If the listener has never heard a string quartet composed of “authentic” instruments, he might be surprised at the biting clarity these instruments provide, but when all is said and done, the success of a performance depends on the musical and intellectual insights of the performers, and these players play with understanding, clarity, and power.

-- High Performance Review, reviewing the Smithson's recording of Haydn's Op. 54

HAYDN: LONDON SYMPHONIES NOS 9

THE ROYAL EDITION - HAYDN: THE

THE ROYAL EDITION - HAYDN: MAS

The Creation is potentially the most life-enhancing work in the choral repertoire but it hasn’t been particularly well served on record, partly because it is difficult to sustain the necessary fervour in studio conditions. Sony has found performers who are both able and willing: Tafelmusik’s playing is predictably immaculate, and the Tölz Boys Choir (with fresh-voiced tenors and basses) is radically more accomplished than many all-male groups.

The big, set-piece choruses are very exciting, though some may find Weil’s speeds shockingly fast, and the impact would have been greater had the balance favoured the choir just a touch more. He is not afraid of greater expression in slower numbers (such as the introduction to Part 3), though on occasion the result is, I fear, too pretty for its own good.

All three soloists have something to offer: Ann Monoyios boasts a light, clear soprano ideally suited to her decorative arias in Parts 1 and 2; Jörg Hering’s warm tenor brings fluent musicality throughout; and Harry van der Kamp’s distinctive low-vibrato bass is deployed with great intelligence.

The overall style of performance is relatively intimate, so it’s a shame that the engineers give us quite so much resonant church acoustic; but the well-articulated German text is never under threat. Anyone not allergic to period-instrument Haydn will find much to enjoy here.

-- Stephen Maddock, BBC Music Magazine

Selections recorded March 27-29 and April 1-3, 1993.

Haydn: The Last 3 String Quartets

Haydn: Paris Symphonies Nos. 85-87

Haydn: Paris Symphonies Nos. 82-84

If we consider Haydn in connection with the French horn we probably first think of his famous symphony, nicknamed the Hornsignal. But though the four horns of that piece testify to Haydn’s wonderfully fertile imagination in writing music for this most difficult of brass instruments, it is by no means the only example. In this new release the Dutch ‘natural’ horn player Ab Koster and three fellow horn players, two oboists and L’Archibudelli string ensemble explore five less familiar works. In one of them at least – the Divertimento à tre – Haydn demands nothing less than technical magicianship from his horn player. Koster rises to the occasion, negotiating with seeming nonchalance passages of sustained lyricism, sudden bursts of arpeggios, acrobatic leaps and busy passagework that often heads towards the stratosphere. A virtuoso performance.
Performance 5 (out of 5) Sound 5 (out of 5)

-- Nicholas Anderson, BBC Music Magazine

Original Booklet with Synopsis and liner notes is included, although there is no libretto.

R E V I E W S

Haydn's last opera, written to inaugurate the reopening of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket in 1791 after a disastrous fire, took as its subject the Orpheus legend, not as it had been adopted by Gluck 30 years earlier, but based on Ovid: Eurydice receives her fatal snakebite while fleeing from Prince Arideo, to whom her father, King Creonte, had affianced her against her will; and there is no happy ending—Orpheus, after his journey to the underworld, loses her for ever, and he is then killed by the Maenads. At least, that is what Haydn would have set had he finished the work; but owing to the crazy rival patronage of George III and the Prince of Wales, the King refused a licence to the theatre manager and went so far as to ban even extracts from the new opera—this from so famous and popular a composer as Haydn! So Haydn stopped work on it, and as no complete libretto exists it is impossible to tell what is actually missing. Large gaps there conspicuously are: principal characters lack arias which would certainly have been their due; there are loose ends in the story, such as what happens after Creonte's call to arms (in a stirring aria) to avenge Arideo's attempted abduction of his daughter; and there is the briefest and most perfunctory treatment of such essential dramatic moments as Orpheus's confrontation with Pluto and of his desperate attempts not to look at Eurydice as he brings her back to earth. Even the main title of the opera remains mystifying, as the only reference to it in the text is when Amor (here called Genio) urges Orpheus to be philosophical about his great loss.

Nevertheless, what remains includes some fine music, as can be heard here. From the outset of the overture Haydn makes much use of broken phrases to express pathos; there is a long love duet at the end of Act 1, a charming folky chorus of little Cupids to begin Act 2; particularly rich are the accompanied recitatives throughout, that by Eurydice as she is bitten by the snake being most moving; the chorus of Furies in Hades is extremely striking, with powerful orchestration; and there is a spectacular bravura aria for Genio, seemingly intended for some leading soprano castrato. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand why Haydn wrote such cheery music for Creonte's aria about life not being worth living without love, and for Orpheus's ''Mi sento languire, morire mi sento''. This live Frankfurt performance is in general very acceptable, though had it been transferred to the studio some details could have been improved: for example, ensemble of the (period) woodwind might have been much better, and there might have been fewer mistakes in the singers' Italian. Marilyn Schmiege makes an appealing Eurydice and copes fairly well, flexibly if not absolutely cleanly, with her first florid aria, in which she likens her laments to those of the nightingale; Christoph Pregardien produces a nice messa di voce at the start of Orpheus's first solo (with harp obbligato) in which he tames the forest's wild beasts threatening his beloved's safety, but the part frequently descends too low for his pleasant light tenor, into a register where he is weak; and Claron McFadden adds to her reputation with some brilliant coloratura, though she is fractionally sharp in places: the chorus, which plays a large part in the action, is excellent.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [4/1992]

