[78-L] Haydn numbers

[Philip Carli]

The numbering system now in use for Haydn's symphonies actually dates to Eusebius Mandyczewski's list of 1908; Hoboken kept that numbering when he did his complete catalogue of Haydn works by genre, putting symphonies in class"I" (hence the "Surprise" is now officially "Hob. I/94").  The old numbers on the Victor sets date waaay back to Breitkopf & Haertel's system in their 19th-cent. collected edition, which as near as I can remember was based on the order of B&H's publication rather than chronological sequence.  They didn't even publish all the symphonies because they often based their edition on other earlier editions by other publishers, who had only published a small number of the symphonies, and no-one undertook to look at the manuscripts until pretty late. (In some programmes you used to see the "Surprise" billed as "B. & H. no. 6".)  Haydn has always been a headache to catalogue, not just because of carelessness, but because Haydn himself sneakily sold the same work to different publishers as "new & exclusive" (mostly to his usual Viennese publisher Artaria and to Breitkopf), which is part of why he died pretty well off. PC
________________________________________
From: 78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com [78-l-bounces at klickitat.78online.com] on behalf of David Lennick [dlennick at sympatico.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 9:14 AM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Haydn numbers

It looks as if the change might have been gradual, with old recordings
retaining their original numbers. A 1941 catalog lists Symphonies 4, 6, 13 in G
Major (haven't cross referenced to see what that one might be), 67, 80, 85, 92,
100, 102 and 104.

Dvorak's Symphonies were renumbered as well, so you'll find the New World
called #5 well into the fifties. And many older recordings of Schubert's Great
C Major call it the 7th instead of the 9th.

dl

On 2/15/2012 9:05 AM, Rodger Holtin wrote:
> Pulled out my 1929 Victor albums of Haydn's Surprise Symphony by Boston/Koussevitzki and Haydn's Clock Symphony by New York/Toscanini and noticed that they were identified on the labels and albums as Symphony # 6 and # 4, respectively.  Same in the 1930 and 1940 Victor catalogs.  I grew up knowing these as # 94 and # 101, just as shown in the 1947 Victor Book of the Symphony.Â
> Â
> Â
> Curiosity sent me to Wikipedia and learned some cat named Hoboken renumbered all that stuff in a 1938 book which seems to have been printed in Germany.  So, to me it looks like after the war the free world jumped on that numbering system and it's in use today.  I was aware of the K numbers for Mozart work, but never picked up on the fact that a similar system was ever used for Haydn, much less that it had been changed.Â
> Â
> I'm fortunate enough to have a copy of the Edward Young discography of Koussevitzki in the Spring 1990 ARSC Journal and he uses the new numbers throughout.  If he noted the discrepancy between the labels and the new system in his narrative, I’ve missed it.
> Â Â
> My question for the 78-L Board of Experts is:
> Â
> When did Victor make the change and did they have some announcement or feature article about it in some printed item such as a catalog or monthly supplement?   How about Columbia?
> Â
> Rodger
>
> For Best Results use Victor Needles.
>
> .
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