introduction
In 1740, just as J.S. Bach was struggling as choir leader to be troubled by a school full of rough boys, an 8-year-old peasant boy would surely be happy to join his choir. At that time, the boy had just joined the choir of st. Stephen's Catholic Church in Vienna. The obscure Bach the Elder did not hear this extremely distant and slight name until his death: Franz Josef Haydn. However, the history of European music has quietly ushered in one of the most important turning points. At this glorious turning point, Bach's The Art of Fugue represents the pinnacle of the old era of polyphonic music, and the new era of main music is about to begin, and it is this boy who plays a key role, Haydn, who completely obliterates Bach's music for a full century. The form, spirit and dynamics of the most noble forms of musical art, the symphony and the string quartet, will be combined in the hands of this man into a style with believable logic and eternal vitality. The famous German musicologist Hermann Kreichmar called Haydn's stylistic revolution "one of the greatest achievements in the entire history of art", which is a fitting assessment.
Portrait of Haydn
Allegro: The Musical Revolution
For centuries, most serious music, with the exception of opera, was polyphonic. These pieces of music are made up of more than two parts developed in the same melody, and they are displayed at the same time, intertwined into a harmonious sound line, where any part has an equal importance. However, with Bach's later years of composing the pinnacle of polyphonic music, The Art of Fugue, it was foreshadowed that polyphonic music had come to its end. In this final "Musical Testament," Bach uses a simple musical theme to elicit a dizzying array of counterpoints that exhaust almost all possibilities. Thus, an overwhelming dynamic pushed the composer down the path of simplifying the musical style. At the same time, the popularity of keyboard instruments in the first half of the 18th century accelerated this process, and it was impossible to play a few five-part fugues from Bach's Average Rhythm Piano Collection on one piano.
Interestingly, the main figures who first rose up against old-school polyphonic music represented by Bach were several of Bach's sons of musicians, especially Carl Philippe Immanuel Bach (historically known as C.P.E. Bach), who laid the cornerstone of this unprecedented musical revolution: the sonata. This supreme structure, designed for the main key music, was unswervingly used by Haydn. Since Haydn came from Austria, which was deeply immersed in the Italian tradition, he was able to understand new melodic concepts, and he also possessed the German technique of perfection, which also foreshadowed how Haydn in the mature period perfectly combined the vast and free melody of the main key music with the variations and counterpoints of polyphonic music, and this stylistic revolution in music history will be manifested in the symphony and string quartet, the two noblest forms (in Haydn's time, the string quartet was generally regarded by musicians as the highest form of music).
Some of the Haydn records in my collection
As orchestras grew and various ancient pianos improved, musicians were always groping and searching for large musical forms that could fit in scope and status with these brilliant new mediums. There are many musical forms that have been applied beyond a single movement, such as suites, frolics, concertos, and sonatas. Among them, there appeared a sonata composed for the orchestra, which people named - symphony. Today, Haydn is often dubbed the "Father of the Symphony," which is patently inaccurate. For it was C.P.E. Bach who laid the foundation for the symphony: without a sonata, there is no symphony. However, the cause he pioneered was expanded, strengthened and perfected by Haydn. Specifically, Haydn made a major contribution to the specific thematic organization of the first movement of the sonata. Later history proves that haydn's step was equally crucial. He abandoned the thematic organization of polyphonic music developed by a single theme and its variations, and replaced it with a new form of two themes: the first was bright, urgent, and passionate, and the second was more serene, lyrical, and less majestic, and both themes were presented and developed with a clear set of rules.
It is clear that what this sonata style really offers the musician is a new factor of contrast: the colorful changes that take place in melodies, modes, rhythms and harmonies. This is precisely what the single movement form of the past lacked, and one of the most beautiful ideas that music has ever created in pure form. Of course, without the cooperation of the orchestra, everything is empty talk. Thus, we see how Haydn combined numerous orchestral instruments to lay the foundation for a symphony. From composing his first symphony in the mid-18th century to his first visit to London in 1791, Haydn continued to explore the instrumental art of symphony. During his visit to London, he composed for an orchestra of nearly 40 people, including 16 violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 4 double bass, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and 2 timpani drums. Shortly thereafter, he followed the example of his old friend Mozart and added 2 clarinets to his woodwind section. From today's point of view, haydn's combination more than 200 years ago was very close to the standard configuration of modern symphony orchestras (only the horn and trombone that are usually found today in the brass section), and it is no wonder that russian composer Mumsky Korsakov called Haydn "the father of modern orchestral instrumentation".
