Synopses & Reviews
This book challenges the widely held view of Haydn as an inspired instrumental musician who composed in isolation from eighteenth-century enlightened thinking. Schroeder presents Haydn as a culturally and politically sensitive representative of the Age of Enlightenment, arguing that Haydn's awareness of contemporary aesthetic opinion and the tenets of the Enlightenment are reflected by the transformation in his compositional style. He explores Haydn's relationship with his audience, and suggests that Haydn was well acquainted with the contemporary view that works of art should serve a moral function, pointing to numerous instances in the late symphonies where this end is effectively pursued.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-211) and index.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I Haydn and Enlightened Though
1. Haydn and Shaftesbury: Music and Morality
2. Pre-English Literary Influences
3. The Lodge `Zur wahren Eintracht'
4. Opera, Rhetoric, and Rittergedichte
5. String Quartets, Op. 33: `A New and Special Way'
6. Theory versus Practice: Aesthetics and Instrumental Music
7. Symphonies Ascent: Pre-Paris to the Loge Olympique
Part II Audience Receptionand England
8. The Composer-Audience Relationship
9. Haydn and the English Audience
Part III The Symphonies
10. Symphonic Intelligibility and Sonata Form
11. Melodic Sources and Musical Images
12. Symphonies and the Salomon Concerts
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index