Papa the Revolutionary

Papa Haydn wrote this tune, And a chord is coming soon. It will be a big surprise. Open sleepy eyes. Bang. --Sigmund Spaeth

Growing up, learning to play the piano, singing patronizing ditties like that, small wonder that thousands upon thousands of young children ended up with kindly but bored thoughts of old Papa Haydn. Set to the jolly theme from the Surprise Symphony, not unlike Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, it conjured up an image of a doddering prankster whose place in history was unquestioned but whose music was best ignored. For much of the late 19th century and most of the 20th, that is exactly what almost everyone thought of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Now we know better, and that is why all of Washington, D.C., was resounding to Haydn last week. It was the start of a three-week Haydnfest at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Library of Congress and countless homes to which radio station WGMS began beaming daily Haydn programs. The performers include the city's own National Symphony, soloists like Violinist Isaac Stern and Cellist Janos Starker, orchestras and choruses from Yale, Shenandoah Conservatory and Kent State University.

The idea for the festival came from Antal Dorati, music director of the National Symphony and, among other things, conductor of a mammoth LP set of all 104 symphonies on London Records (46 records in all). Why a festival? How else, asks Dorati, to show the enormous range of the man and his music? He adds: "He was no child prodigy. He developed so much, from enormous talent into great genius. I do not think it can be coincidence that his greatest work came after he shed his livery." That was of course after he was given free rein by his employers, the Esterhazys, in 1790. He then wrote his best masses, oratorios, the last twelve symphonies, and spent his free time counseling upstarts like Beethoven and Weber.

The festival began appropriately enough with the symphonies. Dorati led the National in crisp, meticulous performances of Nos. 1, 52 and 104 the first night, and Alexander Schneider led the Curtis Institute Orchestra surgingly in Nos. 6, 7, 8, 22 and 35 on the second and third. It was enough to demonstrate that the Austrian court composer who had once dined at the servants' table was one of the most astounding revolutionaries in all musical history. Haydn did not invent the idea of the symphony. But when he picked it up, the symphony was the most innocuous of musical forms: a fast/slow/fast outgrowth of the Italian overture. When he laid it down, it was a blend of wit, speed, drama and, yes, surprise.

Rare Staging. So it is with the 83 string quartets. Often they are passed off as mere charming rusticana; titles like The Lark and The Sunrise do not help. Yet many of the quartets (to name but a few: Op. 20, Nos. 4 and 5; all of Op. 33 and Op. 54; Op. 77, No. 2) rank with Beethoven for power and ingenuity. The New Hungarian and Juilliard quartets will show why in recitals this week and next. Beethoven himself stood in awe of Haydn's oratorios The Seasons and The Creation. They are both on the schedule. So are ten of the Masses, notably In Tempore Belli and Lord Nelson. High among the novelties this week will be a marionette performance of Philemon und Baucis at the Smithsonian and a rare staging by the Indiana University Opera Theater of The World on the Moon, a lighthearted farce.

Altogether, the events in Washington give us the chance to hear not only the papa but the young genius and the middle-aged master as well. All three are wonderful to have around.

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