Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: A Revival in Context
- 1 Haydn’s Fall
- 2 A Reputation at an Ebb
- 3 Recomposing H-A-Y-D-N in Fin de Siècle France
- 4 Eccentric Haydn as Teacher
- 5 Haydn and the Neglect of German Genius
- 6 Schoenberg’s Lineage to Haydn
- 7 Haydn in American Musical Culture
- 8 Croatian Tunes, Slavic Paradigms, and the Anglophone Haydn
- 9 The Genesis of Tovey’s Haydn
- Conclusion: Haydn in the “Bad Old Days”
- Appendix: A Note on Methodology and the Russians
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Eccentric Haydn as Teacher
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: A Revival in Context
- 1 Haydn’s Fall
- 2 A Reputation at an Ebb
- 3 Recomposing H-A-Y-D-N in Fin de Siècle France
- 4 Eccentric Haydn as Teacher
- 5 Haydn and the Neglect of German Genius
- 6 Schoenberg’s Lineage to Haydn
- 7 Haydn in American Musical Culture
- 8 Croatian Tunes, Slavic Paradigms, and the Anglophone Haydn
- 9 The Genesis of Tovey’s Haydn
- Conclusion: Haydn in the “Bad Old Days”
- Appendix: A Note on Methodology and the Russians
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Common knowledge of a select handful of Haydn's works did not encourage deeper investigations into his music in the nineteenth century, but rather allowed for a superficial understanding and easy dismissal. In pedagogical circles, however, the apparent simplicity became an asset in some ways, as quick intelligibility ensured that Haydn's compositions could be used as an instructional tool. His relatively small orchestra—even the London symphonies used a smaller ensemble than Beethoven's symphonies of hardly a decade later— allowed these works to be played by amateur or youth ensembles and also made them useful in the study of basic orchestration. The same was true of sonata form, where his “monothematic” approach aided students in grasping the harmonic structure of the complex form. Schumann's initial assessment, that “it is impossible to learn anything new from him,” arose from the rudimentary types of analysis applied to Haydn's works during the time period. Young performers, particularly on the piano, encountered Haydn in much the same way, as his works were seen as avoiding technical difficulties in a way that permitted the development of elementary keyboard skills. Saint-Saëns's comment on being “nourished on Mozart and Haydn from my infancy” is a testament to the pedagogical approach to the piano encountered in this period. It would have been odd indeed had the five-year-old Saint-Saëns learned the piano by playing something else.
It seems to have been the case that the use of Haydn's music for childhood pedagogy in turn perpetuated the dismissal of his music by learned musicians and critics, thereby forming a vicious cycle. Relative outsiders to the music world knew the instructional function of his music, as well. Henri Matisse's Portrait de famille (The Music Lesson) of 1917 shows a child playing a lesson with only two readable words: Pleyel and Haydn (see fig. 4.1). Ignace Playel, one of Haydn's composition students, founded the Paris-based piano manufacturing company that by the end of the nineteenth century constructed over 2,500 pianos a year. In the Matisse painting, the instrument is as much a bourgeois status symbol as the painting on the wall and the statue in the garden. Haydn's music serves a similarly innocuous function, sitting on the piano as a hallmark of middle-class education, mediocre talent, and a questionable old-fashioned taste in music.
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- Information
- Reviving HaydnNew Appreciations in the Twentieth Century, pp. 90 - 114Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015