This spirit of exploration and innovation continued into his later years and eventually produced some of the most wonderful masterpieces of his long career. Throughout his life, he composed more than 100 symphonies and a similar number of string quartets. In his most accomplished late works, the slow introduction of the first movement enhances the deep expression and dramatic tension, often falling into contemplation and illusion, with a strong romantic temperament; at the same time, the simple melody in the final movement is replaced by a fully unfolded sonata, which matches the artistic character of the first three movements, which has a profound impact on future generations of musicians. In these most outstanding works (including the 6 string quartet Op.76 and 12 London Symphonies), Haydn pushed the principle of symphony—through all conceivable deformations, the art of developing a potential music idea—to such a dizzying height that Brahms later lamented that "writing a symphony is no longer a child's play" from then on.
Row: A forgotten will
Contrary to the admiration and glory he received during his lifetime, it is absolutely regrettable that today people have a variety of opinions about him, and even in the private lists of music enthusiasts, Haydn is often overlooked. Behind this strange phenomenon is usually considered to contain two major factors: on the one hand, Haydn is highly respected as the founder of Viennese classical music, although he never stepped out of the shadow of mozart and Beethoven, thus dwarfing; on the other hand, Haydn's life is relatively smooth, not much ups and downs, unlike Mozart and Beethoven with dramatic twists and turns, and not so many wayward stories (as one of the most notorious shrews in history, Haydn's wife splurgeed throughout her life, Even using his composition manuscripts as curling paper or as pads for baking pastries, the meek Haydn tolerated him for 40 years until her death.) However, is the reason really that simple?
The Biography of Haydn
In fact, apart from the two giants Mozart and Beethoven, the great changes that have taken place in the modern art world in the past two hundred years are the essence behind the phenomena. In particular, for a century and a half behind Haydn, the modern art world endured the strongest and most varied influences of Romanticism, and in the decades that followed, it was heavily influenced by modernism. In this great cycle of movement through which all human art will continue, we may now be in the opposite position of the formal and elegant era in which Haydn lived. On this huge circumference, on this side of our position, almost all art has a prominent feature: the artist enjoys complete freedom in expressing his emotions. In music, painting, literature and even sculpture, we have become accustomed to emotional indulgence. Haydn's music tends to be a restrained expression of emotion, to some moderate sensual, emotional, or painterly features of classical music. At the same time, stark optimism permeates all his work, where there is not a trace of pessimism, decadence, or world-weariness.
Unfortunately, Haydn's musical testament has been completely forgotten. When we are accustomed to calling Beethoven "Le Saint" or "Titan the Giant" and Mozart a "child prodigy", when it comes to Haydn, we are left with an awkward nickname of "Haydn Daddy". In 1879, the famous music critic Edward Hanslik described the composer as follows: "Yes, a spirited, amiable and beloved grandfather." Here, Haydn's revolutionary contribution to music is completely ignored. In fact, Haydn had always hated those who were vassals but did not understand music, and in order to punish the ladies who dozed off in concerts, he deliberately introduced a "thunder in the silent place" in the line of Symphony No. 94 in G major, that is, when the melody was extremely weak, a huge sound suddenly played, which really frightened the women who were napping, and the symphony also received the nickname "Surprise".
