calimac

The renowned musicologist with the rather peculiar-initialed name died last week at a fairly distinguished age.

Landon was the Haydn expert, and I learned a lot from reading his erudite but captivating liner notes on the Haydn symphonies in the endless series of Dorati/Philharmonia Hungarica box LP sets that came out in the 70s, and which I collected one-by-one. Landon wrote a lot else about Haydn, and other music of the era; it was he who discovered in the 1950s that the "Jena" Symphony was not, as originally attributed, by Beethoven.

Haydn, whom I have just reinstated as my music-topic userpic in a caricature I lifted from Alan Rich, is my favorite composer as he was Landon's. Like Landon, I heard one Haydn symphony and thought, "Wow, there's 103 others like this?"

Here's excerpts from two of my favorite Haydn symphonies, dark, minor-mode middle-period ones: the first movement of No. 39 in G Minor and the finale of No. 52 in C Minor, both prominently featuring that favorite Haydn effect, the elongated pause. Both from that Dorati/Philharmonic Hungarica set. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Watch on YouTube