This is a poll, but since it is about music, I’m posting it in the Cafe.
Today was Haydn’s birthday and I heard a great deal of his music. I strongly prefer the music of Haydn over Mozart. Mozart is a genius and he is an amazing composer. Mozart certainly did more in opera and his concertos are better.
Still, I love Haydn’s symphonies and his string quartets.
Haydn
Mozart. I never get tired of his music, like I do with Haydn (who wrote the same symphony 104 times).
Symphonies: Haydn
Other orchestral works: Mozart
Concertos: Mozart
String quartets: Haydn
Other chamber music: Mozart
Piano works: Mozart
Vocal works: Mozart
Overall, I’d say Mozart. He also wrote at least one piece that woulkd end up in my classical music top 100 (the clarinet concerto), whereas Haydn would probably not make that list.
Haydn for Symphonies. Mozart for everything else (and overall).
No strong persoal opinion, but my daughter is currently a college junior studying music ed. Piano is her primary instrument. And Haydn is by far her favorite composer.
It seems that more often than not when I hear her playing a particularly lovely piece and ask her who wrote it, she responds Haydn. Of course, that may reflect her choices…
Both are OK, but give me Beethoven or Bach.
Ok, then give me Rachmaninoff (today’s birthday boy, at 136).
Mozart. Haydn’s ‘cute’, at best.
Well, he did fit a surprise in one.
Amen.
Mozart, hands down. Haydn has some marvelous symphonies and chamber pieces, but for sheer variety (of genre, of tone, of complexity), I gotta go with Wolfgang.
Mozart at his best hits heights that Haydn never reached. It would be overstating things, but would still contain at least a bit of truth, to say that Mozart wrote poetry, Haydn wrote prose. Haydn’s like the popular author who cranks out dozens of volumes of readable, reliable entertainment. Haydn’s music as a whole has given me a great deal of pleasure, maybe even more than Mozart’s music as a whole, and I’ve never met a Haydn piece I didn’t like, and I admire his ability to produce such a quantity of music (some great, some good, some merely pleasant). But Mozart is the greater genius. Comparing Haydn’s greatest works to Mozart’s, Haydn’s are probably easier to enjoy on first listen; Mozart’s reward repeated hearings.
You + Charlotte = beer
I’ll side with everybody else and go with Mozart.
Haydn has some lovely, sophisticate music and if I’m in the mood for a classical symphony I’ll probably go with one of his, but for everything else except maybe the string quartets I’m much happier with Mozart. I’d trade everything Haydn for just Don Giovanni any day.
Haydn. but I do also love mozart.
I’ll give Haydn the string quartets but go with Mozart for everything else.
(BTW Bach’s B-day was last week. Seems a lot of good composers were born around this time of year.).
I hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE Haydn.
Just this evening, I successfully conveyed the character of a piece of his to a pupil, by analogising it to her mentally-disturbed attention-seeking dog. I couldn’t see myself doing the same with Mozart.
This thread is interesting. I once printed out a college thesis by John Harutunian comparing Haydn to Mozart and still have a copy (not in modern computer form, that was ca. 1978).
To me, Haydn’s themes are short, poor and not memorable. I once played all the Haydn symphonies in a row and found them instantly forgettable. Mozart, not so much.
Overall, I vote for Mozart as well. Especially since this thread is really just about the two.
I do find it amazing that the classical era, short though it was (call it 1740 - 1820, give or take a decade) produced three such giants as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
In the head-to-head I’ll take Mozart, but another vote for JS Bach overall. Contrapuntal polyphony FTW!
Maybe we’ve just forgotten all the midgets it produced as well. 