HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 71, Apponyi Quartets

This is volume three in the Doric String Quartet’s ongoing exploration of Haydn’s complete string quartets, already highly praised by major international media and regularly supported by concerts in the world’s greatest venues, from Carnegie and Wigmore halls to the Royal Concertgebouw. The Op. 64 Quartets date from a time of great change for Haydn, compared with the previously recorded Op. 20 and Op. 76. Not only was Haydn preparing for the greatest adventure of his life – what would turn out to be the first of two trips to London – at the time of their composition, in 1790, but they also appeared under a new publisher, Leopold Kozeluch’s firm Magazin de musique. Marked throughout by the virtuosity of the Doric String Quartet, the rhythmic energy as well as the poetic tenderness of the players, this recording showcases a highly characteristic side of Haydn’s music, the inexhaustible versatility and constant unpredictability of the materials.

The Leipzig String Quartet continues its Haydn edition with three more works from his op. 50, and once again the members magnificently succeed in combining classical perfection with surprisingly fresh esprit.

For more than twenty years the Leipzig String Quartet has been playing in the Champions League of chamber music. Showered with prizes and awards, this world-class ensemble again and again has azzled listening audiences with their sensational recordings and concerts.

Haydn: The 7 Last Words of Jesus Christ, Op. 51 & String Qua

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 33, Nos. 3, 4 and 6

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 33, Nos. 1, 2 and 5

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 2, Nos. 3 and 5 / Op. 3, Nos. 1-2

Haydn: String Quartets Nos. 23, 24 & 27, "Sun Quartets"

Haydn: String Quartets Op. 20, Nos. 1-3, "Sun Quartets"

HAYDN: String Quartets Op. 1, Nos. 1- 4

"The Kodaly Quartet seem very much at home in this music, which they approach with affection, yet with an appealing directness which leads to playing which is perfectly integrated, yet fresh. The recording could hardly be bettered: the balance is most natural."

-- Penguin Guide [2003/4 Edition]

HAYDN String Quartets: op. 77/1, 2; op. 42 • Alea Ens (period instruments) • STRADIVARIUS STR 33849 (64:35)


Haydn’s string quartets, more than 50 in number, were published typically in sets of six, with the exception of four sets of three each, one set of two (intended to be a set of six, but interrupted, after two movements of a third quartet, by Haydn’s failing health), and one singleton. Here we have the singleton and the set of two. The op. 42 (in D Minor) is a relatively neglected string quartet for no good reason that I have ever found. The last two completed quartets comprise the op. 77, the first in G Major (with an Adagio second movement and a Menuetto third-movement trio in E?, remote to G) and the second in F Major (with a Menuetto second-movement trio in D? and a third-movement Andante in D). Haydn’s use, in these quartets, of surprise keys—in jarring juxtaposition between the third and fourth movements of op. 77/2—might have differing effects on the listener between the period-instrument sound (presumably what Haydn heard) and the modern-instrument sound, but I found no such differences. Then again, I’m no(t) Haydn. Both of these quartets have one thing in common: They are among the marvels of the string quartet literature. And the lone D-Minor quartet, if not a marvel, is marvelous listening.


I’m not sold on the period-instrument sound in these quartets, although the playing and the interpretive choices of these musicians are impeccable. The raw sound of gut strings with no vibrato is especially grating for sustained notes, whereas the quick passage from note to note provided by faster tempos is less unattractive, and even tolerable. Once past the aural challenge of the period-instrument sound, these performances are excellent in all respects. From intonation and discernibleness of part-writing to phrasing and dynamics, this is great Haydn playing.


The AleaEnsemble (it prefers no space between “Alea” and “Ensemble”) was formed in 2002 to play the great chamber repertoire with period instruments. The members—Andrea Rognoni and Fiorenza de Donatis (violins), Stefano Marcocchi (viola), and Marco Frezzato (cello)—are also the principal players in two prominent Italian early-music ensembles: Europa Galante and Accademia Bizantina.


