irrelelevant ...

I suspect that it may be possible to conceive that Haydn straddles this intellectual classification even more than Beethoven would with the Apollonian Eighth Symphony and Dyonosan Seventh ...

ATB from George

PS: Was Haydn a German, rather than Austro-Hungarian? Did Germany [rather than so many ununified Germanic Pricipalities] actually exist in Haydn's time?

I listen to Haydn more than Mozart, but I ascribe this merely to subjective preference. I like the mature Mozart symphonies, but I rarely listen to them, whereas the London and Paris symphonies get played quite a lot. Ditto the string quartets, although in all fairness I'm not as familiar with Mozart's quartets as I am with Haydn's and when I come back to the quartets Mozart dedicated to Haydn, I am always amazed at the quality. One of the reasons though is because I don't have a recording of the Mozart quartets that I click with (I've got the Hagen and Alban Berg sets), whereas my Haydn collection featuring the Kodaly, Mosaiques, and Emerson quartets are more in line with my taste. I keep meaning to purchase the Mosaiques' recording of Mozart's Haydn quartets, but I'm always short of money when I get the urge...!

Mozart obviously took more interest in concerto writing than Haydn, who clearly took a greater interest in other formats. I'm sure Haydn could have matched Mozart in the genre, but never saw the point.

EW

Thanks for all the replies. I sometimes feel that the least interesting part of the Naim forum is the bit that deals with hi-fi, and discussions like this only reinforce that view.

As I said in my original post, I didn't want to start a fight, merely to understand what might lie behind my strong subjective preference for Haydn over Mozart. Some of the words people have used in describing Haydn's music have helped:

down-to-earth, more "direct," more human and humane. Mozart, if anything, suffers from being almost too perfect. [Todd]

humanity, wit, and consolation [George]

Maybe it's that humanity I respond to in Haydn, and the perfection (if that' what it is) that I find offputting in Mozart. In this context, George's comment that Mozart wrote a siginificant proportion of his greatest works in a mode of of politely stated but never the less unremitting tragedy got my attention. Maybe I need to try to see beyond the polite surface of Mozart to the tragedy beneath. I'm willing to try some piano concertos, if anyone has any recommendations!

Finally, I think it's (relatively) easy to produce great art that expresses tragic emotions, but much harder to produce great art that expresses joy, without being glib. This strikes me as Haydn's achievement. And I think he succeeds because the joy is somehow expressed through the sheer inventiveness and fecundity of his musical imagination, rather than in a more direct way.

Thanks again for all the replies - and yes to the idea of a haydn string quartet thread sometime soon!

Nigel

Dear Nigel,

The ones mentioned here are all masterpieces, and the performances are to my taste, though seeking different performances according to a different taste is just as valid for the chooser as mine are for me.

You could do a lot worse than seek out a complete cycle, and I would suggest a choice between the sets by Murray Perahia and by Geza Anda, as being a less expenisve option than selecting single discs.

Piano Concertos:
No 9 in E Flat, and 23 in A
- Haskil, VSO, Paul Sacher
- Haskil and Otto Ackermann, live in the 1950s in No 9

No 6, 17 and 21
- Geza Anda, Cam Acc des Salzburger Mozarteums

No 14 in E Flat
- R Serkin, Busch Chamber Players

No 19 and 27
- Haskil, Fricsay with the BPO and Bavarian Radio Orchestras.

No 20 and No 13
- Haskil, with Fricsay and Baumgartner

No 27
- Koln Guerzenich Orchestra Haskil, Otto Klemperer, live performance on Music and Arts

No 20 and 24
- Haskil, Lamoureux Orchestra, Markevitch

No 23 and No 24
- Solomon, Philharmonia

No 22 and No 25
- Brendel, Vienna Orchestras
- Paul Angerer. (on Vox, now owned by IMP)

Nos 17, 20, 22, 24, and 25
- Various Orchestras with Edwin Fischer as Piano soloist. [A search iin the Music Room Archive will reveal more details of these three CDs, on threads I have started on the subject. Though historic, they are some of the best IMHO. Either a search or perhaps ask here, and I will post the details again.]

an edited extract from the Record Library post alluded to above.

