H.C. Robbins Landon ... and Haydn

[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

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I've never wanted to tie myself down to saying that Haydn is my favourite composer, but I do think he was one of the most complete and adult people ever to have composed great music. I love Bach, but he doesn't have much of a sense of humour; I love Mozart, but at times he is almost too clever; I love Brahms but he feels so sorry for himself; I love Shostakovich but I wish he had scrapped the automatic scherzo-writing machine early in his career. There's nothing about Haydn that I would change.

And H. Robbins Landon was his prophet.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Haydn is definitely one of my favorite composers and H.C. Robbins Landon is one of my heroes, *the* hero when it comes to musical excavation, which as you know is a passion of mine. I hadn't heard the news. I'm not sad, but simply grateful for his extraordinary life, for his passion and dedication to what he loved and to what he knew was great and worthwhile. There's a decent obituary in the Telegraph.

Robbins Landon's impact on Vivaldi studies was almost as great as that on Haydn studies -- in the late 70s he single-handedly discovered a huge number of lost Vivaldi concertos, numbering I believe in the dozens. And so allow me to recall the image of the boy Haydn, who sang in the choir at Vivaldi's funeral in 1741.

Another favorite image from Haydn's life is the month he spent in Vienna before leaving for his first sojourn in London; I think it was December 1790. He and Mozart played through two or three of Mozart's string quintets, with the two of them taking the viola parts; I can't recall who the other players were. But to have been a fly on the wall. And their eventual parting, on the last day of the old year or perhaps it was the first of the new, which was highly emotional, Haydn saying later (if I'm recalling correctly) that he understood Somehow that he would never see Mozart again, and indeed he did not.

A fond farewell then to a man who utterly transformed the landscape of classical music scholarship, performance, and appreciation in the 20th century, and who almost single-handedly restored the music of Joseph Haydn to the repertoire. What a story; what a soul.

[(Anonymous)]

Sigh. It's almost pointless for me to do this, and I realize I'm
oversensitive on the issue...but why is it that a 4:44 movement "in the
minor" spends roughly 3:00 of it in the major? The second excerpt is
a little better, but still spends about 50% of its span in the major.

I don't deny that Haydn was a great composer, and I did appreciate the
minor-key parts (the syncopations in the second excerpt were particularly
interesting), but as someone who has no patience for major key there's
really no point in my listening to Haydn (or Mozart) at all.

But Haydn's reputation will not stand or fall on whether I enjoy listening
to him; I'm glad he is still so popular with so many people.

Don Keller

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It's called "contrast," and classical music would be nowhere without it.