More up to speed, perhaps.

One of the biggest issues of this ossified study of hundred-some year old music is that our university students are being taught that Beethoven, for instance, is forever… or at least his music is.  We play them wonderful excerpts recorded on Steinway 9-footers of his Sonatae, and it never occurs to the young initiates that this music invites a more curatorial perspective.  Jan Swafford at Slate has a wonderful article with sound examples of the difference a period instrument can make.  After all, Beethoven had only 5 and a half octaves, and timbres that varied widely!  No wonder he treated each hand as a different instrument — the timbral differences in the high and low ranges made them sound quite constrasting indeed.

Man, I love Paul Gilbert. Stupid-fast metal guitar always appeals to that pick wielding side of me, and he has such a sense of humor about it. I mean, look at those pants! That guy has to have a sense of humor about something.

Now watch this and just try to tell yourself that the intended effect is not exactly the same in both of these videos. The sound is different, the arena is different (har!), but the intended effect remains the same. You’ll have to turn this up a bit:

I love that while the bepantsed one whips his crowd into a frothy frenzy, the similarly brilliant technical fireworks of the Markov interpretation result in naught but a hearty “Bravo!” at the end.

If Paganini were alive today, he would probably play through three Metal Zone pedals cranked up to 11.5. Aside: Paganini was actually a guitarist as well, and composed many pieces for the instrument.

This head is not Haydn's, but has another interesting trait. Ten points to the one who spots it!

You know, the one that was severed by graverobbers trying to associate his cranial topology with intellectual capacity?

The process of stealing the head was, apparently, not pleasant, since decomposition had set in and the smell was strong (Ed. note: @!!?!?!?!) However, Peter and Rosenbaum succeeded in cleaning the skull and duly carried out their phrenological examination. Peter declared that “the bump of music” in Haydn’s skull was indeed “fully developed”. Afterward, Peter kept it in a handsome custom-made black wooden box, with a symbolic golden lyre at the top, glass windows, and a white cushion.

Quite seriously, Haydn’s skull was pilfered, measured, passed around, hidden in a mattress, left behind for musicologists to show off at dinner parties (I am reminded of a certain fellow by the name of Hannibal), and ultimately only found its way back to the decayed corpse of Haydn in 1954.  Nineteen Fifty Four.  In other words, for well over a century, the disembodied head of the highly esteemed father of the (Big-C) Classical symphony and the string quartet was being paraded around and gawked at by esteemed musicians at the esteemed Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.  I am not making this up.  It is entirely plausible that Brahms was able to poke his fingers through poor Haydn’s eye sockets, and giggle, even if it’s more amusing than it is likely.  But if he did, he certainly would have done it with esteem.

In penance for posting a purely Wiki account (however awesomely entertaining it might be), I’ll provide you with Haydn’s Symphony No. 1, composed 1759 or so.  The fledging form of the symphony was actually something rather new-fangled; the ripieno concerto is probably the closest thing we had previously.  It sounds a tad ricky-ticky by even Mozartian standards, but remember what a revolution even its grand opening Mannheim crescendo represented.  Only three movements here (as the form was modeled largely after the three-movement opera sinfonias of the period), but still following a general fast-slow-fast pattern.  Notice the melody + harmony textural characteristic — Haydn was unafraid of punctuating his counterpoint with full-fledged chords, a far cry from the even- but heavy-handed approach of many Baroque composers.  Some day, I fully intend to learn to reliably realize figured bass, but that’s more a back-burner goal; I think we’re all rather pleased to see the continuo vanish.

In 1759, George Washington got married, and in 1954, the Soviets went nuclear.  Sidebar: Who uses the term “eye” to refer to the burner on the stove?