December 2009 — the final month in the bicentennial of the great composer (obit. 1809) once dubbed by Tovey ‘Haydn the Inacccessible’.
December 2009 — the final month in the bicentennial of the great composer (obit. 1809) once dubbed by Tovey ‘Haydn the Inacccessible’. No longer! His vast protean output has never been more widely available nor more highly esteemed. Father technically and spiritually to Mozart and Beethoven, revered by Brahms and (unexpectedly) by Wagner, beloved of Stravinsky, Britten and Ligeti, Haydn was something of a well-kept secret, but is now a universal possession, treasured as equal with the highest. Tovey himself, pressed on his deathbed by a kindly meaning nurse to declare his favourite composer, shyly preferred Haydn over even his deity Beethoven.
I, too, have contributed my mite towards expelling the Inaccessibility, in a steady endeavour down some 15 years, that, as the bicentennial draws to a close, reaches a conclusion as welcome as it is unexpected: the transcription of most of his string quartets for piano-duet.
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