Haydn's 107 symphonies

January 15, 2016 6:29 AM

Joseph Haydn wrote a total of 107 symphonies, and is known as the 'Father of the Symphony.' You can listen to them all online at Haydn107.com, where each symphony is presented in different interpretations, along with introductory notes.
posted by carter (34 comments total)

There's no Haydn how impressive this is. I'll certainly be Bach, but I'm not sure if I can Handel all 107.

I'll need to make a Liszt.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:41 AM on January 15, 2016 [21 favorites]

OOOOOOOOH! This is awesome. Thanks!

On preview, leotrotsky wins the thread. :D
posted by zarq at 6:45 AM on January 15, 2016

One of my favourite gags from The Goon Show involves Eccles leaping into a piano to conceal himself. Neddie Seagoon walks in.

Seagoon: Where's Eccles?
Eccles: I'm hidin'
Seagoon: Don't be ridiculous! Haydn's been dead for years!

Quality stuff, I think you'll agree.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:50 AM on January 15, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now take the 37th bar of each symphony, string them together and you're the new John Cage.
posted by sammyo at 6:51 AM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

On my litmus movement for Haydn performance, the Andante of "The Clock" (Hob. 101) I vastly prefer the Dorati interpretation as it is lighter and faintly teasing, with each repeat of the motif bit more sardonic...
hmmm, I guess I like my Haydn to be the musical equivalent of a Dad joke.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 6:55 AM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

“Remember Haydn’s 104 symphonies. Not all of them were great. But there were 104 of them.”—Raymond Carver.

We made this guy listen to all 104 Haydn symphonies and put them in order of greatness.

104? 107? Wikipedia doesn’t help by listing the 104 symphonies with opus numbers plus four more, but then adding ‘Despite this, the number of “symphonies” by Haydn is usually given as 106.’
posted by misteraitch at 6:56 AM on January 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does this include the rarely performed Haydn Trio for Piano, Accordion, and Triangle"?
posted by SansPoint at 7:01 AM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don’t know where I got the idea the 104 symphonies had opus numbers, because they don’t… rather ‘104 have numbers associated with them which were originally assigned by Eusebius Mandyczewski in 1908 in the chronological order that was known at the time.’
posted by misteraitch at 7:04 AM on January 15, 2016

Imagines this entire website as if it was a 90s alt/rock radio station:

“Haydn107 H - A - Y - DDDDDDEEEEEE - NNNN HAYDN!”
“Man, those clowns in Vienna did it again...but first it's time for our Classical Joke of the Day, this one comes in all the way from Prague, a caller named, I hope I'm pronouncing this correct 'Moooozaart....Mozesart....Mozart.”
“Why couldn’t Beethoven find his composition teacher? Because he was Haydn.”
“Oh man, that's a great one, and now for the weather.....”
posted by Fizz at 7:06 AM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

My favorite Haydn thing is how he wrote 126 trios for the baryton, a bizarre frankeninstrument that nobody plays, because his ownerpatron Prince Nikolaus bought one. Most of them are in easy keys and don't use all the strings because the Prince was a shitty baryton player.
posted by theodolite at 7:07 AM on January 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

104? 107? Wikipedia doesn’t help by listing the 104 symphonies with opus numbers plus four more

If you click on Symphonies on the site, you'll see that they have 108 slots (the original 104 plus hoboken's other 4) but #106 is missing -- since most of it is lost.
posted by effbot at 7:08 AM on January 15, 2016

Whiny voice:
Ugh. Isn't there just a greatest hits or something?
posted by NoMich at 7:09 AM on January 15, 2016

We made this guy listen to all 104 Haydn symphonies and put them in order of greatness:

Hahaha these are amazingly snarky and great:

65. Symphony No. 77
If you’re the sort of person who has a soundtrack in their head all the time, the minuet and trio of no. 77 is the perfect accompaniment to jumping methodically into a series of puddles. Approved.
34. Symphony No. 99
A symphony of amazing moments, rather than a complete thematic success. Like Star Wars: The Force Awakens

posted by barchan at 7:19 AM on January 15, 2016

SPOILER ALERT: One of them has a "surprise"!
posted by sourwookie at 7:22 AM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

First I put in Debussy, then I put in the Bach.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:25 AM on January 15, 2016

My favorite Haydn thing is how he wrote 126 trios for the baryton, a bizarre frankeninstrument that nobody plays, because his ownerpatron Prince Nikolaus bought one. Most of them are in easy keys and don't use all the strings because the Prince was a shitty baryton player.

I love that Hoboken isn't chronological, like most(?) catalogues, but sorted by genre. You can see all the weird stuff that Nikolaus was into, plus things that Haydn did for the money because they were cool at the time.

XIX Pieces for Mechanical Clock (Flötenuhr) (1–32)
XXIX Marionette Operas
XXXI Arrangement of Scottish (273) and Welsh (60) Folksongs
posted by zamboni at 7:25 AM on January 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

While I don't have any interest in Haydn or classical music, a site like this is one of the reasons we needed the Internet.
posted by Billiken at 8:24 AM on January 15, 2016

This is fantastic, thank you so much!
posted by Busithoth at 8:31 AM on January 15, 2016

I guess I like my Haydn to be the musical equivalent of a Dad joke.

