Haydn

[contrapunctus]

I want to hear your opinions on him, and I would check out the Wikipedia article on him if you do not know much about him.

In my opinion, he is great, perhaps the greatest at writing "pure music" as they call it.

He took the classical period to it's zenith. He deserves much more credit and performances of his music than currently exists. His music just makes you happy about life.

[BoliverAllmon]

I love his music. I find it upbeat and full of humor. Unfortunately in our prozac world today, alot of people want to hear darker music.

boliver

[exigence]

Almost all of my favorites are "darker."

Fantastic.

[pseudopianist]

Not heard enough to give a full judgetment but I can't say I like what I've heard so far but prefer him to Mozart.

[danyal]

IMO, Haydn is completely under-rated today. He was an incredible composer and exceptionally smart (musically as well as everything else) He had a wonderful, sneaky sense of humour which is very prominant in his music. People tend to disregard him in favour of his musical brother Mozart, but Mozart's geniousness shouldn't in any way pull the focus off how much of a genious Haydn also was. It tends to nowadays.

I love his music. Maybe I just relate to it well.

[mikey6]

Ashkenazy criticised him (and I have heard this from others) that he was more of a master craftsman than an inspired artist - there are exceptions of course - the london symphonies and fmin variations to name a few.
But he was definitaley one of the funniest composers - love the cmaj fantasie!

[kelly_kelly]

His music just makes you happy about life.

I couldn't agree more. I love dark music like Chopin, but there's nothing quite like Haydn.

[apion]

Ashkenazy criticised him (and I have heard this from others) that he was more of a master craftsman than an inspired artist - there are exceptions of course - the london symphonies and fmin variations to name a few.

Could you tell me more about the f minor variations?  Thanks.

[pianobabe_56]

God bless Haydn. I love that man's music.

[mikey6]

Could you tell me more about the f minor variations?  Thanks.

I haven't actually played it and don't know them too well, but it's my teachers favourite piece of Haydn.  It goes for about 17 minutes I think, has 5 variations and an extended last one.  Generally it's considered one of his greatest works for keyboard along with the last few keyboard sonatas.

[contrapunctus]

Can anybody list some good piano sonmatas for me? Also, could someone list any other piano works that are good?

[rafant]

Moved by other threads here about how much fabulous were the Haydn's sonatas, I bought the complete collection by Naxos. I listened to all of them several times, and I ended dissapointed. Except for a couple of movements, I didn't find anything that moved me to think: Beautiful, I want to play that!". Simply I was not able of finding true inspiration.  It's my fault of course. Maybe I change my mind if I become a more mature listener. For the moment I prefer Mozart's  sonatas.

[BoliverAllmon]

to each his own.

[whynot]

He was a maverick, working on his own.  While the other composers of his day continually heard the work of others and got ideas and inspiration from one another, Haydn just kept coming up with the goods in the middle of a forest.  His ideas about musical architecture are still considered pretty important, and for all the constaints of the time, he made a lot happen in his music.  I like him.