Haydn & Mozart

I've been performing a selection of Haydn and Mozart sonatas this weekend.  It's such a great pairing because the two composers both exploited the sonata, but each in his own unique way.

The interesting thing about Haydn's 52 sonatas is that you can really see his development of his compositional prowess through his sonatas.  His early ones are short, really easy, almost Baroque little things, musically and emotionally limited.  As we go along they get more difficult and inventive and shift to the typical three-movement Classical sonata.  His late sonatas are not so Romantic as Beethoven's for example, but they are quite reminiscent of the high Classical age - sort of like very accomplished Mozart I would say with a racy edge.  I like Haydn because he's very much like me - not prodigiously talented, but having reached a high calibre through sheer determination, hard work, and dumb luck.

Mozart's 18 sonatas are also interesting but they are the complete opposite.  Even from Sonata No.1, the Mozartian elegance and inimitable Classical charm is undeniably there, almost fully formed.  There is this astonishingly consistency in the quality of his music, and even if not always terrifyingly complex, always delightful and unique.  His two most Romantic, stormy minor-key sonatas rival those of Beethoven, but are not late ones at all (i.e. No.8 / 9 is an early one and No.14 is a middle period).  I think it's interesting that Mozart was almost born ready to compose and his compositions simply are a testament to his enormous creative genius.  I scarcely can imagine what things he would have written if he lived to be 90 - it seems any age wouldn't have been enough to provide enough time for all the marvelous ideas jammed in his head to be committed to paper - in fact, some of his most popular works remain mysteriously unfinished to this day.

So in a way, two incredible composers of very similar music - but one who perfected his skill over many, many decades through practice and effort and the other who was born as a precocious prodigy who barely had enough time in his short life to jot down all of his musical ideas.  To pair them together is almost to say - genius or not, life is short and art is - forever.