Haydn de Luxe
AT a first glance at The Symphonies.of 101(1 Haydn, by H. C. Robbins Landon (Univels$' Edition and Rockliff, £6), the content of splendid and necessary book seems almost it forbidding.to the general reader as its price.1 author has made one book of what should b: been at least two. Much of the first 170 Po, on the sources, authenticity, chronology. tegttlim problems, and style of performance, is teresting and intelligible only to a beili, expert or already well-versed student. P. the same applies to the last 250 Pag6 3 heavily annotated thematic catalogue of all the authentic, doubtful and spurious 5311. phonies. This is all valuable material, but )1fat general reader and the author's royalty ac'" would have been better served by a book -of the size and half the price, consisting colYro. the remaining 430 pages, in which the slim ' phonies are admirably analysed anuA oct terestingly discussed in relation to one en° r and to other important contemporary with perhaps a simple thematic catalogliev „ brief general note on the style of perfPoll't of and a few pages summarising the conte11.1 j5 the first section. If only a small edition 01 „01 volume has been printed, the author ,_°100 publishers might well consider such a divI0 of the material. Such a book would be %v, 05,ot anybody's 3 gns. Even the existing one T unreasonable at its price, but who can $ a Rolls-Royce of a book? Included in "hay miniature score of a short Haydn sPIP never previously published. coLIN ",s
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