Yes, Haydn's music has always brought the greatest satisfaction to only a subset of listeners, that is, the high demands of music that they can understand or taste in the way music is created. He himself knows this, both for music connoisseurs and for people who truly love music. Once, in order to cross out a few bars of the slow-motion movement of Symphony No. 42 in D major, he quipped in his autobiography: "This is for the ears of too elegant." "Haydn's music seems bland and tasteless, accustomed to the stormy passion of romanticism and the exaggerations and deformations of modernism, and his value is contained in this musical landscape, which is a true pure music. The German poet Heine can quote Haydn very appropriately in his remarks about Simone: "Here we find the most idyllic elegance and rustic femininity, a fragrance as fresh and innocent as the fragrance that emanates from the forest,...... There is even a poetic realm. But, in this poetry, there is no shuddering caused by infinity, no mysterious charm, no painful sorrow, no pungent sarcasm, no morbid delicacy, and I can almost say that it is a poetry with a healthy physique. ”
Today, we live in a world of turmoil and unrest, including a long global pandemic, regional conflicts large and small, and even wars between nations, as well as countless suspicions, tricks and hostilities... Everyone lives in great uncertainty, and we need to grasp for something that is certain, stable, stable, and warm than ever. I suppose that there is no music in the entire history of music that has such a comforting and warm art of time than Haydn's music. Anyone who has listened carefully to Haydn's music can feel his distinctive artistic characteristics: a love of life, a healthy mood, clear expression, a pure feeling, a noble and profound feeling, exquisite skill, and endless humor. Yes, in these tough times, we need a little humor and a spirit of self-deprecation. This is the most cherished value of Haydn music in contemporary times, as it is difficult to reproduce in today's art.
Epilogue: Matisse's tribute
In 1917, the French painter Henri Matisse, who was under fire in World War I, completed his masterpiece The Music Lesson. In the center of the painting, very close to the viewer's eye, a musical score with the name "HAYDN" written in clear letters can be seen. At first glance, the painting seems to be a peaceful family idyll, which is exactly the family of the painter himself. Sitting to the left is Matisse's 18-year-old son Jean, smoking a cigarette while reading a book; next to the grand piano is his 23-year-old daughter Margaret and 17-year-old son Pierre practicing. The painter's wife is sitting in a rocking chair in front of the window outside, doing handicraft work. Matisse himself is embodied in symbolism, and here he quotes two of his own works: the sexy nude painting by the background pond, which is an enlargement of Mattis's 1907 bronze sculpture of The Lying Naked Man; next to the grand piano, we can see part of his 1914 portrait, The Woman on the Stool. In addition, Matisse is a fascinated amateur violinist, and the open violin box on the grand piano is also his embodiment. Interestingly, the grand piano came from the now-world-famous Pleyel piano factory, which was founded in Paris in 1807 by Haydn's student Ignaz Pleyer.
Henry Matisse, "Music Lessons"
Here, Haydn aptly appears as a painting subject in the happy life scene of a wealthy citizen family, and his sonatas are often used in music lessons, which are often easier for beginners than Beethoven's works. Unlike the materials used by the Cubist painters in their patchwork of paintings, the text that appears in this painting is not merely a pure typeface, but a realistic musical score here that hints at the close connection between music and painting (in France, the constant acceptance of Haydn is a symbol). Slowly, when we re-examine the painting, we will find that behind the seemingly peaceful and peaceful atmosphere, there are many jumping, changing lines, incorrect proportions of size, and strong and contrasting colors, all of which give a sense of tension and uneasiness. This is precisely a hint of the background of the era in which the painter lived, and as the First World War progressed, his eldest son Jean was about to enlist in the army.
We may ask why, in an era of great patriotic thought, Matisse did not choose the scores of the French composers Berlioz, Frank, Debussy, Ravel or Fore, but Haydn of the Viennese Classical School. Undoubtedly, this is the special way matisse pays homage to Haydn, and the central point of the painting: Haydn's music can not only be refined into the pastoral life of the citizens, but in a turbulent world, Haydn's music itself has a cohesive and balanced force, which helps us to find a stable, stable and even warm force in a world full of uncertainty. Neither the romantic Berlioz nor the religiously exuberant Frank, nor the exquisitely tasted Impressionists (including Ravel's teacher, Faure), did not have this power.
Haydn's Catacombs in the hilltop church in Eisenstadt
Today, our best memory of Haydn is listening to his great musical works. Symphony No. 94 in C major ("Consternation"), Symphony No. 104 in D major ("London"), string quartet in B flat major (Op.76, No.4, "Sunrise"), Concerto No. 4 in E major and trumpet concerto in E major, and the culmination of his later years, the oratorio Genesis, are excellent introductory tracks. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: "If talent and a good man can be combined, then Haydn is a case in point." He's just going to the limit. This limit brings morality to knowledge: he writes many pieces of music that are 'without precedent'. "In today's turbulent world, we can draw inexhaustible spiritual strength from this limit to better settle ourselves, overcome difficulties, and move forward."