How to pronounce “haydn” in English

Haydn, more than any other composer, especially Classical period composer, works really well on a number of levels.

Haydn, more than anyone, benefits, almost demands-- if you want the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up-- active participation, active listening, following the game.

Haydn was so great on so many levels.

Haydn is God.

But Haydn's the real B.

And Haydn wrote these pieces for that kind of involvement, both playing and listening.

[MUSIC - HAYDN STRING QUARTET, OP.

[MUSIC- HAYDN, STRING QUARTET OP.

But Haydn is showing off here in a way.

[MUSIC - HAYDN, STRING QUARTET OP.

But that stuck in Haydn's brain.

And this is what Haydn lays down for us.

This is what Haydn wrote.

And it's Haydn, again, a little bit of history.

This is Haydn, Opus 20, Number 2.

And it occurred to me that Haydn is actually the fourth B. BBB and H, because H in the German scheme of naming notes, is B.

And that was that we liked Haydn string quartets a lot more than our students and our audience did.

And the students never wanted to play Haydn.

And you can feel the mind of Haydn.

So we'll let the quartet explain more about why Haydn it is so important and interesting, even in these times, as well as in his own time.

And how many people who have no idea what Opus 20 Haydn means?

But already, Haydn's brain is working.

Can you do-- and I play the slow movement of Haydn and the trumpet concerto.

And now we're going to play some Haydn, yes?

And as I said, Haydn and his younger counterpart Mozart did everything they could to bring the quartet to the point when

Daniel: Haydn.

Well, the great thing about Haydn specifically is that he rewards constant listening,

greatest quartets in the 1780s, and in Haydn case, into the 1790s.

This dates June of 1790, and he and Haydn had written quartets back and forth for each other, and they actually played in a quartet together with two other composers.

There's also some wonderful stories of the composers themselves playing together-- Mozart and Haydn getting together, reading through

And of course, his teacher, Haydn, couldn't stand the fact that Beethoven was actually making ugly music.

Whereas, Mozart would have structured it-- --and somebody else-- Haydn would have structured it, Beethoven, he takes all the emotion, all the energy,

So we figured firstly-- and this is sort of important-- we realized that it's not Haydn's fault.

So back to our original problem, getting people to appreciate and get excited about Haydn quartets like we do.

Yeah, we played it Esterhazy, where Haydn was lucky enough to be a composer and musician-in-residence for over 40 years.

Now, and this is why Haydn is so great on another level, the basic principle of how it makes you feel.

And this is where, again, Haydn separates himself from other composers of the era.

But you don't hear it as the same, because Haydn has harmonized it.

And that's, of course, not what Haydn does.

And in this one opus, Opus 20, Haydn returns to all of that.

'50s A young Haydn started writing some string quartets.

Lawrence String Quartet, Haydn discovers.

Mozart, of course, was a close friend and passionate follower of Haydn, and knew these quartets intimately before writing his own.

And the more you learn, the more you dig, the better Haydn gets at effortlessly combining these aspects.

Again, listening actively, feeling it wanting to go back home to that brooding C minor and what Haydn shows us.

And to make it even more-- well, crazy is perhaps the wrong word-- groundbreaking, Haydn says, sempre sotto voce.

This setting-- this very setting, with people gathered around comfortably, television cameras, was exactly what Mozart and Haydn had in mind when they were composing their

Can you tell us a bit more about the circumstances under which some of the early quartets of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, were performed?