This is from a review of Haydn’s piano trios on Amazon.
In a letter Brahms says something to the effect `Nobody seems to understand Haydn nowadays. For years he gave us all our music’. Whatever precisely Brahms meant, it seems to me that the complete transformation in the idiom of music that made the music of Mozart and everyone since so astoundingly different from the music of Bach was Haydn’s achievement, and his alone.
What Brahms wrote – … ‘he gave us all our music’ – seems to imply what a huge trans-formative influence he had on the great Classical composers who followed.
Here’s a piece I’ve just been listening to. It floats my boat! Hope it does yours too.
Horn Concerto #1 / second movement