Speaking as a certified Haydn fanatic AND Mozart fanatic, I'll take
the bait.  The two are very different composers, so much so that in my
experience it's unusual for someone to be deeply attached to both.  To set
world records for oversimplification, I tend to value Haydn for his wit and
intellectual power, Mozart for his beauty and emotional depth.  When I'm in
my Mozart mood, Haydn can seem shallow and too clever by half, and when I'm
in my Haydn mood, Mozart can seem flaccid.  (To start another argument--in
either mood, Beethoven seems vulgar.  But I have a Beethoven mood too.) I
suppose that Mozart has generally been regarded as the greater composer
because he tends to move us more, and the emotions he tends to arouse range
more widely and are more complex.  Certainly I have no quarrel with anyone
who values Haydn above Mozart.  I think, though, that when Satoshi Akima
writes that Mozart's work was "a mere promise for what ought to have been
but never was" he does him an injustice.  Of course Mozart's career was cut
tragically short, and had he lived as long as Haydn, who knows how we would
regard the works of his 20s and 30s.  But to imply that Mozart had not
achieved full mastery by the time of his death seems simply perverse.  The
four great operas-which as a group have not been surpassed in 200 years-by
themselves would put the lie to this.  Then there are the Vienna piano
concertos, not to mention the final four symphonies, the late string
quintets, assorted other chamber works (the string trio K.  563, the
piano quartets, the quintet for piano and winds), the C minor mass and
the Requiem.  Had Beethoven died at an equivalent stage of development--
say, after the Seventh Symphony--would we say that his work was "a mere
promise"? There's nothing to be gained by worshipping Mozart, or anyone
else for that matter (by the way, Shaw's comment about music fit for the
mouth of God refers only to Sarastro's two arias in Die Zauberflote), but
we can safely acknowledge his greatness without prejudice to other masters.
I can't say who was the greatest of all time.  I do know that for all my
love of Haydn, Mozart rewards me more deeply and more consistently than any
other composer-with the possible exception of J.S.  Bach, but that's
another story.

Peter Goldstein
Juniata College