Product Description
This collection of Haydn essays, spanning more than sixty years (1927-88), is representative of the wide ranging interests of an esteemed scholar and includes published, unpublished, out of print and previously untranslated publications. Volume concludes with a revised and updated bibliography of Geiringer publications pertaining to Haydn. ... Read more

Book Description
Haydn's Creation is one of the great masterpieces of the classical period. This absorbing and original account of the work provides an indispensable guide for the concert-goer, performer and student alike.

The author places the work within the oratorio tradition, bearing in mind its intended early audiences in both Austria and England, and he contrasts the theological and literary character of the English libretto with the Viennese milieu of the first performances.

The complete text is provided in both English and German versions as a reference point for discussion of the design of the work and the musical treatment of the words, including questions of Haydn's pictorialism. A more detailed musical chapter examines the work through the movement types it employs -- arias and ensembles, recitatives and choruses -- distinguishing the Handelian model from Haydn's own classical idiom.

Nicholas Temperley also discusses the changing performance traditions of this work and surveys the critical reception throughout its history. In a useful appendix he quotes from the most significant critical literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... Read more

Book Description
A monumental accomplishment from the age of Enlightenment, the string quartets of Joseph Haydn hold a central place not only in the composer's oeuvre, but also in our modern conception of form, style, and expression in the instrumental music of his day. Here, renowned music historians Floyd and Margaret Grave present a fresh perspective on a comprehensive survey of the works. This thorough and unique analysis offers new insights into the creation of the quartets, the wealth of musical customs and conventions on which they draw, the scope of their innovations, and their significance as reflections of Haydn's artistic personality. Each set of quartets is characterized in terms of its particular mix of structural conventions and novelties, stylistic allusions, and its special points of connection with other opus groups in the series. Throughout the book, the authors draw attention to the boundless supply of compositional strategies by which Haydn appears to be continually rethinking, reevaluating, and refining the quartet's potentials. They also lucidly describe Haydn's famous penchant for wit, humor, and compositional artifice, illuminating the unexpected connections he draws between seemingly unrelated ideas, his irony, and his lightning bolts of surprise and thwarted expectation. Approaching the quartets from a variety of vantage points, the authors correct many prevailing assumptions about convention, innovation, and developing compositional technique in the music of Haydn and his contemporaries. Going beyond traditional modes of study, The String Quartets of Joseph Haydn blends historical analysis and factual information with critical appraisal in a way that will engage all Haydn enthusiasts. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Includes a full-length CD recorded by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.

History and music come alive!

Prince Nicholas isn't easy to work for--just ask composer Joseph Haydn. When the prince isn't demanding chamber music, operas, and ballets to entertain his guests, he wants dance music for balls and dinner music with his meals. Haydn and the other musicians are kept quite busy at the prince's summer estate in Hungary. As summer fades into autumn, however, the musicians grow increasingly homesick. When Haydn mentions the musicians' distress, the prince threatens to fire the entire orchestra! How will the talented composer convince the mighty prince that it's time to bid farewell to the summer palace?

Memorable characters, carefully researched text, and expressive illustrations tell the story behind Haydn's famous Symphony #45. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful child intro to Haydn
I would read this to a class or child and then enjoy listening to the work. It's a very nice introduction to Haydn and the humor he used when composing.Wonderful book and it comes with a nice performance of several of Haydn's Symphonys.

The Farewell Symphony
I do collect children's books and take into consideration the illustrations as well as the story.I rate this book excellent, the storyis True, based on documented evidence.A CD is also included of thecomplete "The Farewell Symphony'"and I replay it ad infinitum.Excellent investment in quality entertainment. The illustrations aredelightful!Dorothy Hope ... Read more

Book Description

Joseph Haydn's symphonies and string quartets are staples of the concert repertory, yet many aspects of this founding genius of the Viennese Classical style are only beginning to be explored. From local Kapellmeister to international icon, Haydn achieved success by developing a musical language aimed at both the connoisseurs and amateurs of the emerging musical public. In this volume, the first collection of essays in English devoted to this composer, a group of leading musicologists examines Haydn's works in relation to the aesthetic and cultural crosscurrents of his time.

Haydn and His World opens with an examination of the contexts of the composer's late oratorios: James Webster connects the Creation with the sublime--the eighteenth-century term for artistic experience of overwhelming power--and Leon Botstein explores the reception of Haydn's Seasons in terms of the changing views of programmatic music in the nineteenth century. Essays on Haydn's instrumental music include Mary Hunter on London chamber music as models of private and public performance, fortepianist Tom Beghin on rhetorical aspects of the Piano Sonata in D Major, XVI:42, Mark Evan Bonds on the real meaning behind contemporary comparisons of symphonies to the Pindaric ode, and Elaine R. Sisman on Haydn's Shakespeare, Haydn as Shakespeare, and "originality." Finally, Rebecca Green draws on primary sources to place one of Haydn's Goldoni operas at the center of the Eszterháza operatic culture of the 1770s.

