h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732-1809 - A653005
Author: paulh, making lemonade from the lemons that life has given me - U176638

I wish to submit A653005
Joseph Haydn for Peer Review

Great to see this in Peer Review - thank you!

Is the anecdote about the Surprise Symphony true, that Haydn wrote it in revenge for people saying his symphonies were so boring they put people to sleep? (certainly made me jump when I first heard it )

Like many things about Haydn, it's hard to separate truth form conjecture. I believe, though, that Haydn was quoted as saying that the loud chord in the first movement was sure to make the ladies jump.

Another anecdote about Haydn's stay in London had him quietly standing a shop where people were talking about him. Then, at a lull in the conversation he swooped in, introduced himself, and had them all laughing.

This was just his temperament. As a young choir boy in Vienna, he was observed climbing the scaffolding while the Schonbrunn palace was being built or remodeled. Maria Teresa exclaimed, "Who is the blond blockhead climbing on that thing?" (or something to that effect).

Late in life, when Haydn had to be helped in getting around by a servant, he welcomed soldiers form Napoleon's army who visited him to ask for autographs and praise his music.

He was lonely man who failed in his marriage, and was separated from his birth family at the age of five in order to get musical instruction. He adopted a stoic attitude, praising solitude because it forced him to be "original."

He was kind to his musicians, his large extended family, and almost anybody who came forward to talk about music with him.

Ah

Tat is why I would choose Haydn if someone gave me a time machine. I'd want to meet him -- in the late 1790s, when he had learned some English.

Bizarrely enough, his skull was stolen form is crypt around 1715, because a phrenologist had remarked that the bump for music on his skull was fully developed.

I believe that the skulls was retrieved and returned to the crypt in the 1950s. It went against his nature to lose his head.

>>Bizarrely enough, his skull was stolen form is crypt around 1715, because a phrenologist had remarked that the bump for music on his skull was fully developed. It is believed that the skull was retrieved and returned to the crypt in the 1950s. It went against his nature to lose his head.<<

That nugget deserves to be in your entry - please

GB

Correction:
>>Bizarrely enough, his skull was stolen from his crypt around 1715, because a phrenologist had remarked that the bump for music on his skull was fully developed. It is believed that the skull was retrieved and returned to the crypt in the 1950s. It went against his nature to lose his head.<<

Yes, it would make the entry very interesting. I would need to do some research, though, in case I m misremembering some of it...

I've written a companion entry that looks at Joseph Haydn's Personal qualities. A88010976

I think that his personality comes through in his music, and it might be worthwhile to consider this personal element.

"That nugget deserves to be in your entry - please" [Galaxy babe]

It also deserves to be in a separate entry, such as:

A88010985

I can put a link between the two entries.

But if I pare it down so that it can fit in the original entry without overwhelming it or making it too long, it will lose some of the nuttiness hat makes it so funny.

Can you advise me on ways to combine the two?

You can submit the other entry to Peer Review, and the sub-editor will apply a navigation banner at the top of both entries to link to each other when they have been accepted. There are many such examples in the Edited Guide, thus: A22548503

You can only link to your unedited version and then when the editors have finished with all the entries they can then link between the edited versions.

Go with GB. It's ages since I was an editor and things have changed.

I've spent much of the morning reading about the steamy romance Haydn had with Luigia Polzelli, a young woman who came to Eisenstadt with her husband around 1780 to sing opera. Polzelli's younger son Antonio was apparently Haydn's love child. Polzelli's husband could hardly complain about his wife's affair, as Haydn prevented Prince Esterhazy from firing the Polzellis. They were musically mediocre, you see. Plus, the husband was consumptive and wasn't capable of doing much anyway.

i have not checked to see if Polzelli appears in any guide entries about mistresses of famous men.

Beneath his staid exterior, Joseph Haydn was apparently more than weird enough to be interesting. Letters to and from him in London point to serious relationships with at least one other woman.

