Haydn Symphonies No. 78-81

No. 391 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT  series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast391

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Over the past several weeks, we undertook a survey of Haydn’s late symphonies, spanning from the six so-called Paris symphonies through to the 12 London symphonies.

To close out this review, I am offering the set of four symphonies (nos 78 to 81) that immediately precede the Paris set.

Few composers show such remarkable growth as Haydn; from his insignificant youthful pieces, entirely dominated by the style of his pre-Classical elders, to the towering achievement of his last works, his symphonies display an evolution in form and content that had tremendous effect on his followers.

Let me make a bold statement – should you ever do 104 original widgets of a certain type, chances are some may look eerily similar. Not identical – after all, they are all unique – but in many ways they would have some common threads. In Haydn’s case, it as to do with “the formula”. In a way, producing so many symphonies is helped quite a bit by a formulaic approach. But to call this a “cookie cutter” style is a stretch. By turns rigorously contrapuntal and lucidly witty, the vitality evident in the formula reflects Haydn’s overflowing adventurousness.

No two movements are alike; the “mosaic” of theme elements pervades even transition sections and codas; each instrument shares in the melodic development; minuets grow in fire or dignity while finales exploit varieties of rondo form. The formula reaches its zenith in the London symphonies, but even the four works featured today exemplify the variety behind Haydn’s methods.

I think you will love this music too!

A LA CARTE #18 - Haydn: The London Symphonies (Nos. 99, 101, 103)

  

We are repurposing the music from a Once Upon the Internet post of June 13, 2017 as a new montage in our ongoing A la Carte series on For Your Listening Pleasure. Mobile followers can listen to the montage on our Pod-O-Matic Channel, and desktop users can simply use the embedded player found on this page. The following notes are an update.

This is the second of two posts repurposing Haydn symphony recordings from the 1950's featuring Hermann Scherchen and Viennese orchestras in studio recordings. Symphonies no. 99 and 101 are part of another Once Upon the Internet I posted in 2018.

You will find the complete collection of the twelve London on the Italian website LiberMusica.

Happy listening!

 Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)

Symphony No. 99 in E-Flat Major, Hob.I:99 

Symphony No. 101 in D Major, Hob.I:101 «The Clock »

Wiener Staatsopernorchester

Hermann Scherchen, conducting

[OUTI-61]

Symphony No.103 in E-Flat Major ('Drum Roll'), Hob.I:103

Wiener Symphoniker

Hermann Scherchen, conducting

[OUTI-57]

Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/01-alc-18-haydn-the-london-sympho

A LA CARTE #17 - Haydn: The London Symphonies (Nos. 93, 95, 97)

 

We are repurposing the music from a Once Upon the Internet post of June 13, 2017 as a new montage in our ongoing A la Carte series on For Your Listening Pleasure. Mobile followers can listen to the montage on our Pod-O-Matic Channel, and desktop users can simply use the embedded player found on this page. The following notes are an update.

This is the first of two posts repurposing Haydn symphony recordings from the 1950's featuring Hermann Scherchen and Viennese orchestras in studio recordings. Symphony no. 93 is part of another Once Upon the Internet I posted in 2018.

You will find the complete collection of the twelve London on the Italian website LiberMusica.

Inserted here is a concert recording of Haydn's 95th with the Montreal Symphony from 2016..

Happy listening!

 

Joseph HAYDN (1732-1809)

Symphony No.93 in D, Hob.I:93

Wiener Staatsopernorchester

Hermann Scherchen, conducting

[OUTI-61]

 

Symphony No.95 in C-, Hob.I:95

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal

Gunther Herbig, conducting

[OUTI-48]

Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/01-alc-17-haydn-the-london-sympho

Ballets par Erik Satie

No. 390 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast390

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Our new montage this week explores the music of Erik Satie, and specifically some of his dance and ballet music.

According to Musicaneo, French composer Erik Satie is one the most enigmatic composers of the 19th century. Like many creative people, he had his own weird habits and features that may seem way too strange today.

How eccentric?. Erik Satie didn’t let a single person in his tiny room at No.6 at Rue Cortot for… 27 years. After composer’s death, piles of all kinds of trash were discovered there. Amid dozens of umbrellas and newspapers, two pianos were found, one above the other, with pedals interconnected. That weird sculpture served as storage for various parcels, papers and scores of music. Among them, the music for Jack in the Box thought lost since 1905.

In June 1926, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his birth, Jack in the Box was produced by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with choreography by George Balanchine, settings by André Derain, and the music orchestrated by Satie's friend Darius Milhaud.

Parade is a ballet choreographed by Leonide Massine, with music by Erik Satie and a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau. The ballet was composed in 1916–17 for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Satie welcomed the idea of composing ballet music (which he had never done before) but refused to allow any of his previous compositions to be used for the occasion, so Cocteau started writing a scenario (the theme being a publicity parade in which three groups of circus artists try to attract an audience to an indoor performance), to which Satie composed the music (with some additions to the orchestral score by Cocteau).

Mercure is a 1924 ballet with music by Satie. The original décor and costumes were designed by Pablo Picasso and the choreography was by Léonide Massine, who also danced the title role. Subtitled "Plastic Poses in Three Tableaux", it was an important link between Picasso's Neoclassical and Surrealist phases and has been described as a "painter's ballet."

Relâche is another 1924 ballet. Imagined by Francis Picabia, the title was thought to be a Dadaist practical joke, as relâche is the French word used on posters to indicate that a show is canceled, or the theater is closed.

To complete the podcast, I added some piano music by Satie composed for the play Le piège de Méduse. The musical score is a series of very short dances in popular modes (quadrille, waltz, mazurka, polka, etc.), written in Satie's most humorously straight-faced manner, and reminiscent of some of Satie's other works.

I think you will love this music too.