Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
He must have been a delightful man because his music is so happy! Happy Birthday Papa Haydn.
He once said that he served his Lord with a smile.
As an ignorant lad, I said to my teacher that Haydn wrote too many symphonies. He just said 'well, that could be like a colour-blind person going to an art exhibit and saying the paintings all looked the same colour'.
I've never forgotten that. BIG put-down, and well deserved.
These days, if I love the more 'public' of Haydn's music -especially the masses- his string quartets offer a unique view into his innermost soul. Charles Rosen had that right.
As an ignorant lad, I said to my teacher that Haydn wrote too many symphonies.
I still think he wrote too many symphonies (and too many piano sonatas....) .
His 'Nelson' Mass was the first choral music I learnt when I joined my school choir, and it's still one of my favourite choral works. It's not often he's not in a sunny mood - maybe that's why I like it so much.
Happy birthday to an oft-unjustly maligned composer! I learned a piece of his as a child--one of his easier sonatas, can't even remember which one--and wrote him off as boring and uninteresting. But now I'm working my way through his Sonata in E-flat, No. 27 and realizing how wrong I was. An expression of pure joy and happiness.
In addition to Beethoven being specially indebted to Haydn's influence, Prokofiev also cited Haydn as one of his heroes, because of Haydn's deep sense of craft and unfailing wit. A happy birthday indeed, to a somewhat underrated master.
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/10968.png)
.