If you are not completely averse to period-instrument performances, this is a good Haydn quartet disc to have.


FANFARE: Burton Rothleder

I’m not sure you could do better than this.

Naxos has collated its Haydn Masses series into a single box [8.508009] so if you fancy having the full works in a single handy collection these performances, conducted by J. Owen Burdick and Jane Glover, may fit your bill, and price bracket. Single discs are still available, and this one is no exception; a 2003 recording of the once-neglected 1767 Stabat Mater.

The forces are familiar ones, given their prominence in the Naxos series. The direction and execution are able, the singing generally good, phrasing attractive. An affirmative spirit courses through the performance and it mitigates the sometimes funereal performances that we used to hear. The orchestral forces, the Rebel Baroque Orchestra, employ period instruments and practice, which gives a not unwelcome astringency to some - but by no means all - of the playing. The balance between solo voices, orchestral solos and the choir is a just one.

There is, in fact, little with which to cross swords in a performance as attractive as this. Comparing older, conventional performances with one such as this is not comparing like-with-like, but if one were to do so, one should point out that the famous old Laszlo Heltay recording, with a stellar vocal line up of Augér, Hodgson, Rolfe-Johnson and Howell, is invariably a minute slower in all the more extensive movements, which adds considerably to the total timing, and also the sense of incipient gravity and contemplation generated by such tempos.

Here we find articulation is bright and tight. Stephen Sands has a quite light tenor, but it’s mobile and relatively flexible. He starts the work, soloistically, with the Stabat mater dolorosa and when he follows bass Richard Lippold in the Virgo virginum praeclara - and before the other two voices enter - he blends well with his colleagues. Luthien Brackett has an attractive, well focused alto, and Ann Hoyt sports a bright, youthful soprano. She makes a fine showing in Quis non posset contristari where spruce winds and a well balanced organ are strongly to the fore. Understandably perhaps she snatches at breaths a touch in the Sancta Mater, istud agas. Lippold is a pleasantly sonorous bass, doing well by Pro peccatis suae gentis. The chorus, which is the Trinity Choir, come into its own in the concluding Paradisi Gloria where the bases don’t over-part the tenors - and indeed all sections sing well.

The acoustic works in favour of the performance, though there is some ambient noise floating about, audible at higher levels. I didn’t find it especially distracting. So if you fancy an original instrument performance with good soloists, band and choir and a brisk, attractive tempo, and all at a bargain price bracket, I’m not sure you could do better than this.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

A truly invigorating new release from SOMM, this record brings us Leon McCawley in a recording of four Haydn Piano Sonatas together with the set of Variations in F minor (Sonata-Un piccolo divertimento). Siva Oke first heard Leon play Haydn during a recital for the Chopin Society and was immediately struck by the many wonderful qualities he brought to his playing which captured classical purity and pristine articulation coupled with warmth, plasticity and wit. Widely acknowledged as one of Britain’s foremost pianists, McCawley has forged a highly successful career since winning First Prize in the 1993 International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna and Second Prize at the leeds International Piano Competition, building on his earlier success as Winner of the Piano Section of BBC Young Musician of the Year in 1990. Since then, his impressive discography which includes the much-lauded complete cycle of Mozart Sonatas for Avie has established him as a pianist of great integrity and variety, bringing freshness and vitality to classical, romantic and 20th century repertoire. The more than 50 piano sonatas of Haydn were the first by any composer, for it was he who first applied the word ‘Sonata’ to a solo piano piece. Haydn’s influence on Mozart Beethoven, and all the other great composers who followed him, was hugely significant, yet it is only in quite recent times that the importance and originality of his piano sonatas have gradually come to be recognized. The Sonatas on this release have long been part of McCawley’s repertoire. They reflect eh range of Haydn’s genius in the genre he invented, and McCawley’s performances are full of the insight and virtuosity which have made him one of the major international artists currently before the public.

Includes sonata(s) for keyboard by Franz Joseph Haydn. Soloist: Byron Schenkman.