Hi Schubert - yes, I also love those early Haydn symphonies you mentioned.
Your post about geniuses, on the other hand....OK, I agree with Mozart, and perhaps Schubert. But Mendelssohn?? Child prodigy, yes. However, his later output never quite matched up to the brilliance of his earlier work. Geniuses keep developing, getting better and better. Another qualification would be at least originality, if not an iconoclast. So for me, Mendelssohn does not come close to qualifying for the genius tag. To add just a few, I would say Beethoven, Wagner, Stravinsky, Bartok. When we add back in Bach and Mozart, it would be hard to find another to equal those six in sheer compositional craft. Perhaps Richard Strauss, who once hilariously bragged he could set a laundry list to music. There are of course many levels and types of genius. The music to Midsummer Night's Dream is possibly the greatest piece ever written by a teenager. I suppose this is really a silly topic, but a fun one to discuss anyway.
