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My vote goes to:

  • Haydn

    Votes: 28 35.9%
  • Mozart

    Votes: 50 64.1%

Haydn versus Mozart: No excuses!

13K views 128 replies 37 participants last post by  hpowders 
#1 ·
That's right, one or the other. No third choice. What say ye, and why?
 
#17 ·
I also heard he taught some vagabond by the name of Beethoven.
You realise that Mozart was likely to have had Beethoven as one of his pupils but he died just before it happened? Beethoven was obviously influenced by both Mozart and Haydn anyway.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
I have to go with Mozart but I don't think I'm going to like the results of this poll. I have a feeling Mozart will win in a blowout when in reality I think Mozart should maybe win by a margin of 65%/35%. That would be my breakdown of how much I prefer Mozart. But there's no degrees of voting here so Wolfgang it is!

I still have a ton of Haydn to explore but his inventiveness and spontaneous quality is what attracts me to him most. Mozart, on the other hand, doesn't really need an explanation. Just more moments of sheer genius in my opinion.
 
#6 ·
I prefer Mozart's style by a hair, and his wheelhouses (piano concerti and opera) are slightly more interesting to me than Haydn's (symphonies and string quartets). I think I like Haydn's religious music a bit more (particularly Die Schöpfung), but that might be just because I'm a bit more familiar with it than Mozart's.

So if I had to say who I prefer, it's Wolfie by a thin margin. If I could have only the music of one or the other...no, it's too horrible to contemplate.
 
#7 ·
Silly goose, it's Mozart-rella cheese!!!

Why couldn't Mozart find his piano teacher?
A- He was Haydn!

Why wasn't J.S. Bach at the classical concert?
A- He was Baroque!

Why did Bach have twenty children?
A- His organ had no stops! "A little crude?"

I voted for the one that wasn't Haydn!

I'll stop now. I had my fun. :}

TPS
 
#15 ·
For a long time I ignored Haydn because I thought he was a poor man's Mozart. What an idiotic thing to do, not only because he's more like Beethoven than Mozart anyway. I've only recently come to realise how much I was missing, and I've got a lot of catching up to do.
Why are Haydn's operas generally ignored? Are they not considered tp be very good?
 
#38 ·
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that Mozart didn't quite mature as an artists for much of his early works... Where Haydn seemed pretty settled into his craft from the get-go. Haydn didn't start writing his symphonies and quartets until he was around 30... Mozart was around 7, haha.
 
#41 ·
Considering when Mozart started his work was really quite mature for his age, and the quality is sometimes good as well. Haydn obviously lived a lot longer, but at the same time he may have been more isolated from other places being with his patron for so much of his creative life.
 
#39 ·
There's plenty of first hand sources that they did respect each other enough. There may have been some rivalry at times, though with Mozart writing operas and concertos when Haydn wasn't they probably had their own separate audience.
 
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#40 ·
For me Haydn wins in String Quartets, Symphonies and nearly all large-scale vocal genres; perhaps Piano Trios and Sonatas too. Mozart was far more skilled in Opera, and he has a significantly better Concerto repertoire; he also has the Sinfonia Concertantes, Serenades and a little more variety in his chamber music. It remains a close call.
 
#43 ·
Wind music, violin sonatas I'd say Mozart. Then it's a matter of who could write best for the orchestra or for small chamber music combinations over which opinions would differ, though Mozart has proved quite popular.
 
#42 · (Edited)
Haydn's success in large scale vocal works is mostly in the oratorios, isn't it? I've read his masses are stylistically no different from his symphonies, they just have a choir added to them. I think he said his brother Michael Haydn wrote the best masses in their family. Mozart's are some of his greatest, most ambitious works. Especially post K.300, they are a successful blend of the classical and high Baroque style of Bach and Handel, with a few of Mozart's stylistic traits: longer, elaborate solo arias for soprano.
 
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