Joseph Haydn's Op. 1 heralded the birth of a new genre. These six early works by the young composer, famed for his mischievous humour, delight and fascinate with their freshness and exuberance, quirky, irregular phrase-lengths and unexpected pauses. Thanks to this gripping performance by the highly acclaimed Leipzig String Quartet, this recording makes for highly pleasurable listening.

Nancy Argenta, with her silvery voice, is deliciously vivacious, and Kuijken's Petite Bande play with spirit and bite. This is a thoroughly entertaining issue of a high-spirited work.

According to tradition, L'infedelta delusa (''Infidelity outwitted'') is the work which prompted the Empress Maria Theresa, who saw it at Prince Esterhazy's palace in 1773, to declare that when she wanted to hear a good opera she would go to Esterhaza. Some present-day critics have been more grudging in their praise for it, complaining that its characters all plebeians and deriving from commedia dell'arte types—have no depth and the music lacks the flair for building to a climax at which Mozart excelled. But at this date Mozart was still writing opera seria and had not begun even La finta giardiniera, so the comparison is invalid: let us be content that the opera has an uncomplicated plot, well told, and that the score is full of delightful invention, offering opportunities for brilliant singing. This it certainly receives in this enjoyable recording, which differs from Dorati's equally admirable 1981 Philips performance (nla)—apart from it being on CD by the orchestra employing period instruments (at a lower pitch) and by the inclusion of quite a bit more recitative. The advantage of this last, however, will be lost on many by the extraordinary decision to print the Italian libretto in the booklet in the handwriting—neat but reproduced in very small size—of the nineteenth-century Haydn scholar Pohl, and to provide no translation: a clear case of spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar.

Kuijken's Petite Bande play not only with spirit and bite but with a sureness of intonation that, ten years ago, we dared not hope for from period instruments: as compared with the Dorati version the string tone is smaller and the wind more prominent (though this is not entirely constant in the course of the work, presumably because it was recorded in sessions separated by ten months). The leading role is that of the sharp-witted Vespina, who, like her near-namesake Despina, in pursuit of her plans dons various disguises—an old woman, a German manservant, a knight and a notary. The aptly named Nancy Argenta, with her silvery voice, is deliciously vivacious here, with a splendidly free high register, clean fioriture and exemplary enunciation; but (unlike Magda Kalmar in the 1977 Hungaroton recording of the opera—nla) she does not do very much to alter her vocal quality for her different impersonations and Edith Mathis (for Dorati) got greater fun from words like ''patisco a respirar'' (''It hurts me to breathe''). As the unhappy Sandrina, whom her peasant father wants to marry off to a well-to-do farmer, Lena Lootens makes a good impression, particularly in ensembles, though in her first aria she is rather more shrill than was Barbara Hendricks (in the Dorati set). Markus Schafer as the duped suitor is outstanding, with a light, easy production throughout his compass and great flexibility (only ''Chi s'impaccia'' has low notes that elude him, as they also eluded his counterpart for Dorati, Claes Ahnsjo), and he makes every point in the words, especially his misogynistic outburst in Act 1 and his vengeance aria in Act 2. Stephen Varcoe, as Sandrina's true love, has only one aria to sing, an extraordinary one, but he invests it with passionate character. The remaining role is well sung by Christoph Pregardien despite his being rather miscast, as his voice sounds too youthful for Sandrina's father. Despite these small reservations, and an occasional doubt about the placing of singers in the stereo image (two people talking together shouldn't sound from opposite ends of the spectrum), this is a thoroughly entertaining issue of a high-spirited work which can safely be recommended.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [4/1990]

This recording was made last May [1982] at a public concert in Vienna by Austrian Radio, the occasion being the 250th anniversary of Haydn's birth. The audience is so quiet that it was quite a time before I realized I was listening to a live recording; they applaud only at the end. The performance has the merits one would hope for—a certain freedom and exuberance—and defects one can easily forgive—such as the indeterminate background noise early in Part 3 and one or two roughnesses of ensemble hereabouts... The soloists in Parts 1 and 2 are excellent, Arleen Auger being for me the most pleasing. They sing quite beautifully together in the 'close harmony' sections. In Part 3 there are different soloists for Adam and Eve, and though it was perhaps a good idea to have a younger baritone for Adam than the admirable Walter Berry, Arleen Auger could have sung Eve standing on her head. Nevertheless, Gabriele Sima's voice has a creamily lyrical quality that is both pleasing and promising, and she can easily be forgiven for having problems with one or two of the brief coloratura passages Haydn gave her... The chorus responds well to what is asked of it; if they sometimes seem to be over-emphasizing the beats this is because the conductor does take some of the fugues too fast and push the rhythms too hard... Kuhn does reveal a lot of detail in the wind parts—notably that in the last chorus the trombones play the same phrase over and over again, which I had not noticed before; the phrase almost becomes an irritant, though I liked hearing the trombones more clearly than usual. Kuhn also gets a good mark for having a piano for the recitatives; I'm sure that by 1798 Haydn had got past wanting an oldfashioned harpsichord.

