Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his death, this detailed, scholarly, and lively Companion provides unprecedented insight into the life, times, and music of one of the great composers of the classical era, Joseph Haydn (1732-1809).
In his lifetime Joseph Haydn enjoyed huge popularity throughout Europe. As a composer of symphonies, quartets, masses, and oratorios he was readily acknowledged by Mozart, Beethoven, and others as a commanding figure. He is one of the founding fathers of classical music, yet only in the last 50 years have his works become available in reliable editions, and much biographical detail has come to light at the same time. Meanwhile, his music is more popular today than it has been at any timesince his death. This detailed, scholarly, and lively Companion draws together a wealth of biographical detail and expert analysis for the the first time in an accessible, engaging format. It covers Haydn's life and times, and his music, including its performance and reception. The Companion focuses on the period of Haydn's life (1732-1809), but extends forward to the end of the 20th century, to cover Haydn's reputation in the 19th century, attempts at complete editions, and modern scholarship. Selected feature entries cover such topics as Haydn's life and personality, major genres in which he worked, performance practice, dissemination, and the Enlightenment. The A-Z text is complemented by a full list of Haydn's works, family trees, and a list of first lines.
This Companion provides an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn. Readers will gain an understanding of the changing social, cultural, and political spheres in which Haydn studied, worked, and nurtured his creative talent. Distinguished contributors provide chapters on Haydn and his contemporaries, his working environments in Eisenstadt and Eszterháza, and humor and exoticism in Haydn's oeuvre. Chapters on the reception of his music explore keyboard performance practices, Haydn's posthumous reputation, sound recordings and images of his symphonies. The book also surveys the major genres in which Haydn wrote, including symphonies, string quartets, keyboard sonatas and trios, sacred music, miscellaneous vocal genres, and operas composed for Eszterháza and London.
An exploration of the question of greatness from the chief classical music critic of The New York Times Anthony Tommasini has devoted particular attention to living composers and overlooked repertory. But, as with all classical music lovers, the canon has remained central for him. Tommasini resists the neat laws of canon formation—and yet, he can’t help but admit that these exalted composers have guided him through his life, resonating with his deepest emotions and profoundly shaping how he sees the world. Now, in The Indispensable Composers, Tommasini offers his own personal guide to what the mercurial concept of greatness really means in classical music. As he argues for his particular pantheon of indispensable composers, Tommasini provides a masterclass in what to listen for and how to understand what music does to us.
This volume brings together a selection of the most stimulating and influential writing on Haydn and his music in the English language. Written by a range of established and younger scholars it probes a variety of aesthetic, biographical, compositional, performance and reception issues. A specially written introduction summarizes the significance of each essay, directs the reader to appropriate complementary material and seeks the common ground between the essays; to assist with consistent referencing the individual essays retain their original pagination. This representative compendium of Haydn research provides the opportunity to explore the intellectual diversity of recent scholarship and is an indispensable publication for students of Haydn, whether new or old, amateur or professional.
Presenting a fresh perspective on the life and work of Joseph Haydn, this biography probes the darker side of Haydn's personality, his commercial opportunism and double dealing, his penny-pinching and his troubled marriage.
Renowned music historians Floyd and Margaret Grave present a fresh perspective on a comprehensive survey of the works. This thorough and unique analysis offers new insights into the creation of the quartets, the wealth of musical customs and conventions on which they draw, the scope of their innovations, and their significance as reflections of Haydn's artistic personality. Each set of quartets is characterized in terms of its particular mix of structural conventions and novelties, stylistic allusions, and its special points of connection with other opus groups in the series. Throughout the book, the authors draw attention to the boundless supply of compositional strategies by which Haydn appears to be continually rethinking, reevaluating, and refining the quartet's potentials. They also lucidly describe Haydn's famous penchant for wit, humor, and compositional artifice, illuminating the unexpected connections he draws between seemingly unrelated ideas, his irony, and his lightning bolts of surprise and thwarted expectation. Approaching the quartets from a variety of vantage points, the authors correct many prevailing assumptions about convention, innovation, and developing compositional technique in the music of Haydn and his contemporaries.
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 1809) has been called the father of the symphony and the string quartet. A friend of Mozart and a teacher of Beethoven, "Papa" Haydn composed an amazing variety of music -- symphonies, string quartets, concerti, masses, operas, oratorios, keyboard works -- and his prolific output celebrates both the heights and depths of life. In this fascinating book Calvin Stapert combines his skills as a biographer and a musicologist to recount Haydn's steady rise from humble origins to true musical greatness. Unlike other biographers, Stapert argues that Haydn's work was a product of his devout Catholic faith, even though he worked mainly as a court musician and the bulk of his output was in popular genres. In addition to telling Haydn's life story, Stapert includes accessible listening guides to The Creation and portions of other well-known works to help Haydn listeners more fully appreciate the brilliance behind his music.