Life without Haydn

Hi guys,
just wanted to say hallo to MTL and to put in some comments.

Tones do not call me Tiefschweizerer or Zentralschweizer: I am still more a Ticinese since I lived for over 20 years in the surroundings of Lugano. "Che bel vivere nel Ticino...". I must agree that it is also nice to live where I am now.

I hope not. I don't want to be killed for those flat round vinyl stuff. It makes me also feel quite cheep. That's life! I must seriously think of having a bodyguard.

I feel now better: Maybe I am / feel cheap but in someway I am still usefull
mtl, you have 3-4000 CDs: much more worthfull than my vinyl. Maybe it would be a good idea to send somebody to your place. Let me know your address and also when you are not in. Maybe it would be good if you show also the direct way to your CD-collection. I am not interested in other stuff (except for, maybe, a little bit of Swiss choccolate).

I hope it is really so. It must certainly be comforting to know that with a lot less money you can also have something great. I woudn't invite people if I new they would go back and never hear their HiFi again.

uuhhmmmmm. ...interesting comment.. never thought somebody could see that in this way.
Since I found a "very cheap" (1-2 €) way to buy LPs, I decided to buy many recordings which many years ago I just was dreaming to have. For example, when you can have the 9 symphonies of Beethoven for 10-15€, i prefer to get them and maybe skip a meal at the restaurant. I do though have a method when I decide to buy records. Mostly it depends on which interpreters I am interested in at the moment. The interest comes not only from my own personal preferences but especially from what you guys write in this forum.
Since the price is so low, I don't mind to experiment with interpreters that I don't know much, but are quite acclaimed. The Bernstein and Karajan records are an example: I was never a fan of these conductors but I feel I should give them another chance. Maybe the problem of such a way of buying music is that you end up with so many copies of the same composition while other stuff remain unknown. This feeling I had when Graham was over here. He brought about 20-30 Cds, most of them I didn't even know. He goes to so many concerts and he definitely knows much more compositions than I know. His way of buying is completely different than mine but I would bet I would use his method if I had to buy only CDs. I would be very selective if I had to pay 15€ per CD!
At the moment I am after Gardiner on LP but cannot find much. Otherwise I bought very little lately and at the moment I am keeping an eye on the complete cantatas of Bach played by Rilling (100LPs). I have the Telefunken collection (Harnoncourt, Leonhard..) but why not also with Rilling since lots of people like it...

Back OT
I like also Gardiner's interpretations. That is why I am searching LPs with him. I suppose I must switch to Gardiner's CD... Since I improved the quality of my analogue (but I am not yet satisfied) I hear even less CDs. But maybe things might change, I hope so for my Kalista.
I might buy the Haydn CDs you were mentioning about.
I have his interpretations of the Mozart concerts. I think they are nice for a change but I still prefer the versions with piano rather than fortepiano.
About he Monteverdis deep financial trouble not so long ago, I heard they were thinking of coming in Switzerland and stay somewhere near Koblenz since the taxes would have been much less and that could have helped them very much financialy. I think they had some talkes with the authorities and if I well remember the place would have been a castle or something like that.

Yes the Pilatus is really mighty. What language do they speak up there? Japanese?
The KKL maybe be lovely but I prefer the acustic of the old Tonhalle even if after a concert I cannot feel anymore my bo****. I might go and hear the Dave Brubeck Quartett, Mc Laughlin's "Shakti" and Sonny Rollins concerts at the KKL.
The KKL is getting quite expensive for the city of Lucern. The huge architecture needs lots of personal for its maintenance (maybe a great building but very unpracticable to clean). The only way of reducing the deficit would be to be able to rent the hall every day. Since Luzern doesn't have an orchestra like Zürich which can give concerts at least 2-3 times a week and since it is impossible to have every day foreign musicians / orchestras in the hall, I really think that the KKL will become soon a pain in the back for Luzern (or at least for their inhabitants).

 

Hey there, Titian, good to hear from you again! Oh, a hot-blooded Ticinese, eh? I'd better be careful! Ah, but surely now you're a true Tiefschweizer, living in the very heartland and looking down on all the other Johnny-come-latelys, nicht wahr?

Yes, I admit I was terrified to listen to your system, because I thought I might never be able to listen to mine again, but although it was brilliant - as Graham said, the best we'd ever heard - in the final analysis it's still a hi-fi system. Phew!

The comment about your buying reflexively was a reference to the fact that you've acquired a lot of stuff purely "on spec" (speculative purchases), such as your jazz collection. You have clear targets for classical collection, but you also have a lot of jazz and pop/rock. The last time I saw that many records was in the old days in the HMV SHop in Oxford Street! All I can say is, good luck with the collection!

By the way, I have quite a few of the Rilling cantatas, and they're not bad at all. They have some very good singers (Arleen Auger is the soprano in many of them). The sound quality isn't the best sometimes, and Rilling sometimes goes for textures that seem too "rich", but, hey, Bach can take a wide variety of interpretation and some of Rilling's stuff is top of the heap - I'm always pulling out his BWV129, which is an especially joyous one.