-- Gramophone [2/1983]
reviewing the original LP release of the complete Creation

I'm in Haydn heaven. This is the most remarkable set of "Paris" Symphonies since Bernstein's, and without question the new reference by which all others will be judged. I say this fully cognizant of the excellence of some of the competition, from the surprisingly robust Karajan (DG) to the thrillingly exciting Thomas Fey (Hänssler, which contains 4 out of 6 of the symphonies). But none of those previous sets comes as close as this one to realizing perhaps the most singular quality of the music: it's inexhaustible variety and range of emotional expression, both between the various works as well as within them. Recorded back in 2001 and 2002 in glorious, state-of-the-art sonics that give the music the dynamic range and "bigness" of scale that it requires, we can only be thankful that RCA and dhm picked up Harnoncourt's contract when Warner dropped him. The thought of this set not seeing the light of day is too horrible to contemplate.


Few moments in listening to new interpretations of well-loved classics (for me anyway) are more rewarding than hearing something totally different and personal, only to realize that what the conductor has done is simply realize the composer's clear intentions by playing what sits in plain view on the printed page. Let me share with you three examples. In the first movement of Symphony No. 85 ("La Reine"), every performance since the dawn of time that observes the exposition repeat returns to the beginning of the allegro. Harnoncourt goes all the way back to the beginning of the symphony, including the introduction. This so shocked me that I hastened to my score (Landon edition, and so a good scholarly text), and sure enough, there is no repeat sign bracketing the beginning of the allegro. Moreover, in the other two symphonies with introductions (Nos. 84 and 86), you will find those repeat signs in the expected place. So Harnoncourt probably is the first conductor in history, on disc at least, to play what Haydn actually wrote.


Does this matter? Maybe not all that much, but including the introduction emphasizes the movement's hommage to the baroque French overture, and it's entirely in keeping with Haydn's love of formal variety and freedom from routine. It sounds "right". Another example: listen to the forcefulness with which Harnoncourt attacks the sforzandos in the development section of Symphony No. 83's ("La Poule") finale. Once again it's exactly what Haydn wrote, and the effect is electrifying. But Harnoncourt's eye for detail and ear for sonority are not limited exclusively to loud special effects. He can be subtle too, as when he lets us hear the long-held viola note supporting the whimsical second subject in the finale of the Symphony No. 86--a striking jet of color. Anywhere you might care to mention, from the vigorous dotted rhythms that open Symphony No. 85, to the ideal tempos that Harnoncourt finds in the variation slow movements in Symphonies Nos. 82, 84, and 85, to the delicious vignettes that he makes out of the trios in all six (thankfully lively) minuets--try No. 84--you can hear the notes leap off the page with all the freshness of a premiere performance, but with none of the uncertainty.


Harnoncourt honors all suggested repeats, including the second halves of the outer movements--and this also matters, because Haydn writes his endings with the expectation that the repeats will be observed, adding an additional element of surprise and drama. They are anything but perfunctory. In fact, the timing of the second-half repeat is different in every single finale: one and a half 2/4 bars in Symphony No. 82; three quarters of a 12/8 bar in No. 83; one eighth-note in a 2/4 bar in No. 84; half a 2/4 bar in No. 85; three quarters of a 4/4 bar in No. 86; one and a quarter 2/2 bars (plus fermata) in No. 87. Observing the repeats, and understanding what they mean, not only gives the music more substance by allowing listeners to follow the argument in greater detail the second time around, but it further emphasizes Haydn's individuality in each work, making us care about his imaginative approach to form. The result is more than three hours of music--on three discs priced as two--that never feels overlong. Just the opposite.


Finally, the playing of the Concentus Musicus Wien is extraordinary. The woodwinds are particularly gorgeous, whether in the lovely writing for the whole section in select slow movements--try Symphony No. 87, and the variation with pizzicato accompaniment in No. 84--or in solos such as the witty oboe that represents the hen in No. 83 and launches the allegro of No. 85. Harnoncourt even makes something special out of the string articulation in the repeated notes running through the first movement of No. 87 (and he's the first conductor since Bernstein to give the bass lines at the beginning of that symphony their full measure of weight and character). The trumpets and drums in Symphonies Nos. 82 and 86 play vigorously and always cut through the texture with clarity and festive brilliance, while the "dancing bear" finale of No. 82 is both exciting and rustic, the bagpipe imitations milked for all that they're worth, but never at the expense of the music's onrushing energy. You'll love the horns: rich-toned, but with plenty of bite where necessary.

I could go on, but instead let me urge you to buy this set as soon as possible and hear it for yourself. You'll be dazzled, even awed. It sets a new standard in Haydn performance--and trust me, you won't be able to stop listening. [4/28/2005]
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com