The Faber Pocket Guide to Haydn
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Review
'What makes [The Faber Pocket Guide to Haydn] invaluable is the fact that [Richard Wigmore] comments on virtually all the music, genre by genre, with a remarkably judicious blend of insight and judgement...With this book to hand every listener will be able to navigate his way safely through one of the most prodigious compositional outputs ever committed to paper...his music is life-enhancement made manifest.' --Gramophone
Review
'Richard Wigmore manages to insinua te an elegant sentence of evocative adjective about virtually every significant item in [Haydn's] catalogue...vividly knits together the available evidence, judiciously assessing Haydn's character and motivation...One of the virtues of this useful handbook is to stimulate interest in lesser-known works'.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Although his music is easy to like, or perhaps because of this, Haydn has always been a difficult composer to assess. More than most, his worth has fluctuated ever since his own time, and continues to do so today. There is thus no better time than this, the two-hundredth anniversary of his death, to attempt a balanced view of his output.
Haydn was the opposite of the Romantic ideal of the tortured artist: he was an employee, effectively a servant in the court of the noble Esterhazy family of what is now Hungary. He was employed to compose, and compose he did - 104 numbered symphonies, over a dozen operas, 83 string quartets, many songs, over fifty piano sonatas, piano trios and other chamber music, including over one hundred pieces for a bizarre instrument of his day, the swiftly-forgotten baryton. We are luckier than those who came before: more of his music is availble now than at any previous time.
Richard Wigmore has done us a great service in writing a compact guide to this great composer, the one of whom Mozart commented, "There is no one who can do it all - to joke and to terrify, to evoke laughter and profound sentiment - and all equally well, except Joseph Haydn." The book gives us an overview of Haydn's life, works, and contemporaries, chapters on each type of music he wrote: symphonies, concertos, operas, etc., and includes valuable sections on further reading and available recordings.
The writing is clear and lively, Wigmore's affection for his subject showing through, and the entries, though concise, are detailed and specific. There could be no better way of getting to know this charming and rewardng composer.
Haydn was the opposite of the Romantic ideal of the tortured artist: he was an employee, effectively a servant in the court of the noble Esterhazy family of what is now Hungary. He was employed to compose, and compose he did - 104 numbered symphonies, over a dozen operas, 83 string quartets, many songs, over fifty piano sonatas, piano trios and other chamber music, including over one hundred pieces for a bizarre instrument of his day, the swiftly-forgotten baryton. We are luckier than those who came before: more of his music is availble now than at any previous time.
Richard Wigmore has done us a great service in writing a compact guide to this great composer, the one of whom Mozart commented, "There is no one who can do it all - to joke and to terrify, to evoke laughter and profound sentiment - and all equally well, except Joseph Haydn." The book gives us an overview of Haydn's life, works, and contemporaries, chapters on each type of music he wrote: symphonies, concertos, operas, etc., and includes valuable sections on further reading and available recordings.
The writing is clear and lively, Wigmore's affection for his subject showing through, and the entries, though concise, are detailed and specific. There could be no better way of getting to know this charming and rewardng composer.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A lucid biography, then, astonishingly, notes on practically everything Haydn wrote. Thanks to recordings, we can all enjoy practically every piece of music turned out by this astonishing man. And now, we have a handy (almost pocket!)guide to his immense output. This is the Haydn-lover's Baedeker - but with a very readable text, either read in chunks, or referred to before listening to one of Haydn's wonderful symphonies or quartets or trios or sonatas or Masses or operas or songs or whatever else. I own many books on Haydn. This is the one I shall most use in future.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is nothing short of a tiny miracle: Richard Wigmore has produced a pocket sized volume that offers considered and erudite opinions on most of what Haydn wrote. This is an essential volume for both the newcomer to this most civilised of composers, and the dyed in the wool Haydn geek. Well done Wigmore!!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent
Excellent and thorough. All you could want (and more) from a "pocket guide". Should help to foster a wider realisation that Haydn was a truly and very great composer and not just... Read more
Published 2 months ago by John R. Sharp
All you need to get to know Haydn's works
This really is a terrific little book! Well-written, entertaining, and comprehensive; what more could you ask from a modest paperback? Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Mark A. Meldon
Haydn :His Life and Music
I would not be without this . A pocketful of magic for all who love Haydn and his music.
Published on 4 May 2009 by C. P. Leonard
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