Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Haydn

Haydn Serenade A Musical Mystery Unveiled

One of Haydn’s most popular melodies wasn’t by Haydn at all.

Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we listen to the “Haydn Serenade,” in reality composed by one Roman Hoffstetter. Hoffstetter was a Benedictine monk who evidently admired Hadyn to the point of successfully emulating his style.

It wasn’t until 1965 that musicologist Alan Tyson asserted that the six string quartets published under Haydn’s Op. 3 – including the fifth, which contains the celebrated andante cantabile widely known as the “Serenade” – were indeed the work of Hoffstetter. We’ll enjoy it this afternoon, on this, the anniversary of Hoffstetter’s birth.

We’ll also hear music for guitar and orchestra performed by John Williams (the guitarist, not the film composer), on his birthday, and a substantial fantasy on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ neglected opera, “The Poisoned Kiss.”

Name your poison, from 4 to 7:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 24, 2017
Haydn Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Tomorrow morning, on the eve of the anniversary of the birth of Franz Joseph Haydn (on March 31, 1732), we’ll anticipate the great day with music inspired by Haydn, music by Haydn’s colleagues, and rarely-heard works by Haydn himself.

Other composers will include Johannes Brahms, Norman Dello Joio, Marcel Grandjany, Roman Hoffstetter, Anton Kraft, Andre Previn, Maurice Ravel, Johann Peter Salomon, Alfred Schnittke, Ananda Sukarlan, and Joseph Weigl, Haydn’s godson. We’ll even have a piano concerto by Haydn Wood, who was named for Haydn by his music-mad parents, though they pronounced it “Hayden.”

At 10:00, I’ll be joined by members of Boheme Opera NJ, who will talk a little bit about the company’s upcoming production of “Lucia di Lammermoor,” which will be performed at The College of New Jersey’s TCNJ-Kendall Hall on April 7 at 8 p.m. and April 9 at 3 p.m., so we might just hear a selection or two by Donizetti, as well.

Otherwise, it will be a prolonged game of Haydn seek, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Join me for a full morning of hidden Haydn, on Classic Ross Amico.

March 29, 2017
Haydn Portrait Discovered in US Antique Shop

An historic Haydn portrait has been discovered in an antique shop in the United States. Here’s the full article, clumsily translated from the German:

07/18/2016, 15:33

HISTORICAL HAYDN PORTRAIT FOR LANDESMUSEUM

EISENSTADT. A sidenote a musician at the international Haydn Days 2015 brought Walter Reicher to track down the painting that he could ferret in an antique shop in the US.

SENSATIONAL FIND

The oil painting is one of three portraits, who prepared the painter Christian Ludwig Seehas 1785 by Joseph Haydn. A sensational discovery, which has been saved for Burgenland and has now been passed by the International Joseph Haydn Private Foundation Eisenstadt to the National Museum. It is one of three Seehas portraits of Haydn. The other two are in the National Museums Schwerin and since 1945 on the list of lost artworks.

EXAMINES AND RESTORED

Following the successful acquisition and the transfer of the US to Austria, gave the Haydn Foundation’s portrait for the scientific investigation and cleaning in the Picture Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The plant excellently was art history and scientifically examined and professionally cleaned and restored.

In addition to the famous Haydn-portrait of the painter Ludwig Guttenbrunn is now the portrait of Christian Ludwig Seehas the second important portrait of the composer been secured for Burgenland and the public soon accessible.

http://www.meinbezirk.at/eisenstadt/lokales/historisches-haydn-portrait-fuer-landesmuseum-d1805896.html

More, in English, in The Strad:

http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/haydn-portrait-discovered-in-us-antique-store/

PHOTO: Walter Reicher, secretary general of the International Joseph Haydn Private Foundation Eisenstadt, with Seehas Haydn portrait

July 20, 2016
George Szell Birthday A Perfectionist’s Legacy

Today is the birthday of George Szell (1897-1970). A notorious autocrat from an era when autocrats were tolerated, expected and even revered on the podium, Szell was a formidable perfectionist, even to the extent of lecturing the Severance Hall custodians on the acceptable way to mop a floor and what kind of toilet paper they should be supplying in the restrooms. Okay, he may have been a little tightly wound, but you can’t quibble with the results. Thank your lucky stars you didn’t have to work for him, but boy, could he conduct!

Szell’s benchmark modern orchestra Haydn:

While on tour with the Cleveland Orchestra in Tokyo, and with only two months to live (he was terminally ill with cancer), Szell conducted what very well may be the most thrilling performance of Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2 I have ever heard, certainly on a par with the classic Barbirolli account with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra:

Szell as a Mozart pianist:

One of Szell’s own, early compositions, “Variations on an Original Theme”:

Szell speaks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INKhc-WM_eM

June 7, 2016
SF Burger King Uses Classical Music to Curb Crowds

This San Francisco Burger King takes a page from the London Underground and blasts classical music to keep vagrants off the premises. Can there be a better endorsement for Haydn and Mozart? Apparently a good symphony is more reliable than mosquito repellent.

http://abc7news.com/news/classical-music-blaring-from-sf-burger-king-aims-to-curb-crowds/1334346/

May 16, 2016

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