Deryk Barker wrote:

>He [Mozart] is certianly, IMHO, a far lesser symphonist than Haydn.
>OTOH I olove the A major (no.29) and believe that 38, 39-41 are
>masterpieces.  Most of the rest I can take or leave though.
>
>Now the violin concertos, those I really find tedious for the most part.

See, Deryk, now I feel sorry for you ...  no appreciation for the Linz
and Haffner symphonies or for the violin concertos G, D, A (K 216, 218,
219)!  I hope you at least like the concertante symphony for violin and
viola.

It's hard to compare Haydn's and Mozart's mature symphonies, because
actually only the last five of Mozart's -- Linz, Prague, and the last
three -- are truly mature works (the Haffner symphony is actually closer
to an orchestral serenade, not to be confused with the Haffner Serenade,
than to a symphony), while Haydn had time and opportunity to write a
large number of symphonies in his mature period.  If Mozart had gone to
London, as he planned, and was commissioned symphonies by J P Solomon,
as Haydn was, music history would look quite different.  But even without
musing "what if", Mozart simply wasn't much in the business of writing
symphonies, while Haydn was.  Vast majority of Mozart's symphonies were
written when he was very young, and at that age he was not yet mature
and he enjoyed too much imitating existing styles (of which he was quite
proud).

Haydn was in the enviable position as a symphonist in that he had a lot
of latitude.  Prince Esterhazy let him write pretty much whatever he
wanted and Haydn had the Esterhaza orchestra at his disposal.  As Haydn
himself wrote, he was so isolated in Esterhaza that he had to experiment
-- and the prince didn't mind.  Most composers of symphonies had to be
much more "market-driven".

-MM