Our Director, Professor Denis McCaldin, writes about both the familiar and the novel at this year’s Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt.

“By inviting old friends such as the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra and the Academy of Ancient Music to the 2014 season, Walter Reicher, artistic director of the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt is sure not to ruffle the feathers of his loyal audience, most of whom come from Austria and the UK year on year. However, as well as the regular performers, there have always been surprises; perhaps artists not usually known for their Haydn performances, and events with exceptional forces – such as the operas.

This year the Festival has gone one better. The first two shows (on September 4th & 5th) will be of Haydn’s The Seasons (Die Jahreszeiten) – but performed as a ballet! Even though festival-goers elsewhere have gradually got used to semi-staged versions of Bach’s Passions, this marriage of oratorio and dance is exceptional. Some Haydn fans at Eisenstadt may even find it shocking!

Lovers of curiosities will also be attracted to the Orchester Purpur’s morning concert on Sept 7th which features The Clarinotts (sic). Their concert begins with Mozart & Haydn (this year’s theme) and ends with a Rigoletto-Fantasia for 3 Clarinets and Orchestra. It would be good to be there and to know if a bass-clarinet joins them for the famous quartet!”

We look forward to hearing what you think whether you have the good fortune to be there or not – do write to us or share your views on Facebook or Twitter.

In Feburary this year the Chicago Symphony Orchestra put on a dramatised reading of Haydn’s letters and diaries (and related texts) from his time in London. The performances under Nicholas McGegan were recorded and released last week. You can watch the production here:

Today we spent a bit of time metaphorically chasing Haydn around London during his visit from January 1791 to July 1792. Our investigation is part of the research process with which we hope to secure a commemorative plaque for Haydn in due course. A fair bit is known about Haydn’s hugely successful visit to Britain and London in particular but we are trying to tie down the facts to ensure the integrity of any monument that we sponsor.

Today we were in the British Library to read a copy of the Royal Musical Association‘s Monographs – this one entitled ‘Salomon and the Burneys: Private Patronage and a Public Career‘ by Ian Woodfield. The backdrop that Woodfield paints of the London during the period of concert-going expansion from the 1780s is fascinating. He also makes it clear that the Burney family – beyond the celebrated musicologist Charles – were very important catalysts in the musical chemistry of society. Haydn visited Charles Burney at the ‘Chelsea Hospital’ shortly after arriving in London as well as visiting the Burney family home in Titchfield Street for a salon-style evening of music-making.

From there I returned to that grand opus that rewards the Haydn scholar like no other. HC Robbins-Landon’s ‘Haydn in England, 1791-1795‘ has the breadth to expand on Woodfield’s purposefully slim volume. Cross-referring the two, I came across facts that will provide struts on which to found our project.

Most interestingly amongst these is that Haydn was obliged to stay in Holborn on his first night on English soil. Salomon was in the process of establishing the composer’s Great Pulteney Street lodging and so on the evening of 2 January 1791, Haydn was put up by a friend of the impresario, John Bland, above his music shop at 45 High Holborn.

The building of the time, like all the buildings of the period, is no longer standing. Today, the block of 42-49 High Holborn (pictured, top) is the Central Family Court. Like the pristine edifice that stands on the corner of Hanover Square where the Hanover Rooms once bore witness to Haydn’s subscription concerts during the subsequent year, the building is aesthetically opaque to the legacy of the space on which it stands.

This afternoon it was my great pleasure to spend an hour chatting with violinist and Haydn Enthusiast [sic], Jason Sundram. Jason is visiting from America’s West Coast where he works for a social media company in data visualisation. While in the UK he is talking in Oxford and London about his technological expertise and how he is combining his work with his passion for Haydn’s music.

Quantifying Haydn string quartets @jsundram: interpretative diff, performance speed, tempo, loudness, key #dhcbl pic.twitter.com/rWrZ4PffoC

— DJ Wrisley (@DJWrisley) June 27, 2014

The Haydn Enthusiast’s image of Haydn created using data visualisation techniques

Jason performs Haydn’s string quartets with friends back in San Francisco, calling themselves The Haydn Enthusiasts. The patterns and detail revealed by their performing this music led Jason to investigate visualised data groups for Haydn-related information: the frequency of key signatures, tempo markings – even the variations of tempi used in performances of Haydn’s music.

Jason can begin to see how taking the organised data from Haydn’s oeuvre and presenting it visually not only presents a different way of (literally) looking at the music but may also contribute to the way in which information can be shared. The concept of the ‘graphic score’ has moved from avant-garde whimsy to an acceptable educational tool in the past fifty years. Jason’s work – as this slightly mesmerised layman understands it! – means that visual graphics generated by either notational or audio renderings of music may be shared and used in a similar diversity of ends.

The applications of this has Jason thinking in Haydn-related tangents. ‘Imagine’, he told me, ‘how great it would be to get information about the Grassi bust of Haydn and then print a copy using a 3D printer to put on your piano at home!’ Here is a young man with a very definite set of priorities for the the use of his computational gifts!

You can read more about The Haydn Enthusiasts at facebook.com/haydnenthusiasts

It is with great disappointment we learn that for the second year in a row (and the third since 2011) there is no Haydn programmed at this year’s BBC Proms. Over the last four Proms seasons only a single score, his London Symphony, No. 104, has been heard. It seems a pity for those who admire this masterly composer that his music appears to be neglected.

However, there are consolations for those whose appetite for Haydn’s advocates and contemporaries might otherwise go unsated. The tireless Classicist Sir Roger Norrington conducts JS Bach’s St. John Passion in July and Beethoven’s 8th Symphony in September. The 300th anniversary of CPE Bach is marked with a chamber concert. The estimable Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra visit with a pair of Austro-Hungarian programmes. Finally there is a performance of Mozart’s Requiem, music that none needs feel that they are suspending their affiliations to appreciate.

In the meantime the rich musical life of London and, indeed, the rest of the UK continues to benefit from programming Haydn’s music, satisfying audiences and performers alike as it always has.