Reviving Haydn

By the 1840s Joseph Haydn, who died in 1809 as the most celebrated composer of his generation, had degenerated into the bewigged Papa Haydn, a shallow placeholder in music history who merely invented the forms used by Beethoven.In a remarkable reversal, Haydn swiftly regained his former stature within the opening decades of the twentieth century. Reviving Haydn: New Appreciations in the Twentieth Century examines both the decline and the subsequent resurgence of Haydn's reputation in an effort to better understand the forces that shape critical reception on a broad scale. No single person or event marked the turning point for Haydn's reputation. Instead a broad resurgence reshaped opinion in Europe and the United States in short order. The Haydn revival engaged many of the music world's leading figures -- composers (Vincent d'Indy and Arnold Schoenberg), conductors (Arturo Toscanini), performers (Wanda Landowska), critics (Lawrence Gilman), and scholars (Heinrich Schenker and Donald Tovey) -- each of whom valued Haydn's music for specific reasons and used it to advance particular goals. Yet each advocated for a rehearing and rereading of the composer's works, calling for a new appreciation of Haydn's music. Bryan Proksch is Assistant Professor of Music History at Lamar University.

"Joseph Haydn & die 'Neue Welt'" - dieser Titel mag zunächst irritieren, war Joseph Haydn doch nie in Amerika. Doch bei genauerer Betrachtung überrascht die Vielfalt dieses Themenkomplexes, der zwei große komplementäre Bereiche abdeckt: Zum einen die Fragen, wie Haydn und seine Zeitgenossen Amerika wahrgenommen haben, in welche Diskussionen sie eingebunden waren, welche Bilder aus der fernen Welt von der anderen Seite des Atlantiks in ihren Köpfen vorherrschten und wie sie diese künstlerisch fruchtbar machten. Zum anderen gilt es zu erforschen, wie Haydns Musik in Amerika wahrgenommen wurde und wie sie sich dort verbreitete; welche Werke von anderen Komponisten produktiv aufgegriffen wurden und welche vielleicht auf dem Weg über den großen Teich verloren gingen. Mit Beiträgen von Christine Siegert | Gernot Gruber | Waldemar Zacharasiewicz | Bertil van Boer | Thomas Tolley | Paulo M. Kühl | Kathleen J. Lamkin | Michael E. Ruhling | Bryan Proksch | Thomas Betzwieser | Balázs Mikusi | John A. Rice | Daniel Brandenburg | Josef Pratl | Pierpaolo Polzonetti | Mark Evan Bonds | Peter Király | Walter Reicher

The first extended study of the combined reception of Haydn and Mozart in the long nineteenth century, this book generates new, holistic understandings of their musical, cultural and historical significance in the Germanic, French and Anglophone worlds. It places a wide range of written sources under the microscope, including serious and popular biographies, scholarship, musical and non-musical criticism, and a diverse body of fiction, and evaluates the impact of anniversary commemorations. Haydn and Mozart in the Long Nineteenth Century determines how reputations, images and narratives for the two composers converge, diverge, develop at different speeds, and influence one another. Countering received wisdom about Haydn's reputational decline and reassessing Mozart reception through consideration of a broad spectrum of publications, we hear Haydn and Mozart speaking to the long nineteenth century in more nuanced, powerful, and persuasive voices than previously recognized.

Interprets an eighteenth-century musical repertoire in sociable terms, both technically (specific musical patterns) and affectively (predominant emotional registers of the music).

In Making Light Raymond Knapp traces the musical legacy of German Idealism as it led to the declining prestige of composers such as Haydn while influencing the development of American popular music in the nineteenth century. Knapp identifies in Haydn and in early popular American musical cultures such as minstrelsy and operetta a strain of high camp—a mode of engagement that relishes both the superficial and serious aspects of an aesthetic experience—that runs antithetical to German Idealism's musical paradigms. By considering the disservice done to Haydn by German Idealism alongside the emergence of musical camp in American popular music, Knapp outlines a common ground: a humanistically based aesthetic of shared pleasure that points to ways in which camp receptive modes might rejuvenate the original appeal of Haydn's music that has mostly eluded audiences. In so doing, Knapp remaps the historiographical modes and systems of critical evaluation that dominate musicology while troubling the divide between serious and popular music.

This book explores the relationship between the Bible and the world of music, an association that is recorded from ancient times in the Old Testament, and one that has continued to characterize the cultural self-expression of Western Civilization ever since. The study surveys the emergence of this close relationship in the era following the end of the Roman Empire and through the Middle Ages, taking particular note of the role of Gregorian chant, folk music and the popularity of mystery, morality and passion plays in reflection of the Sacred Scripture and its themes during those times. With the emergence of polyphony and the advent of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the interaction between the Bible and music increased dramatically, culminating in the evolution of opera and oratorio as specific genres during the Renaissance and the Early Baroque period. Both these genres have proved essential to the interplay between sacred revelation and the various types of music that have come to determine cultural expression in the history of Europe. The book initially provides an overview of how the various themes and types of Biblical literature have been explored in the story of Western music. It then looks closely at the role of oratorio and opera over four centuries, considering the most famous and striking examples and considering how the music has responded in different ages to the sacred text and narrative. The last chapter examines how biblical theology has been used to dramatic purpose in a particular operatic genre – that of French Grand Opera. The academic apparatus includes an iconography, a detailed bibliography and an index of biblical and musical references, themes and subjects.

An introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn.

Marking the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, this volume presents twenty-one completely new essays on aspects of Beethoven's personal life, his composing process, his manuscripts, and his greatest works.