The book also includes two extensive late-eighteenth-century discussions, translated into English for the first time, of music and musicians in Haydn's milieu, as well as a fascinating reconstruction of the contents of Haydn's library, which shows him fully conversant with the intellectual and artistic trends of the era.

Book Description
This accessible introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn covers his contemporaries, working environments and aesthetics. Chapters on the reception of his music explore keyboard performance practices, Haydn's posthumous reputation, recorded performances and revivals of his operas. The book surveys his major performance genre--including symphonies, string quartets, keyboard sonatas and trios, liturgical music, oratorios, etc... ... Read more

Book Description
Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 82-7 are seminal works in Haydn's output and mark a new level of compositional attainment, launching the important cycle of mature Haydn symphonies written for an international audience. This book considers both stylistic aspects of the symphonies and their broader cultural context, in particular the important phenomenon of Haydn's international success in the 1780s, the reception of Haydn's symphonies by Parisian audiences, and the aesthetic basis for their extraordinary appeal at the end of the eighteenth century. ... Read more

Book Description
This book collects some 60 printed meditations along with, on two disks, the complete musical performance and an analysis of how Haydn's work embodies the emotion of Christ's passion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Echoes from Calvary
This book was really helpful for me during this Lenten season.Haydn's music played by the Vermeer String Quartet was heartbreakingly beautiful!I had not known of the music, so that contributed to my enjoyment.I used most of the short meditations (some were not helpful) as a guide for my own meditation times.The disappointment was the CD in the back of the book, which I could not understand why it was there.It has some weird sounds on it.I wrote to the publishers to inquire but no one responded.So, ignore that CD but play the front one--the music will enrich your life.

Meditations of the heart for Good Friday and Holy Week
I found "Echoes from Calvary" by way of an article in The San Francisco Chronicle by a writer named Peter Steinfels under the label "Beliefs." It says as headline, "Haydn's music on Christ's last words, a transforming journey from concert hall to sacred setting." The book is a text of meditations and is titled "Echoes from Calvary: Meditations on Franz Joseph Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ." This lovely book has 2 CDs, the complete performance with the spoken word and one CD with music only. One intriguing part of the book is the first which goes through the musical and spiritual journey of the man who put all this together, a musician named Richard Young.

Now I think this is a heavy kind of reading, for it is a Good Friday text--so why at Easter time. That's when I read it. I am interested in the resurrection, from a religious viewpoint, and of course the entry way is Holy Week and Good Friday. There you have my reason.

Richard Young's spiritual journey is very well done and interesting, as a kind of personal statement that has worthwhile reflection. It sounds like it should. As for the Easter part, there is a hopeful dimension to this book, and I am finding it sometimes dark and sometimes light. I find myself reflecting on the words as they are offered in the homily like meditations. The first CD has meditations by Martin Luther King Jr., Martin E. Marty, Raymond E. Brown, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Grover A. Zinn, Andrew M. Greeley, Peter J. Gomes and others.

There is an evident fact of the work. One cannot help but be moved by both the divinity of Christ and the human nature of the man. This is a respectful book, as one might expect and I think it is full of hope. These are meditations of the heart for Good Friday and Holy Week. Through the music and the text of meditations, one follows the Christ and knows something of his spirit. It is also a good exercise or series of examples of meditations by different writers who are clergy, giving one a taste of their own depths with each of the last words.

The words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." "Surely, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise." "Woman, behold your son!" "Behold your mother!" "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" "I thirst." "It is finished!" "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." And some meditations on "The Earthquake."

Richard Young carries his theme of words and music even further than one would expect, and happily so for this reader. (I am not well educated when it comes to music, but I found his study understandable and helpful. Even inspiring to a non music person.) At the end of the book, in an educational and instructive way that interacts with listening to Haydn, he writes of the music only, and there is a CD with only the music for his very purposes. I want to recommend this lovely book, with its elegant layout and design, to anyone interested in meditations on the last words of Christ, or wanting to come closer to knowing this man Jesus who is divine to so many Christians.
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Book Description
Alan Tyson is Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy.He is a leading authority on composers and music of the Classical period, especially Mozart and Beethoven.He has made a greater contribution to the dating of sketches and compositions than any other scholar.His international reputation stems from his outstanding contribution to the dating and cataloguing of these composers' sketches, manuscript compositions, and early printed editions.This collection of 19 essays in his honour comprises scholarly contributions from an international group of distinguished musicologists under the editorship of Sieghard Brandenburg.The book also includes a complete checklist of Alan Tyson's writings on music. ... Read more