I think you'll find very little of Gardiner on LP. Most of this will be on Erato, for which JEG recorded in the '70s. There's a great version of Handel's "Dixit Dominus", an astonishing choral tour-de-force, written by the young Handel when in Rome. You mighjt also get some on Philips. I believe that all the work for DG/Archiv was on CD and never appeared on LP.

Interesting bit about the Monteverdis coming to Switzerland. It really would be a shame if the group folded.

Do you know the Tallis Scholars? I'm listening to them as I type this. They do a capella choral music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They are stunning performers of this repertoire - I'm listening to a cheap CD (sale in Hug, I really should stay away from the place) called "Live in Oxford". It's toe-curlingly beautiful. I can imagine what it would sound like on your system - it would take you to the chapel of Merton College Oxford, where it was recorded.

Finally, I'd ignore Bill Phabb, who clearly has nothing worthwhile to say.

 

Thanks Tones for the comments on the Cantatas with Rillings. I would expect to pay between 100-150€ for all of them (100LPs) but I am not sure to get them.
About your visit at my place I didn't have the feeling that we were all so "concentrated" on the music. I had most the feeling we were more interested in changing points of view and discussing this and that so I am quite surprised that you all nevertheless heard the system. Ian instead when he came the first time had more opportunity to listen to the system , for example in the dark. I am though very happy that we all had to say very much and really speaking I was quite sad when the weekend finished.

I do not know the Tallis Scholars but I will keep them in mind. As i said I must slowly get some Cds, but only when new recordings (after 2000) come out and when not available on LP. I don't want to interfier in the thread which turned into a fight vinyl aginst digital ( Got me a record player!).

 

Hmm - chocolate... we usually store less chocolate than CDs at home and of the three bars lindt milk chocolate I bought this morning probably two will be gone when I get home this evening. Wife virtually inhales chocolate

In the beginning I had my difficulties too with Mozart on the fortepiano. I missed the "singing" quality of the modern grand piano. But after a while I really began to appreciate the transperancy of JEG's approach, the simplicity of the piano sound. It's a different cup of tea - but a very tasteful one.

Most likely...

Oh yes, the chairs in the Tonhalle
What I couldn't figure out yet is why the sound technicians of the KKL do not seem to be able to make this hall sound right every time. I've heard it sound just wonderful - comparable to the best European halls (such as Vienna, Amsterdam, or Hamburg [I really like the Musikhalle there]) - or really disturbing, unbalanced in a way.
And it's true - this is an expensive building that needs a lot of care but with the festival around I still think Lucerne needs such a hall. Have you ever had a glass of wine on the terrace under the roof, looking across the lake towards the Musegg wall and towers? Sometimes this view alone is worth the concert ticket.

 

Funny this - it's one of the Tallis Scholars' CDs where I did the German translations. Back then Gimell still was a part of the Philips Music Group.
If this is the only Tallis Scholars CD you own: there is a 2 CD set called "Silver", marking the 25th anniversary of the ensemble and bringing together some of their most famous recordings - like Allegri's Miserere. I still couldn't find a more touching, more beautiful interpretation (although Harry Christophers "16" come close. Might be on sale in Hug (dangerous place indeed...) too and it's a great opportunity to broaden your Renaissance repertoire...

But my favourite CD of the Tallis Scholars is a recording of lamentations (called "Lamenta"), including settings by Ferrabosco the Elder, Tallis, Brumel, White and Palestrina. It's just overwhelming in its beauty.

 

No, I have a few. I started off with an LP that includes the "other" famous Allegri Miserere (the one with Alison Stamp singing the solo). (Mind you, I still think that nothing can touch the classic King's College recording with Roy Goodman singing the treble line). Then I fell in love with Tudor church music and bought their recordings of Byrd masses, Tallis's Lamentations, Spem in Alium, etc., etc. There was also a recording (live in Rome) that I think was a 25th anniversary celebration. It included the Miserere, although it's only a single disc.

There's nothing quite like sitting in a darkened room (better to emulate the interior of a church) and letting this stuff all wash over you. You have to wonder; is this what music is like in heaven? (Of course the polyphonic style was invented to emulate the angels who have the advantage of not needing to stop for breath every now and then!).

 

You're not kidding!

While the sheer volume of his output can be daunting, I say just randomly select some of his music and listen.

As to his best music, that's easy: it's his string quartets from Opus 20 onward. They're better than Mozart's!

(I couldn't resist Herman.)

 

I just returned from a two-week holiday in the Andalucia, and toodling around in those wonderful mountains and hills (my girlfriend's native soil) we had only limited musical choices: some Amadeus Quartet playing Brahms (didn't work accompanying a car air conditioning); Arturo Michelangeli Benedetti playing Debussy Images (just the right kind of music for those high and dry places) and a bunch of discs from the Haydn Piano Trios box by the Beau Arts Trio. The Haydn was wonderful. It never failed. We didn't listen to a single trio without saying at the end, "let's do the finale again, it's such fun".

