Cambridge Companion To Haydn, The

Description: This Companion provides an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn. Readers will gain an understanding of the changing social, cultural, and political spheres in which Haydn studied, worked, and nurtured his creative talent. Distinguished contributors provide chapters on Haydn and his contemporaries, his working environments in Eisenstadt and Eszterhaza, and humor and exoticism in Haydn's oeuvre. Chapters on the reception of his music explore keyboard performance practices, Haydn's posthumous reputation, sound recordings and images of his symphonies. The book also surveys the major genres in which Haydn wrote, including symphonies, string quartets, keyboard sonatas and trios, sacred music, miscellaneous vocal genres, and operas composed for Eszterhaza and London. Review: 'The format is inviting ... the book puts professionals in touch with some up to date scholarship, while introducing amateur listeners to the musical and cultural worlds Haydn inhabited ... It is a genial read, as engaging as its subject, and though not all contributions show the razor-sharp edge of Haydn's thought, the best are as lean and relevant as any of his compositions.' Musical Times 'This is an erudite and well-rounded collection and will be a valuable contribution to the literature on Haydn.' Contemporary Review 'There is plenty in this book to engage and challenge ... the serious Haydn lover.' Gramophone 'This is an important book for music libraries, particularly in its laying to rest of some myths which have grown up around the composer ...' Reference Reviews Table of Contents: Part I. Haydn in Context: 1. Haydn's career and the idea of the multiple audience Elaine Sisman; 2. A letter from the wilderness: revisiting Haydn's Esterhazy environments Rebecca Green; 3. Haydn's aesthetics James Webster; 4. First among equals: Haydn and his fellow composers David Wyn Jones; Part II. Stylistic and Interpretive Contexts: 5. Haydn and humour Scott Burnham; 6. Haydn's exoticisms: 'difference' and the Enlightenment Matthew Head; Part III. Genres: 7. Orchestral music: symphonies and concertos David Schroeder; 8. The quartets Mary Hunter; 9. Intimate expression for a widening public: the keyboard sonatas and trios Michelle Fillion; 10. Sacred music James Dack; 11. The sublime and the pastoral in The Creation and The Seasons James Webster; 12. Miscellaneous vocal genres Katalin Komlos; 13. Haydn in the theatre: the operas Caryl Clark; Part IV. Performance and Reception: 14. A composer, his dedicatee, her instrument, and I: thoughts on performing Haydn's keyboard sonatas Tom Beghin; 15. Haydn and posterity: the long nineteenth century James Garrett; 16. The kitten and the tiger: Tovey's Haydn Lawrence Kramer; 17. Recorded performances: a symphonic study Melanie Lowe. Author Biography: Caryl Clark is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Toronto and Visual and Performing Arts at University of Toronto at Scarborough. Her publications about Haydn's operas appear in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Studies in Music, Current Musicology, The Haydn Yearbook, and Early Music. She is co-editor of three special opera issues of The University of Opera Quarterly: Voices of Opera (1998); Opera and Interdisciplinarity (2003); and Opera and Interdisciplinarity II (2005).