Then you get Haydn. He was quite a mirthful guy, and his music is often very humorous.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:48 AM on January 15, 2016

Awesomesauce. Thanks!
posted by Quasirandom at 9:22 AM on January 15, 2016

This is almost completely unrelated (yes strange segway, but someone mentioned the word 'surprise'), but maybe the last chance to mention P.D.Q. Bach (MeFi won't want to miss the Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons) and Gerard Hoffnung and Anna Russell.

And, oh what the hell, Mrs. Miller. For completists.
posted by Twang at 10:57 AM on January 15, 2016

DeKoven would approve of the previous comment.
posted by sammyo at 3:12 PM on January 15, 2016

ahhhh this owns, thank you for posting it
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:13 PM on January 15, 2016

>My favorite Haydn thing is how he wrote 126 trios for the baryton, a bizarre >frankeninstrument that nobody plays, because his ownerpatron Prince Nikolaus bought one.

One of the most exciting concerts I ever went to featured cellist John Hsu playing the baryton. If you knew Haydn well, you could tell when each trio was written by how it sounded compared to quartets written at about the same time. And while Esterhazy was probably a pretty bad player, the trios themselves are wonderful because the other two instruments take up the higher and lower registers so the trio of instruments becomes a kind of super-instrument.

All of which is a bit of a derail, but people are most familiar with Haydn's symphonies, and you can't appreciate his full genius unless you also know the quartets, the sonatas, the choral masses, the oratorios and even the baryton trios.
posted by acrasis at 5:14 PM on January 15, 2016

Wow. And do I feel stupid. I thought 9 was the magic number for symphonies, like 27 was for the life of a dissolute pop star. 107? I should feel nothing but admiration, but those who are extremely prolific generate a little suspicion in my cynical mind, although I realize this is shallow of me.

Joyce Carol Oates is the most-cited example of a writer whose never-ending output has created criticism simply on the basis of the amount of work she has produced. Unfair, obviously: she has been writing for quite a bit more than a half a century. What's wrong with putting out a novel every year or so? The fact that Stephen King is one of the authors who came to her defense (NYT link) is a little discomfiting, but, still...

We like you Haydn. Too bad your name didn't begin with a B; otherwise, you'd be better canonized. (The three B's, plus Mozart.)

And thanks, Twang, for bringing up P.D.Q. Bach. Hilarious. I saw him in concert once. (But the word is segue, not segway.)
posted by kozad at 5:14 PM on January 15, 2016

>XIX Pieces for Mechanical Clock (Flötenuhr) (1–32)
>XXIX Marionette Operas
>XXXI Arrangement of Scottish (273) and Welsh (60) Folksongs

I have to applaud Gottfried van Swieten for his fine scam of paying musicians to write arrangements of Scottish folktunes. Both Haydn and Beethoven benefited from this. I have heard that Haydn's arrangements are very nice, considering he really didn't understand the lyrics.

I'm probably the only person who ever watched "Amadeus" and squealed when van Swieten appeared on screen.
posted by acrasis at 5:25 PM on January 15, 2016

@Kozad: the word is segue, not segway

You English teachers just can't stop can ya? Even with the French already.

You may interpret 'strange segway' as an ironic apposite foreshadowing of 'bicycle'.

You seg your ue and I'll seg my way.
posted by Twang at 12:14 PM on January 16, 2016

@sammyo: Personally, I never went for baroque. Bach? Sewing machine music.
posted by Twang at 12:23 PM on January 16, 2016

SansPoint: "Does this include the rarely performed Haydn Trio for Piano, Accordion, and Triangle" ?"

A priceless performance that needs to be restored for the sake of history.
posted by Samizdata at 12:38 PM on January 16, 2016

NoMich: "Whiny voice:
Ugh. Isn't there just a greatest hits or something?"

Time for you to make a mashup?

(Would be interesting to see what Madeon could do with this.)
posted by Samizdata at 12:43 PM on January 16, 2016

I thought 9 was the magic number for symphonies, like 27 was for the life of a dissolute pop star. 107? I should feel nothing but admiration, but those who are extremely prolific generate a little suspicion in my cynical mind

No need--Haydn's symphonies are profoundly different things than Beethoven's symphonies. The former are far more concise, quite a bit more formulaic, less distinct from one another, and really only intended to be heard a few times (that's why he kept writing new ones...that, and money).

Not to diminish Haydn's symphonies or gloss over a much more substantial point, but really, if anyone wants to know why/how there is such a big difference between the kind of thing a Haydn symphony is and the kind of thing a Beethoven (or Brahms or Mahler) symphony is should really go read one of the several terrific books written on exactly that subject, because the answer really kind of takes a book's worth of words to explain. Recommendations available if desired.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:53 PM on January 16, 2016

Did someone mention P.D.Q. Bach? I'm going to take that as an excuse to post this excellent clip of Itzhak Perlman and Peter Schickele performing some P.D.Q. Bach's Konzertschtick for Two Violins Mit Orchestra, with John Williams conducting.
posted by effbot at 1:49 PM on January 16, 2016

Did someone mention Itzhak Perlman? I'm going to take that as an excuse to post this excellent clip of Itzhak Perlman performing Vivaldi's Concerto No. 4 in F minor, "L'inverno" (Winter), with Zubin Mehta conducting.

(this might be my favourite of all videos ever posted to YouTube)
posted by effbot at 1:54 PM on January 16, 2016

I am definitely interested in those books LooseFilter. I understand the difference in length and complexity and even, say, the gist of the difference between Classical and Romantic, but I would be interested in reading about how the history played out.
posted by atoxyl at 2:41 PM on January 16, 2016