ATB from George

Thanks George, that's really helpful.

I'm really tempted by the Perahia boxed set, if it has your seal of approval. I have a few CDs by him, playing a variety of composers (Bach, Chopin, Schubert, Beethoven), and he always seems to adapt admirably to the demands of the music, without leeting his ego get in the way. I can imagine him making a very good job of Mozart. Unfortunately it's over £70 on Amazon right now. Anda's set is under £30 and also sounds very good. I think I'll wait to see if the price of the Perahia box drops significantly, and buy Anda if I run out of patience!

Regards
Nigel

Dear Nigel,

Get the Anda! Don't miss it at that money - it's worth a lot more.

I recommended the Perahia as it is very fine and gets a general critical "thumbs up" but my preference is for Anda!

ATB ...

OK - I will do as you say! The samples on Amazon sound fine. I prefer them to the online samples of Haskil (nos 20 & 24), which sound too "big" for my taste. Anda sounds leaner & lighter - more HIP maybe (not that I'm a stickler for that)? I'll let you know how I get on - in January probably, as I feel I should be spending my money on other people at this time of year.

Regards
Nigel

Dear Nigel,

If I were being critical of recording quality then the Philips [for them very early stereo] recording of 20 and 24 with Haskil, The Lamoureur Orchestra [Paris], and Markevitvh, then it is that the orchestra is "made by the recording" to sound too weighty for the music.

It comes out well off CD, and might be a bit strangled on a sample download - exagerating the effect possibly ...

But the DG stereo given to Anda is exemplary.

Enjoy them!

ATB from George

I actually bought this previously on your recommendation when I was enquiring about string quartets. It really is excellent.


I've ordered the anda set of concerti also as one of my (and Mrs Sloops) favoutites is




to echo a previous poster, I do find the Music Room the place to go in the forum. It has brought me places most beers can't reach!


SJB

Dear SJB,

:-)

As it happens I ordered from Amazon dot co dot uk a set of three CDs costing about 10 GBP of Haydn Symphonies played b the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer, comprising 88, 92 [The Oxford], 95, 98, 100 [The Military], 101 [The Clock], 102, and 104 [The London].

I really did not expect miracles, though I had the Clock and Military on LP a long time ago. I remembered the Clock as incredibly fine, and the Military as not, but more on this in a moment.

I will pin my colours to the mast and say this is the most significant re-issue of Haydn of 2008 [issued in the November supplement from EMI].

I am going to write a full review this weekend on the Beethoeven Klemperer Beethoven thread, and it is impossible to describe the performances adequautely in three paragraphs.

Suffice it to say that in all but the Military Symphony, I have never found Haydn performances of such wisdom and sheer humane warmth as these.

I can only commend anyone [vaguely interested] to order these as the best of all musical gifts for Christmas, for friends or an inexpensive treat for themselves!

These three CDs represent my find of 2008. Last August they were available as used on Amazon dot com at more than 200 USD, so some people understood the value in them. I could not afford such a cost at the time, but bless EMI for this ultra-budget re-issue.




ATB from George

PS: The Military is easily the slightest of the late Haydn Symphonies, and requires a slightly tongue in cheek approach if it not to seems both emtionally slight and pompous all at once. In truth it is a nervously tub-thumping piece of candy-floss, whose chief claim to fame is that at least it does not have a chorus singing embarrasssingly patriotic [or fatuous] words! It is not part of Klemperer's musical armoury to ever be tongue in cheek, with the result that instead of this performance being a parody of the prevailing Militaristic and fearful mood in England [and typical English ability to both be concerned about the Revolutionary activities in France and also to be frivolous about them], the symphony emerges as a parody of the parade ground instead.

