Per il Luigi is the 17th volume of the complete Haydn 2032 collection and presents a number of Haydn's earliest symphonies; these had been composed to display the talent of the musicians who had joined the Esterhazy court orchestra during the same period as Haydn himself. The centre of the programme is the Symphony No. 13 in D major from 1763, whose orchestration includes four horns and whose final movement features a prefiguration of the famous theme of Mozart's 'Jupiter' symphony, to be composed twenty-five years later. The Violin Concerto in C major is marked fatto per il Luigi in Haydn's catalogue of works and was dedicated to Luigi Tomasini (1741-1808), a violin virtuoso born in Pesaro and a friend of Haydn. Two centuries later, the young Baroque violin virtuoso Dmitri Smirnov now brilliantly champions this repertoire with the Kammerorchester Basel under Giovanni Antonini.

« These two concertos by Joseph Haydn are cornerstones of the cello repertoire. For me, they belong to those works that accompany a cellist through the different stages and moments of life. I have always taken immense pleasure in performing them. This music, often described as 'solar,' moves me deeply through it's light, vitality, and energy, but also through a subtle sense of melancholy that occasionally emerges. Recorded both in a single day, the urgency and energy of the session will remain for me an unforgettable and unique memory. » Julie Sevilla-Fraysse

This twentieth volume of the complete Haydn symphonies, conducted by Giovanni Antonini, highlights the popularity of Haydn's music in England during the 1790s. Although Haydn was unable to travel to London himself, he sent his music there instead, as no fewer than eleven of his symphonies were performed during the twelve evenings of the first season of the Grand Concert in 1782 - the year of the death of Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian, who directed this series of concerts in London. This volume pays tribute to him, as alongside Haydn's Symphonies Nos. 76, 77 and 78, the Kammerorchester Basel and Giovanni Antonini have recorded J.C. Bach's Symphony in G minor, Op. 6 No. 6, published in 1769. Also worth reading in the album booklet is Antonini's delightful analysis of Haydn's 'humore inglese' in his symphonies!

When, in the summer of 1869, the 29-year-old Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) received the suggestion from Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) to compose an overture to Romeo and Juliet, he was coming into his mature years, and was still a somewhat newly minted professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Like many of history's great composers, he was intended for the legal profession, and had from the age of 14 pursued that path rigorously in Saint Petersburg, eventually securing a job with the Ministry of Justice (1859-1862). Yet, from early childhood, he had shown a strong musical intuition, and an especial affinity for Mozart, whose music it was Tchaikovsky's 'sacred delight' to hear. When it was announced that the Russian Musical Society would open a conservatory in Saint Petersburg in 1862, Tchaikovsky enrolled, abandoning his legal career and maturing extraordinarily quickly under the guidance of Anton Rubinstein. From his mentor he absorbed the compositional process he would employ throughout his career: to sketch quickly to the end of the work before scoring, and to view his calling as a sacred responsibility.

A journey through time to castles, chambers and amorous settings around 1800. The irresistible soprano Shira Patchornik is a rising star on opera and concert stages. Many people are still familiar with Mozart's "Figaro". 'Al Desio di chi t'adora'. It is a song full of erotic tension addressed to her lover. And perhaps some are still familiar with Haydn's 'La vera Constanza'. The rest of this stimulating programme consists of discoveries and treasures from Italian opera of the same period, but largely forgotten. But what is it about? No opera can do without them: the maid, the lover, the chambermaid, the jealous wife, the daughter. Operas around 1800 are mostly intricate tales of intrigue and love. Sometimes dramatic, sometimes humorous, these stories inspired composers to the highest form of their art. Bella Ragazze, they become witnesses to amorous adventures, they are the projection screen for powerful men, or they themselves become energetic and vengeful protagonists. Shira Patchornik is a shooting star on the big stages and brings us key moments from opera treasures with a stupendous stage presence. She embodies characters in her own unique way and does justice to even the most breakneck coloratura. As if made for it, Mozart's rarely heard Divertimento joins the entertaining opera action: written as music for entertaining festive gatherings, it displays Mozart's characteristic humour in almost every moment.

The Places:

The tour visits historic sites in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. These include the castles of Litomyšl and Konopišt? in Bohemia, and the historic town of M?lnik, the Horological Museum at Le Locle in Switzerland, relics of war from the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt, and a glimpse of the Belgian Château of Gaasbeek.

The Music:

The tour brings two of Joseph Haydn’s most famous symphonies, written for a London concert season in 1794, Symphony No. 100, the so-called Military Symphony, and Symphony No. 101, nicknamed The Clock.

Format: NTSC, 4:3
Audio: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, PCM Stereo 2.0
Region: 0 (All)

The fourth instalment in The Mozartists' projected seven-volume series, conducted by Ian Page, pairs two turbulent minor-key symphonies by Kraus and Haydn with operatic scenes featuring soprano Alexandra Lowe. Kraus's rarely heard Symphony in C minor, which Haydn predicted would be regarded as a masterpiece for centuries, sits alongside Haydn's own celebrated Farewell Symphony. Lowe brings both fire and pathos to arias from Antigona by Traetta and La finta giardiniera by Mozart, and to the climactic scene from Benda's melodrama Medea, a work Mozart so admired that he briefly hailed it as the future of opera.