Okay, I've checked the guide. I am the only researcher who has ever mentoned anyone named polzelli.

She was mentioned in six conversation threads, all by yours truly.

I didn't believe we hadn't already had Haydn. Good catch!

I agree with Sasha that some of the good stories about Haydn should be in here. For example, the Farewell Symphony and its background, the time a lady sent him a gold coin and asked for a composition and he sent her one, and a fact-check as to whether that story about him sight-reading with his nose is true or not. That might make a good section in this entry?

The following are opinions. I don't think they belong:

>>Of all the great composers, Haydn is perhaps the most underappreciated.<<

If you're going to say that, you need to back it up with facts. Like statistics on how often he's played, or recorded, or taught in schools. Otherwise, just leave it out.

>>As a composer of oratorios, he is second only to Handel.<<

That's an opinion. I don't disagree with it, but this is a guide entry. Just say how many oratorios he composed. If only Handel composed more, then say so. How about comparing their subjects, or styles, or whatever?

>>His early symphonies benefitted from a close acquaintance with those of Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach (Second son of Johann Sebastian Bach).<<

How did they benefit? In what way did CPE Bach influence Haydn's symphonies? What was CPE Bach good at that Haydn learned from? (Don't tell me, put it in the entry.)

>>By 1796, he was producing polished masterpieces for London. <<

'Polished' is a weasel word here. Where in London? Get concrete.

>>Understandably, Haydn took a mistress...<<

Er, I really don't think so. There are many people who will not feel that taking a mistress was 'understandable'. Starting with Mrs Haydn, no doubt. Is it really important to this entry that he did?

>>His tonal experimentation in the overture to "The Creation" anticipates Richard Wagner.<<

The average reader will make nothing of this. If you want to say it, you've either got to explain it or get a quote from a musicologist who does. I'd leave it out, unless you want to end up with a section devoted to music theory.

>>Haydn's late piano sonatas and piano trios are generally superb. Gilbert Kalish and Glenn Gould have made superb recordings of the former. The Beaux Arts Trio have done likewise with the latter.<<

This is a guide entry, not a music review. I suggest leaving out the word 'superb', which is in there twice, and just pointing out 'popular recordings include...'

>>An excellent Post article...<<

Nice that you like it, but ditto. Fewer value judgements, more facts!

I will address these issues, Dmitri.

This entry goes back to a time when I was pretty green. "Superb" and "polished" are adjectives that I can leave out. No problem. I can leave out "understandably" regarding his mistress. These are all doable.

I might be able to find out the relative number of performances that Haydn's best-known oratorio has had, and compare it with that of Handel's "Messiah." I could probably find experts who rank the leading oratorios.

Hopw do you feel about the lists of specific works that I recommend? It would seem incomplete, somehow, to make a case for a composer and then not list pieces worth hearing.

I realize that the entry on bringing Haydn to a desert island did not go through peer Review, but chances are that people doing a search on Google or Bing might find it and assume that it is authoritative, even though the choice of which pieces to use and which to not use were subjective judgments.

Your point about the gold coins is an interesting one. I am very afraid of having an entry so long that it's hard to make it flow, and longer than the Peer Review guidelines recommend.

My entry on Haydn needed some rewriting, and you have caught some of the reasons why. I thank you for that. I would rather have it a better entry than let it languish in Peer review or the Writers' Workshop.

But first I'd like to see how other researchers have fared with edited entries on Mozart or Beethoven. There may be something I can learn from the way they handled material.

I think it's fine to have a 'listening list' - with Youtube links, if you have any. It's like a 'for further reading' section. We do this all the time.

Also, having your own POV on things is fine! Just avoid the words like 'superb' and such because they have the opposite effect of intended - they make readers go, 'Hey! Sez who?' Back up statements with some evidence. You can use short quotes, too - especially if you have public domain sources.

And remember that your target reader isn't an expert. An expert's not reading this. More like someone who always wondered who that Haydn guy was.