Category Archives: Haydn at 38

Day 44: That’s Just Große

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HaydnCD44I can’t even pronounce the title of today’s CD.

It’s a German word that uses a symbol (or a letter) I don’t recognize: Große.

After a bit of Googling, I discovered that the word means grosse, which means — I suppose — “great.” Orgelmesse is a compound word that means “organ mass.”

So, Große Orgelmesse in E Flat is the Great Organ Mass.

In E Flat.

Great.

Except it’s not.

Not to my ears, anyway.

It’s a mass, all right. With a bit of organ thrown in. But it all just sort of lies there. Nothing grabs me by the lapels and shakes me from my stupor.

Here. Listen for yourself:

Große Orgelmesse in E Flat Hob XXII:4 was composed in 1770. Haydn was 38. Continue reading →

Day 34: Piano Concertos, Denny’s, and Serendipity

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HaydnCD34I love this music!

Today’s CD is a new beginning. Gone are Haydn’s symphonies. This morning starts Piano Concertos.

So what better place to be on a dark, chilly Sunday morning in November – in search of a new beginning – than a Denny’s restaurant?

Well, I suppose the case could be made that a beach in Tahiti with a tall, cool piña colada – served by an equally tall, cool island girl – beats where I’m sitting right now. But Denny’s runs a close second, right? (Admittedly, Kevin, our server, is tall. And he’s probably cool in his own way. But I am dubious that Kevin serving me a piña colada on a beach in Tahiti – or, anywhere, frankly – would have the same effect.)

The first composition on today’s CD is  Piano Concerto in D No. 11. (NOTE: The Hoboken-Verzeichnis system of cataloging Haydn’s compositions is used extensively for these concertos. The Hoboken-Verzeichnis system was named after Anthony van Hoboken, a collector and musicologist who lived to be 96 years of age, passing away in 1983.)

As usual when I start to explore a new type of music and its performers, I discover all sorts of things linking from other things. (The Internet is a blessing and a curse — a tremendous boon to people with insatiable curiosities…and a constant drain on said people’s bank accounts.)

For example: searching for information about the pianist (Yolanda Violante) on today’s CD, and the pianist (Paul Badura-Skoda) in the YouTube clip below, somehow lead me to the mind-blowing “Arthur Rubinstein The Complete Album Collection” boxed set, which consists of 144 discs for $101 (the price as of today’s date). I have no idea how I ended up on Amazon, or drooling on my keyboard in awe of the grandeur of this Rubinstein boxed set. But once I saw that collection, I immediately added it to my shopping cart.

One of my most beloved treasures is Rubinstein’s Chopin Collection. So, how could I possibly resist Arthur Rubinstein‘s complete recordings – touted “…as the world’s biggest CD edition for a solo artist, according to Guinness World Records”?

That’s what they call a rhetorical question. I couldn’t resist it. And didn’t.

But that’s what I love about doing this.

It is this serendipitous, circuitous discovery of tangental subjects that Continue reading →