MTL: I have a bunch of those Mosaïqes recordings (among which opus 76, surely the peak of Haydn's quartet works). The playing is great, but I have to admit something is bugging me in these recordings. Perhaps it's just the way the quartet is recorded; these are period instruments, and yet they are recorded in a way that is unnaturally big, very close and yet very resonant, making these four instruments sound as powerful as the entire Philadelphia Orchestra playing in one's salon. A matter of taste, no doubt.

Herman

 

Indeed. In every case where I have the Mosaiques (Opp 20, 33, and 76 currently), they are now my favorite recordings of the respective works. That's not to dismiss, say, the Amadeus or Takacs, though. The sound in the Mosaiques is a bit too close at times. And I must say that I cannot really envision Haydn's quartets originally being played the way the Mosaiques play them; I just can't see 18th century aristocrats favoring such vigorous playing.

 

I completely missed this thread. Well, it was about Haydn, and I strongly dislike his music. I once bought a partition with some sonatas, and read some of them at the keyboard. Well, that really put me off. Different tastes, indeed. But, you see, without counterpoint or rhapsodic style I feel I miss something; and that tonic dominant craze really bothers me – as the very boring phrase symmetry.

But this thread has mentioned the Tallis Scholars at some depth, and I just love the way the bring polyphony out of very complex scores.

As a matter of fact, there was a time I used to play polyphonic organ music from the Renaissance, and I always felt I had to find a way to emulate the singing style of the very heart of polyphony – that is vocal polyphony.

The Tallis Scholars became a kind of mind reference to me.

Of course you can't emulate it on the organ, but you do learn a lot when listening to these records. The Hilliards are equally fascinating, although in a different way.

Anyway, it completely changed my way of playing polyphony – at least renaissance polyphony.

That is not a very constructive post, but I am in the middle of reading a very boring thesis and I needed something to say. I don't mean to hijack the thread.

Let me make a constructive contribution, though. A friend of mine is mad about Haydn, and imposed upon me the harpsichord concerts (Koopman playing). Out of duty, I listened to one of the records; well, it sounded like Haydn. But I did listen to it later, and when I did it, I was plain extenuated – a sleepless night, very hard work, severe stress. Before retiring I searched for something to listen to. Bach was impossible – I really wanted just to be able to rest and not to concentrate on the interplay between voices. I thought – what simple, merry go lucky music can I put into the CDP? And I remembered the Haydn concerts.

It worked – would you believe it? I felt relaxed, and the stress really went away!

So perhaps there is something in Haydn after all. Or you may say: there is still hope for me!

 

I would say the latter. Of course the field you're interested in is pretty inexhaustible, but still the way you dismiss virtually everything outsde of it is rather bewildering and runs kind of counter to what I feel the arts are about.

Herman

 

I'm really, really sorry, folks, but I just find Haydn inexhaustibly boring. And I've tried, I really have. The chamber music, in particular the string quartets, is good fun to play, and a few of the symphonies I've been involved with putting on (the numbers confuse me, they're all so big ) were sort of OK, but I just can't sit down and listen to it for pleasure if I'm not involved - it's all just incredibly trite and banal to my ears. I've done two separate performances of The Creation as well, and a few of the masses IIRC, and if anything they were even worse. :SLEEP:

Is Haydn the kind of thing that grows on you when you get older and incapable of coping with too much excitement?

 

Boring?
The funny thing is Haydn was (and is) considered to be one of the more witty and inventive composers (once you accept what RdS calls the tonic - dominant "craze").

However as long as you enjoy playing the stuff I wouldn't worry too much about not being able to sit down with a record of Haydn's.

Herman

 

I don't think that is true. I don'r dismiss anythging, really. Look, I even like some Alban Berg, I like Duruflé, I like Brahms, Bruckner, of course, and even some Mozart and a lot of Beethoven.

Now I find many 'classicists' who *do* actually dismiss everything after (but including) dodecaphonism and everything before Bach (and in fact a lot of Bach: Bach is put very high on the Pantheon, but one nevers really boyhers with him, except for a few arias from the St. Mathew).

But, of course, I have my preferences, which are, of course, linked to the kind of harmony I like, the kind of composition methods I prefer and even the colour of the instruments I fancy the most.

You like Chopin and others, I like Bach and others. That's really the only difference...

Anyway, glad to see you back.

 

Well, yes. This was in the days when starting with - gasp! - a subdominant chord could make ladies fall off their chairs though And after a while I always find myself counting the perfect cadences...

 

One interpretation of the 12 London symphonies is from Eugen jochum with the London Philarmonic Orchestra (1972).
This is for those who like to have a Haydn played in some ways like the first two symphonies of Beethoven from the old German school:
Large orchestra, very solid, powerful in the fortissimi but in other parts also light. The orchestra can switch very nicely between power and lightness. Jochum keeps the tempi quite fast to keep the flow and to avoid to be dull, boaring, sluggish, clumsy.