Bernard Chasan wrote

>A late Haydn symphony is not to be mistaken with any one else

This reminds me of a question I've been wanting to put to you all (so
forgive me for starting a new thread for it): Of what Haydn symphonies
or compositions, if any, does Prokofiev's first ('Classical') symphony
remind you?

The first comparison of Prkfv's 1st symphony (denoted below by "P1")
to Haydn, surely came from its author:

   "It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have
   retained his own style, while accepting something of the new at
   the same time.  That was the kind of symphony I wanted to write:
   a symphony in the classical style."

This doesn't suggest that he was trying to "do" Haydn or copy him in any
way.  Elsewhere he mentions "Haydn and Mozart" as the influences for P1.

However...

Steve Schwarz, also in the parent thread, wrote:

>The reason why most of us are so worried about a composer sounding like
>someone else is because one composer usually seems quite anemic compared
>to the original.  That is, if you're going to "do" Stravinsky, chances are
>that you will wind up sounding superfluous compared to the original.

This is so interesting.  Stravinsky seemed inclined to "do" others, too,
at least to Prokofiev!  In a 1925 letter to Asafiev (the dedicatee of
P1), here is Prokofiev on these very two topics combined:

"Stravinsky's concerto [for Piano and Wind Inst] is ...  a stylization
in imitation of Bach --- which I don't approve of, because even though
I love Bach and think it's not a bad idea to compose according to his
principles, it's not a good idea to produce a stylized version of his
style.  ...  and in general, I don't think very highly of things like
Pulcinella or even my own 'Classical' symphony (sorry, I wasn't thinking
of this when I dedicated it to you), which are written 'under the
influence' of someone else.  Unfortunately, Stravinsky thinks otherwise;
he doesn't see this as a case of 'monkey see, monkey do,' and now he's
written a piano sonata in the same style."

So Prokofiev indeed seems to have been trying to "cop a style", maybe
of Haydn or Mozart, it isn't so important.  But I have, I think, seen
many references to the Prokofiev-Haydn notion of P1 and have never quite
gotten it myself.  I'm no musicologist, but nothing I've yet heard of
Haydn has reminded me of P1, not that it even necessarily should.  But
anyway, I tried listening to H101 today and thought maybe for a momement
in the 2nd movement, but ...  no.  And I'm not going to work my way from
H108 back to H40, so I've come to you instead!

You see, I don't care who has copied whom if I can find something akin
to P1.  As Steve continued,

>I don't mind having twenty more really good Shostakovich symphonies, even
>if they're not by Shostakovich.

Cheers from a gray Shreveport,

Rick Mabry