The rest is pure musical genius in reading both the underlying wit of the music and its immense warmth. Anyone fearing that these would be slow or clumsy performances from a conductor physically past bringing the necessary lift and physicality to the music will be wonderfully disproved. If anthing these performances show just how phsically exciting Haydn not only can be, but must be for its full impact. As Eugen Jochum observed, "Mozart occupies the Vienna Coffee House and fills its with poised Genius, while Haydn fills the Village Dance with music both to be joyful with and to lift the soul." Even more than Jochum, Klemperer shows this to be the case.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
If Haydn shows a sense of musical humour [which I think he does] then he is a Dyonisan in Greek mythologocal terms! ...

Good point! I need to think that through more. I still like the analogy. Analogies are very useful.

quote:

PS: Was Haydn a German, rather than Austro-Hungarian? Did Germany [rather than so many ununified Germanic Pricipalities] actually exist in Haydn's time?

Apologies: careless writing. I was speaking culturally rather than geopolitically.

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:
Thanks George, that's really helpful.

I'm really tempted by the Perahia boxed set...

Go for it. Do bear in mind that just occasionally there is value in the artistic endeavours of the past half century and that George, for all his many and obvious excellences, cultivates a historical approach to performance practice which is, shall we say, individual, and which need not be shared by other listeners.

And just to tease George, I will sincerely recommend the performance of the Mozart clarinet conducted by Karlheinz Stockhausen, with brilliant cadenzas by the conductor and recorded in the spirit of his choral work 'Breathing gives life ...'.

Dear Jeremy,

I am blushing at you kindness, though I would point out that I have no specific allegance to any fashion or style in music making beyond that it is great and stylish, but most of all it must be involving!

For example my favourite performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are, in chronololical order [you will have to guess which order I would place them as favourites], Busch Chamber Players led by Adolf Busch in 1935, which is a truly historic attempt at the scale and style of Bach using small forces when this was rather unusual, then two from 1950/3: The Danish Royal Chapel Orcestra and Danish Radio Chamber Orchestra set conducted by Mogens Woldike, and the set with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with August Wenzinger. These two show a significant move towards what we would recognise as Historically Informed Perfomances in the modern sense. And the most recent recording I treasure is from the Linde Consort with HM Linde from 1980, I think, and is HIP to the hilt.

I do not have them for comparative purposes, but listen to them exactly as the mood takes me! So I think you might observe that really I appreciate and enjoy a very broad range of stylish approaches to great music.

For another example of a rare piece, often presented as by JS Bach, which usually comes on an Organ - the Concerto in D Minor, which actually an arrangement of Vivaldi's music - then my favourite recording is one performed two Ukrainian accordionists playing their own arrangement of the Bach arrangement!

I certainly would never offer a recommendation of any particular performance on records unless I thought - as often been shown to be the case - that there is good chance that it will yield pleasure to others as well! I am accutely aware that whole issue is one of personal taste and descrimination ... My most common reasons for making a definate recommendation for a given performance, is to help a person get to know the music of a composer new to them, or if they are struggling with a piece of music I love, and are using a recording that I personally find unsympathetic to the music. Like people who say Brahms Symphonies are dull but then say they have Doctor Very Old Man or Sir Belted Knight conducting the orchestra in the music, when this conductor strikes me as dull or whatever!

There are some performances which fall down in terms of style, which many enjoy, and nowadays I keep out of that debate! And there are others where the music may be well played but reduced to dull routine, and in these cases I do tend to find it constructive to make the point.

Often a composer led performance of another composer's work will bring unique and valuable insights for the listener, and it does not surprise me that Mozart may well be greatly admired by Stockhausen, and even that the performance you mention may be a great one! On the other hand I used to find Artur Schnabel's atonal cadenzas in the Mozart C Minor Piano Concerto rather out of place and distracting. One composer admiring another does not guarantee that any cadenzas that follows in performance will necessarily be within an appropriate style. Had Schnabel not been both a composer and pianist, I think it is conceivable that his cadenzas might have fitted better into the style and spirit of Mozart's invention when he performed as soloist! Where Mozart left cadenzas Schnabel naturally enough adopted them in performance ...

ATB from George