The Classical Style

[Haffner]

Didn't Rimsky Korsakov think Haydn was the finest orchestrator of all? (Once again, and to prove the all-encompassing nature of the book, I draw this knowledge from The Classical Style, where Rosen makes the point in a discussion of the Minuet of Haydn's Symph 97)

Cool post, Luke! I believe Rimsky Korsakov wrote an excellent book on orchestration with Berlioz...?

[Larry Rinkel]

Cool post, Luke! I believe Rimsky Korsakov wrote an excellent book on orchestration with Berlioz...?

Cool hand, Luke, indeed! But Rimsky wrote his own orchestration handbook, with examples drawn largely from his own works. Berlioz wrote a treatise of his own that was later amplified by Richard Strauss to take account of later orchestral developments. It is always amusing to hear Strauss's rumbling bass voice counterpointing Berlioz's high-strung tenor.

[Haffner]

Cool hand, Luke, indeed! But Rimsky wrote his own orchestration handbook, with examples drawn largely from his own works. Berlioz wrote a treatise of his own that was later amplified by Richard Strauss to take account of later orchestral developments. It is always amusing to hear Strauss's rumbling bass voice counterpointing Berlioz's high-strung tenor.

(laughing) Thanks for the correction, Larry. It's about time I checked out the Strauss/Berlioz book, as I'd only read Rimsky's tome a long time ago. My favorite (in the "most educating" classification) remains up to this point Samuel Adler's excellent book on orchestration.

[Scriptavolant]

Actually, I don't believe that's exactly accurate either.  Beethoven's place in music is very similar to Michelangelo's in art.  Both were the bridges that linked two disparate styles.  While a great deal of Michelangelo's production was in the High Renaissance style as exemplified by the Pietá, elements of what would become the Mannerist and Baroque styles started to creep into his art after 1500 until by the end of his life his works were the basis for the new Mannerist style.  More and more you see the visual equivalent to chromaticism and dissonance in the twisted figures and diagonal arrangements in space.  One can only understand how revolutionary his ceiling was by comparing it to Raphael's comtemporaneous Vatican project, the School of Athens.  Similarly, one can only understand how thoroughly Beethoven broke with his classical past when he wrote the Eroica by looking at the works of his contemporaries, most of whom are forgotten.  Beethoven, like Michelangelo represents a bridge, a transition to a new style and idiom.  Without him, romanticism would have developed in very different ways.  And if anyone thinks Beethoven is rhythmically straight, just listen to the syncopations in the Hammerklavier.  He invented a new alphabet that would be used to create a new language by those coming after him.  As connected as he was to the past, so he also was connected to the future.

I second this point of view; for what concerns Beethoven's rhythms, as Alfred Einstein wrote in his brief history of music, Beethoven has to be considered the master among the masters in rhythm treatment.

[Bunny]

I read that outside this forum, I think it's correct, Haydn is Croatian.  If you read the wiki you would believe that Haydn never even visited Croatia, but I think that the wiki is wrong.

There is another article in Wiki, Joseph Haydn's ethnicity, which describes Kuhač's Croatian hypothesis. 

[Haffner]

There is another article in Wiki, Joseph Haydn's ethnicity, which describes Kuhač's Croatian hypothesis. 

Karl Geiringer was one of my sources. And his book on Haydn is excellent!

[Bunny]

Karl Geiringer was one of my sources. And his book on Haydn is excellent!

I haven't read that book, and am not particularly concerned with Haydn's ethnicity.  I just came across that article a while ago and thought that anyone who was interested in whether Haydn was Croat, Hungarian, German, or Martian for that matter might find the article interesting.  However, I am concerned with Haydn's music and musical development, so now that the book is in paperback, I'll put it in the Barnes and Noble cart.

[Haffner]

I haven't read that book, and am not particularly concerned with Haydn's ethnicity.  I just came across that article a while ago and thought that anyone who was interested in whether Haydn was Croat, Hungarian, German, or Martian for that matter might find the article interesting.  However, I am concerned with Haydn's music and musical development, so now that the book is in paperback, I'll put it in the Barnes and Noble cart.

Out of the half-dozen books I've read on Haydn, that one is the best. Pretty much equal attention to life and music (the String Quartets especially get a pleasing amount of attention!).

[karlhenning]

People just need to believe [Dittersdorf] was a very good composer.

Essentially a religion, then?

[71 dB]

Essentially a religion, then?

No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

[Haffner]

No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Yay! (Unabashed religious zeal for the Idols).

[quintett op.57]

Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree?

Surely, they didn't write in romantic forms. But we could consider romanticism was in gestation in their works.
As a fan of Haydn, I'd give the examples of the very expressive piano sonata HOB.XVI:49, the orchestration of Sy 103 and the power of Sy 104. But these works are definitely classical, not to be mistaken.

Haydn's non-symphonic orchestral works are different story and he show good craftmanship. It's just that with symphonies Haydn had weird ideas about the format. His mind doesn't seem to have realised what symphony as an artform was going to be. In other words, Haydn does not anticipate Berlioz.

Haydn, in my opinion, is the one who developed orchestration the most during the classical era. I think Sy 103 is very interesting because his use of the orchestra makes think of XIXth century composers, the very beginning sounds quite lisztian to me and the way he changes instruments in one only theme in this precise adagio makes me think about Bruckner.
It's enough listening some symphonies from the beginning to the end of his career to realise how he improved the use of the orchestra. Of course, it's still not as rich as Berlioz.
I even hear a quite big difference between the first six "Londons" and the last "six".
I'm hearing Sy 104, the sounds are evolving all the time.
I don't know enough about Dittersdorf, but the orchestration of Ovid's metamorphoses is not as various, in my opinion. It's only my opinion.
BUT Dittersdorf is far from being a bad orchestrator. Some of his ideas has been quoted by Haydn for his parisians, I think.
We ignore what he would have done if he had written more symphonies in the 1790's, the period when Haydn wrote his "Londons".

[karlhenning]

No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Thanks for yet another of your patent non-answers!

[71 dB]

Thanks for yet another of your patent non-answers!

How do you expect I answer to your non-questions? 

[Larry Rinkel]

(laughing) Thanks for the correction, Larry. It's about time I checked out the Strauss/Berlioz book, as I'd only read Rimsky's tome a long time ago. My favorite (in the "most educating" classification) remains up to this point Samuel Adler's excellent book on orchestration.

There are a number of good ones, and I like having 6-7 on my shelves - as each one takes a different perspective and provides different examples. However, neither Adler, Piston, Kennan, Forsyth, Berlioz/Strauss, Rimsky, Blattner, or Rauscher gives any example that I recall from Dittersdorf as a model of orchestration.

[karlhenning]

However, neither Adler, Piston, Kennan, Forsyth, Berlioz/Strauss, Rimsky, Blattner, or Rauscher gives any example that I recall from Dittersdorf as a model of orchestration.

Maybe they sing, "Anything that Dittersdorf done good, another composer's done better . . . ."

Or maybe they just hain't got religion  0:)

[Larry Rinkel]

Or maybe they just hain't got religion  0:)

I am certain I don't.

[karlhenning]

We heathen must stick together.

[Haffner]

We heathen must stick together.

Aunt Esther would have agreed, if axed.

[George]

Aunt Esther would have agreed, if axed.

You big dummy! If axed, she'd be dead!