With all composers whom I have researched over the years, a certain proportion of available literature is in the form of compilations of essays rather than full-length books. Undoubtedly the academic situation is the driver for this, and the upside is it presents us a varied set of viewpoints, often on a similar theme.
In Haydn's case, I don't think it is my imagination leading me to believe the proportion of essays to books is higher than the norm. I will list a few of those books here along with their contents and authors, and try to highlight some essays which I have found to be of particular interest to me. I don't have all the available books (yet), but at least you can have an idea of what is readily available and if it has anything of interest to you.
Cambridge Companion to Haydn
Edited by Caryl Clark
Series: Cambridge Companions to Music
Paperback: 340 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 12, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521541077
Contents:
Part 1 – Haydn in Context
1. Haydn's career and the idea of multiple audience Elaine Sisman
2. A letter from the wilderness: Revisiting Haydn's Esterházy environments Rebecca Green
3. Haydn's Æsthetics James Webster
4. First among equals: Haydn and his fellow composers David Wyn Jones
Part 2 – Stylistic and interpretive contexts
5. Haydn and humor Scott Burnham
6. Haydn's exoticisms: "difference" and the Enlightenment Matthew Head
Part 3 – Genres
7. Orchestral music: Symphonies and concertos David Schroeder
8. The quartets Mary Hunter
9. Intimate expression for a widening public: the keyboard sonatas and trios Michelle Fillion
10. Sacred music James Dack
11. The sublime and the pastoral in The Creation and The Seasons James Webster
12. Miscellaneous and vocal genres Kaitlin Komlós
13. Haydn in the theater: The operas Caryl Clark
Part 4 – Performance and reception
14. Thoughts on performing Haydn's keyboard sonatas Tom Beghin
15. Haydn and posterity: The long nineteenth century James Garrett
16. The kitten and the tiger: Tovey's Haydn Lawrence Kramer
17. Recorded performances: a symphonic study Melanie Lowe I
Haydn Studies (I)
Edited By Jens Peter Larsen,
Howard Serwer & James Webster
Hardcover: 610 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; large type edition (May 17, 1981)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393014541
This book is far less describable than others of its type. A table of contents simply won't do. In 1975, an International Haydn Conference was held in Washington DC. Attending were virtually every name, large or small, in the world of Haydn studies at the time. Also there were the much younger 'new generation' who would become the big names in later times. This book is more or less the minutes of all the roundtable meetings which were held at the conference, as well as some Q & A with audience members. For all intents and purposes, this was the watershed moment of modern Haydn scholarship. While it is true that subsequent research has made some of this information dated a bit, in many cases that same research was spawned by discussions at this conference, so it is nice to see where the ideas came from. If you already are very familiar with Haydn history, alarm bells will be constantly going off as you read and recognize the genesis of so many concepts. While not a necessity, this is a fine book to have on hand for those times when you would like to reread the original presentation of Webster's paper on the correct instrument to play the Baßo part in the early string quartets, for example.
Haydn Studies (II)
Edited by W. Dean Sutcliffe
Series: Cambridge Composer Studies
Hardcover: 360 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (November 28, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0521580528
This much more recent version of Haydn Studies (totally non-related, of course) is a series of ten essays. For the most part I think they are first rate and have had my own thought processes guided by several of them. As is usual, most of the writers are people you have heard of even if you have just a passing acquaintance with the Haydn literature, or in some cases, with musicological literature in general.
Contents:
1. The consequences of presumed innocence: The Nineteenth Century reception of Haydn Leon Botstein
2. Haydn's sacred vocal music and the æsthetics of salvation James Webster
3. Sentiment and sensibility in La vera costanza Jessica Waldoff
4. Haydn as Romantic: A chemical experiment with instrumental music Daniel Chua
5. Haydn's 'Cours complet de la composition' and the Sturm und Drang --- Mark Evans Bond
6. Haydn's reversals: style change, gesture and the implication-realization model Michael Spitzer
7. Haydn's symphonies between Sturm und Drang and 'Classical Style': Art and entertainment James Webster
8. The Haydn Piano Trio: Textual facts and textural principles W. Dean Sutcliffe
9. Papa Doc's recap caper: Haydn's temporal dyslexia George Edwards
10. Haydn: The musician's musician Robin Holloway
Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 & 10 are essays I wouldn't be without. In the main, the others rely on theoretical principles which are beyond my grasp currently. If you are undeterred by theory, you may find the others to be even more to your liking. In any case, this is a good book to have.
Haydn and His World
Edited by Elaine Sisman
Series: Bard Music Festival Series
Paperback: 325 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (August 18, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0691057990
Contents:
Part I - Essays
1. Haydn, Shakespeare and the rules of originality Elaine Sisman
2. The Creation, Haydn's late vocal music, and the musical sublime James Webster
3. Haydn's London Piano Trios and his Salomon String Quartets: Private vs. Public? Mary Hunter
4. The Symphony as Pindaric Ode Mark Evans Bond
5. Representing the aristocracy: The operatic Haydn and Le pescatrici Rebecca Green
6. Haydn as orator: A rhetorical analysis of Keyboard Sonata in D Hob 16:42 Tom Beghin
7. The demise of philosophical listening: Haydn in the nineteenth century Leon Botstein
Part II - Documents
8. Johan Ferdinand von Schönfeld: "A Yearbook of Music in Vienna and Prague 1796" Translated by Katherine Talbot
9. Johan Karl Friederich Triest: "Remarks on the Development of the Art of Music in Germany in the 18th Century" (1801) Translated by Susan Gillespie
10. Maria Hörworthner: "Joseph Haydn's Library: An Attempt at a Literary-Historical Reconstruction" Translated by Katherine Talbot
Here again, some essays of first rate quality, and a cross section of interests served. Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7 &10 have been revisited many times over as my own thought process has expanded ever so slightly. It will probably fit well in your library too.
In the next installment of this series, I will present a few books which step back a little and show the big picture of Haydn's time quite nicely. I hope this helps you to decide on future purchases. I will revisit all of these pages from time to time to expand on the very basic presentation given here.
Thanks for reading!