Haydn seek

One of the things I often pick up from other musicians is an implicit consensus that any piece of music from, let's say, before the time of Beethoven, will essentially be pretty similar to any other piece written around the same time. On a superficial level, this seems like a reasonably forgiveable assumption: to give an example, eighteenth-century music in the galante style is invariably lightweight, in major keys and based on minuets and gavottes and things; thus few non-specialists, on a first hearing, would perceive much difference between a sonata by Stamitz and one by JC Bach. I readily confess to being unable to match any unfamiliar pieces by Schutz, Pachelbel and Buxtehude to their respective composers because my knowledge of the German Baroque does not extend particularly far beyond Bach. In the twentieth century (particularly the latter half), compositional practice suddenly seems to have exploded without warning into dozens of different 'schools' and even lone individuals, all writing very different-sounding music, yet alive at the same time. This is a rather interesting reversal of the rest of history, because everywhere else, the overall trend of the twentieth century has been homogenisation and rationalisation - communication advances meaning that everyone speaks English, every country adopts capitalism as a political philosophy and value system, so there's a McDonalds in every town and everyone drives a Ford, etc. One would think that this would cause art to follow suit as public tastes become equally homogenised and cultural values less varied. Quite the opposite - in fact as everything else starts to get more globalised and technologised, so more and more artistic niches seem to open up, increasing the diversity of artistic expression.

Anyway, whether this is actually true or whether artistic output is actually as homogenised as the rest of the world (that's if it even is, after all that preamble) and we don't realise it, is another blog post/PhD thesis/epic-length academic conference speech for another day. What I'd actually like to talk about is Joseph Haydn, he of the practical jokery and curly-locked wig.

Returning to my opening gambit, quite a few of us think Haydn is basically the same as Mozart - symphonies, operas, perfect cadences, curly wigs. Recently, however, I've had two things occur that have led me to the conclusion that nothing could be further from the truth. The first is Nimbus' brilliant two-volume set of all 104 symphonies (plus the Sinfonia Concertante; the symphonies 'A' and 'B', supposedly numbers 107 and 108; some violin concerti and some overtures to fill the last MP3 disk) by Adam Fischer and a band calling themselves the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, which turns out to be most of his mates from the top orchestras in Central Europe. It is, I understand, the first complete set under a single conductor, all done over about 8 years when everyone had some spare days to meet up and make the recording. What's more, the entire set are recorded in the Haydnsaal in Esterházy Palace, no less, and although it's not done on period instruments the performances have an air of authenticity as a result. But what's really exciting about these disks (there are sixteen - and no, despite extensive listening time I have not yet got through all 37 hours of music) is the playing style that the musicians instinctively bring - little inflections in rhythm, a particular way of phrasing and articulation, agogic accents in the minuets - a style which is natural to the orchestra, with its mix of Germanic, Austrian, Hungarian and Slavic musical cultures. It's absolutely perfect for Haydn, and for a very simple reason: this was the music Haydn was surrounded by during his 'exile' at Esterházy. 'I was cut off from the world and forced to develop my own style' he later remarked, a style which was entirely immersed in the folk music of the region. Never mind the refined, cosmopolitan, elegant style of the Viennese Mozart; Haydn is a country Hungarian: rougher, more rhythmic, less urbane - although no less dazzling, intelligent and compositionally fluent either.

Further proof of this comes as I practice the C major Cello Concerto for a gig next week. I learnt the first movement as a teenager (not that I had particularly distinguished level of technique back then) and followed the Rostropovich /Sadlo editorial bowings without question, adding liberal dollops of Romantic vibrato to hide to dodgy bits. But recently I've become more and more convinced that the 'folk music' approach, coupled with a judicious application of points gleaned from learning about period performance (don't worry, I'm not one of those people who is obsessed with 'authenticity' (another ranty blog post for the future methinks)), is the way to bring the best out of Haydn. It doesn't matter if fast runs and figurations are rough and even scratchy; that's how Haydn probably heard stuff done out in the street. Pulling the rhythms around, double-dotting things, the very Hungarian technique of playing fast using an entire bow length with almost no pressure, all bring the music to life without ever compromising the wit or sparkle of it. What would be horribly crude in Mozart or Boccherini works marvellously here, even to the point where it helps with technical issues. In fact my only difficulty may be getting the orchestra to adopt this style as well, on just two rehearsals.

As an afterword, it's not hard to see how one of Haydn's pupils picked up on such features as the 'misplaced' accents, pounding rhythms and general bucolic impetus of this style either. His name? Ludwig van Beethoven.

(Wikipedia happens to have a page on 'Haydn and folk music' which elaborates several points not touched upon here).