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Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin: "The fact is, Haydn wrote really beautiful music … some incredibly dramatic works.”
La Jolla Music Society's SummerFest is a nationally-recognized chamber music festival featuring world-class artists and ensembles. This year’s festival was held from July 30 through Aug. 22.
UCSD-TV's 55-minute video from the event features a sampling of performances, led by 18th century Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major for Clarinet, Violin and Cello.”
The UCSD-TV video is introduced by SummerFest music director Cho-Liang (Jimmy) Lin, who discusses the influence of Haydn, the event's featured composer.
A few excerpts from Lin’s introductory remarks:
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“In their lifetimes, Haydn was a far more successful composer than Mozart. Mozart had a tough time getting any jobs, while Haydn was lionized. He was the most sought-after composer and most beloved composer of his time.”
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“With Haydn, the cliché is that he is the father of the string quartet. He was an incredibly prolific composer. I don’t think he was out of touch with the real world, but he was certainly much less traveled than Mozart. And unlike Beethoven, who was in touch with a lot of styles – being in Vienna – Haydn was really on his own. ... He developed a very unique language.”
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“It’s a pity that Haydn is not so often played. If you say, name a great tune of Haydn’s – among his more than 100 symphonies -- even I would be hard-pressed to start humming one. But if you say, well, how ‘bout Mozart, I can hum 60, 100 tunes. It’s an unfair comparison. But the fact is, Haydn wrote really beautiful music … some incredibly dramatic works.”