The Art of Transition: After Haydn Year 2009
Haydn Year 2009 spanned the globe, encompassing live performances, festivals, and conferences in addition to numerous scholarly articles and Haydn-related books. Now that the anniversary year has passed, its significance as a moment of transition may be appreciated. For if a modern phase of Haydn studies arose in the mid twentieth century (marked by path-breaking work on authenticity, chronology, and sources), to be followed by yet another era in the last decade of the twentieth century (focused largely on aesthetics, historiography, and notions of music as a rhetorical art), then this latest, transitional wave of scholarly energy has led to fresh questions about Haydn's life, music, and milieux (including matters of politics, aesthetics, genre, social context, and much more) that could hardly have been imagined a generation ago. The three essays in this special issue of the Journal of Musicology exemplify the newly broadened range of Haydn scholarship as they explore the composer's expressive ambivalence (w. Dean Sutcliffe), the significance of his polyphonic craft (James Grier), and the early reception of his monumental late oratorio, The Creation (Deirdre loughridge). Together, these studies attest to the capacity for Haydn scholarship——like Haydn's art itself——to thrive in the midst of transition.