Few conductors of Klaus Tennstedt's generation demonstrated such complete mastery of the Classical and Romantic repertoire from Beethoven to Mahler and Strauss, coupled with an intensity in live performance that was palpable. He was among the finest German conductors to emerge after the Second World War and was in constant demand with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic. Doremi's 8th volume of live recordings of Klaus Tennstedt feature symphonies by Haydn (No. 103 "Drumroll"), Mozart (No. 36 "Linz") and Tchaikovsky (the Pathetique), together with Janacek's Sinfonietta and Mozart's Piano Concerto No.26 with Bruno Leonardo Gelber.

There are projects that spring from a hunch and which, driven by conviction and hard work, eventually come to seem entirely natural. The 'Messes Breves' project is a bold initiative that brings together works rarely performed together, breathing new life into pieces that are all too seldom heard in concert or on record. To bring together on the same recording the Missa brevis in D minor of Mozart, the Orgelmesse of Haydn and the Missa brevis of Fabian Fiorini, a work commissioned especially for this project, manifests the desire to abandon a well-worn track and promote a repertory that is as demanding as it is profoundly alive. This condensed form, rich in emotion, encourages spiritual reflection, aesthetic appreciation and a deep connection with the timeless tradition of sacred music.

This new recording by pianist Matthieu Idmtal shines a fresh light on the piano sonatas of Joseph Haydn, revealing a composer of boundless imagination, wit, warmth and emotional depth. Far from the often predictable image of Classical elegance, these works unfold as vibrant musical conversations filled with surprise, humour, tenderness and dramatic intensity. Especially in the hands of Idmtal who is a refined piano poet! Drawn to Haydn's music during a deeply personal and reflective period, he discovered in these sonatas a source of comfort and renewal - 'a balm for the soul, an antidote to melancholy.' Through four carefully chosen sonatas, he invites listeners into Haydn's endlessly inventive world. Recorded at the outstanding Westvest90 studio in Schiedam, The Netherlands - renowned for it's exceptional acoustics and warm, natural sound - this album captures both the intimacy and theatrical energy of Haydn's music with remarkable clarity and depth. Idmtal's sensitive and deeply personal interpretations bring new life to these masterpieces, from the sparkling wit of the late sonatas to the darker, near-Beethovenian intensity of the Sonata in B minor. The result is a recording that not only celebrates Haydn's genius, but also reaffirms the timeless joy, humanity and emotional richness at the heart of his music.

With Volume 22, the Leipzig Quartet brings their acclaimed complete recording of Joseph Haydn's quartets to a decisive and resonant close. This final installment crowns a project of extraordinary scope and artistic consistency, with Op. 76 revealing Haydn at his most expansive and imaginative. The result feels less like an ending than a culmination of decades of interpretative insight into the classical quartet repertoire.

Joseph Haydn not only liked surprising his audiences, he also enjoyed a laugh, writes Christian Moritz-Bauer in the introduction to this sixteenth volume of the Haydn2032 complete recording of the symphonies. Take, for instance, the false conclusion of Symphony No. 90, composed in 1788: the music seems to have reached the last chord but, after a pause, the movement resumes to end with a powerful coda. Another example of Haydn's mischievous wit is the famous Andante "with the drumstroke" that forms the "surprise" of Symphony No. 94, a fortissimo chord designed to wake up audiences who dozed off towards the end of his concerts. In this volume focused on humour, Giovanni Antonini pays tribute to a great admirer of Haydn, Gioachino Rossini, by recording the sparkling opening Sinfonia of La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), a one-act opera written in 1812.

I made my first public appearance as a soloist the same year I graduated and pursued advanced studies in Copenhagen with Emil Telmányi and in Berlin with Willy Hess from 1919 until 1921, and when I returned home, I succeeded in securing a position as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra." But already not long afterwards in 1923 he presented himself as a candidate for the leader of the Berlin Philharmonic, which after the death of Artur Nikisch in the previous year now had Wilhelm Furtwängler as it's chief conductor. He won the position over 14 competitors and relates himself: "That was quite something for an enthusiastic young violinist! From the last desk of the second violinists on Kgs. Nytorv to the highly responsible first desk in Bernburger Strasse, enjoying a close working relationship with such a great figure as Wilhelm Furtwängler.

"Leonard Slatkin's series of Haydn London Symphonies brings fresh, refined readings at speeds that never sound breathless. There is wit from the Philharmonia woodwind and the string phrasing always gives pleasure."

-- Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition] Reviewing RCA 68003

A useful adjunct to the Kodály Quartet's budget Haydn series, the disputed Op. 3 works attributed to Pater Romanus Hoffstetter plug one of the last remaining gaps, with attractive readings of Quartets Nos. 3-6. The playing is very fine indeed; outer movements, such as No. 3's brilliant concluding Presto, display tremendous verve and enthusiasm. First violinist Attila Falvay plays with imagination, accuracy, and panache, even in complex passagework above the staff, as in No. 5's Presto. The players also get comic moments totally right (such as the minuet of the same work), letting the music make the jokes obvious, without the need for exaggeration. But they also play with utmost finesse and tonal beauty, the best moments of all coming in the Largo of No. 3 and in the Adagio of No. 4.


The famous Serenade from No. 5 has been very widely recorded, but apart from the mono 1951/52 Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet recordings of Nos. 1, 4, 5, and 6 (reissued by Preiser), there are no modern alternatives to this admirable Naxos production. Truthful, well-balanced sound and faultless musicianship makes this another winner. [9/28/2002]
--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com