Life without Haydn would be very bad indeed. In some respects I regard him as the only true "Classical" composer. Mozart was really a crazy romantic at heart, and Beethoven was truly about pushing the envelope rather than a [i]Meister der Beschränkung[/i]. Haydn has this unique poise, humor and consolation that reminds one of the best of antique classical art. Perhaps his biggest downside is he wrote so damn much - no [i]Beschränkung[/i] there. I may have my figures wrong, but hose huge collections of string quartets (77), piano trios (43), symphonies (109) are daunting. I love 'em, but it's so hard to choose which one you're going to listen to. In fact some of my most played Haydn pieces are the single piano sonata Horowitz played on his famous 1966 Carnegie Hall concert. It's the one in F major (Hob 16:23), and Horowitz plays it as a big love song. Another favorite is the A flat major one Sviatoslav Richter plays on a Live Classics issue of 1992 concert in Schliersee (wherever that may be), which I can only read as a love song to music itself, especially the trill Anyone else has favorite Haydn pieces? Herman