Haydn After the Death of Mozart
2. Piano Trio
By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger
I once asked the Yeats scholar Ian Fletcher why some younger Irish poets hated Yeats. He said, "Sometimes you have to go back to the day before yesterday." On page 360 of The Classical Style Rosen writes, "elements may remain dormant ready to reappear at any moment as an artist goes back to the day before yesterday to find something newer and more progressive."
Can we save these wonderful trios from the dustbin of history? Perhaps Avengers: Doomsday will feature some of this music and it will start to trend on social media. Perhaps statements like "ERIC WAGNER, OUTER HEAD OF THE ORDO TEMPLI ORIENTIS, SAYS LISTENING TO HAYDN'S PIANO TRIOS WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND ALEISTER CROWLEY" will flood the internet. Perhaps when I reach my goal weight I will write a best seller called The Haydn Piano Trio Diet. They will become more popular than tai chi walking.
I remember in the 1990's I wanted to get at least one CD of Haydn piano trios. A one CD recording on original instruments had gotten a rosette (their highest rating) in the most recent Penguin guide to classical recordings. For just a little more, I could have gotten the complete piano trios played on modern instruments by the Beaux Arts Trio. I opted for the original instruments CD, but I feel like if I had bought the complete set thirty odd years ago, I would know this music much better. I have really enjoyed listening to the Beaux Arts Trio recordings this week.
4 comments:
Hilarious post! Seriously though, Rosen seems a little overly dramatic, to me, with his pronouncement of doom for the piano trios. I like his sentence just before it: "It is odd to have to defend some of the greatest music ever written."
If I read it correctly, it appears Rosen suggests that the complexity and extended range of works by composers like Hayden pushed instrument makers and designers to come up with better sounding pianos and violins. He says some of their compositions sound better on those instruments that wouldn't come along until 20 years later.
Rosen appears to say that classical music has an affinity with major keys. "The music is classical, however in its firmly established movement to the relative major ..." (p. 360); not sure what the relative major means, though. This could explain why some classical music sounds predictable and safe to me. I could also be completely wrong with this conclusion.
I listened to Haydn's Piano Trio No. 39 in G-major. The last movement with its frantic energy delighted me the most.
Thank you for your comment and your kind words. I don't know if I will ever get to know Haydn's piano trios as well as I do his symphonies and string quartets, and I could spend many lifetimes getting to know those symphonies and quartets better.
Yes, I think Rosen does says he thinks a lot of music sounds better on instruments created in response to the music. People argue and argue about original instruments versus modern instruments. I feel grateful that we can hear multiple versions of many works on a variety of instruments. I recall that Bob Wilson liked an album called "Koto Vivaldi", and he liked hearing Scott Joplin on harpsichord.
Each major key and its relative minor key have the same key signature: C major and A minor have no sharps or flats; G major and E minor have one sharp; F major and D minor have one flat, etc. One can call C major the relative major of A minor.
Glad you enjoyed the Haydn trio. Promoting these trios seems one of my major goals for this study group.
I really enjoy Beethoven's piano trios and one of the virtues of the Rosen book is that makes recommendations for listening; after I finish this comment I will bookmark some Haydn piano trios to listen to. It seems to me the rise of streaming services means they are no longer "doomed," it's easy to go find them and listen to them.
Oz is correct that much of classical music can seem predictable, but don't forget that all of the music in this book was written decades before recordings of music emerged. The music generally had to be intelligible on a first listening; there was no opportunity to listen to a piece several times until you "got" it. It seems to me that musical recordings are one reason why classical music in the 20th century became more difficult.
Thank you for your comment. I suspect the Haydn piano trios will not reach the audience they deserve. I felt gung ho about them while reading this chapter. I fantasized about improving my piano playing so that I could perform them. Alas, I suspect I will not listen to these trios much over the coming year (or years). I have tentative listening plans for the next sixth months, and these trios will likely not get much listening time from me. We will see. I feel glad that you bookmarked some of the trios. Perhaps this music will thrive.
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