What if Haydn = gr8est symphony composer & Beethoven = gr8est for piano?

Haydn is certainly one of the very greatest symphonists and not to be as lightly passed over as he sometimes is.

Be careful with those Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. As gr8 as Haydn was at writing symphonies (not just quantity but also quality), I think there's little doubt that what Beethoven achieved surpasses Haydn. Most if not all of the 19th century luminaries thought so, such as Schumann, Brahms and Wagner.

It does leave one wondering what Haydn might have achieved had ill health not curtailed his composing activities long before he died. If he had had the chance to compose after being exposed to Beethoven's middle symphonies, who knows?

Well Schumann (love him like a sister but) and Wagner just plain didn't understand Haydn. Brahms very much DID understand Haydn, but did he ever say Beethoven was better? I haven't heard that he did.

"not just quantity but also quality" But see there you go that's the thing. Haydn gives you quality AND quantity of symphonies - Beethoven gives you quality, obviously, but only 9 times! Ok they're longer than Haydn's but not THAT much longer - we're talking, like, 25-30 minutes versus 45 minutes. That's why Haydn's better. With piano sonatas otoh Beethoven gives you a whole bunch, so he can be best piano composer.


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Brahms did take a couple of decades to write his first symphony because he was intimidated by the legacy of Beethoven's compositions, especially the 9th symphony. I don't think Haydn had a similar effect on Brahms.

If greatness can be measured as a product of quality and quantity, does that mean if we accumulated enough Vivaldi concertos we could equal a symphony by a Haydn or Beethoven? How many would it take? Several hundred? Several thousand?

I'm not completely discounting the "product" idea - clearly we would think less of Beethoven as a composer of piano sonatas if we only had his, say, even numbered sonatas.

If greatness can be measured as a product of quality and quantity, does that mean if we accumulated enough Vivaldi concertos we could equal a symphony by a Haydn or Beethoven? How many would it take? Several hundred? Several thousand?
Half-serious answer: More, because there's only about 30 seconds' worth of great material in any movement by Vivaldi.

Totally serious answer: Never, because even the best Vivaldi concertos aren't in the same class as a first rate Haydn or Beethoven symphony. You might reply "Well even the best Haydn symphony isn't in the same class as a first rate Beethoven symphony" - but I don't think that's clearly the case.)


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Ah, poor Vivaldi, who's reputation takes another beating in our IMDb polemic!

And I agree, Haydn's symphonies contain many moments - and more - of magic that hold up quite well alongside Beethoven.

Don't get me wrong, Vivaldi is clearly a great composer - yeah, lots of formula wasting your time between the great ideas, but the great ideas are really great - there's just somewhat... less to him, at his best, than to... well, a few other composers. I'd say the same about, I dunno, like, Mendelssohn, or Ravel, probably.


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Also: true that Brahms had anxiety of influence about Beethoven & no apparent anxiety of influence about Haydn. But BEETHOVEN had anxiety of influence about Haydn. http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=219


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