This morning I was reminded of why I used to hate Haydn so much that I threw out every bit of his music that I owned at the time. It was a matter of the beginning a sonata in D in which the composer leaves everything up to the imagination of the listener. Nothing rhythmic is clearly spelled out for the first fifteen bars or so. It is hilarious.
Not so when required beginning freshman repertoire at the conservatory where I was a student 50+ years ago and "Pound out the down beats" was the order of the day. One thing was clear: no one would voluntarily play that repertoire.
But that is not the repertoire.
