HAYDN String Quartets, op. 33/1, 3, 5 • Leipzig Str Qrt • MDG 3071812 (64:55)


The Leipzig Quartet is a group that subscribes to the historically-informed religion of straight tone; thus when this disc begins one hears the group playing a held chord that sounds a bit like cats whining. This impression never quite leaves one, but it does dissipate; as soon as the music changes you become aware that this group is really stylish. They understand phrasing and dynamics; nothing in these performances smacks of streamlining, of just rattling out the notes as quickly as possible to achieve maximum excitement. The modern proclivity towards “fast and furious” is not in their musical lexicon. As a result, these performances really speak to you. They have something interesting to say. Despite the persistent straight tone, they are truly lovely, suggesting at different times humor, elegance, melancholy or joy in turn. In short, I really liked these recordings. This is how I want my Haydn to sound (the straight tone excepted).


This set is marked as Vol. 6 in an apparently ongoing series of Haydn quartets. I’d certainly be interested in hearing the other discs, particularly of the early quartets which are so often played in a flippant and uninteresting manner. I will refrain from saying, as the liner notes do, that they are “one of the most exciting string quartets” (thank goodness they didn’t add the tag line “of their generation”), because I do not equate outstanding artistic interpretive qualities with “excitement.” That belongs to those Italian HIP orchestras that play everything in a rattletrap, full-speed-ahead zip-a-de-doo-dah manner. The Leipzig Quartet is made up of musicians, and that is more than enough for me. Highly recommended.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

"All my strength is gone." Joseph Haydn wrote these words on the final page of his unfinished last string quartet. One can hardly believe him when one listens to this new release by the Leipzig String Quartet - and encounters a composer in full possession of his creative powers. There is nary a trace of the infirmity of old age or fading inspiration; rather, the master draws on all the rich experience of his long artistic life. "I am old and weak" - this self-quotation from his song "Der Greis" (The Old Man) seems to be pure irony.

HAYDN String Quartets, op. 64/3–5 • Leipzig Str Qrt • MDG GOLD 3071723 (66:51)


Here is a disc, labeled as Vol. 5 of the Haydn quartets, that promises very great things for the rest of the series. The Leipzig Quartet’s playing has the same light, bright, and occasionally humorous sweep that one also hears in the recordings of the Daedalus Quartet (the op. 20 quartets as issued on Bridge 9326) and, if anything, MDG’s sound is even more clearly detailed. There’s not a single movement on this disc that disappoints; the quartet members, who appear to be in their mid-40s, have retained a youthful, zestful energy and enthusiasm for music-making that warms the heart as it makes you smile.


Moreover, their musical style includes many subtle moments of rubato and an extraordinarily wide variety of dynamics. For a good example of their rubato style, sample the Menuetto of the op. 64 No. 3 quartet, where the subtle tempo shifts—combined with the composer’s own written luftpausen —tease the ear in a wonderful way. Sometimes their subtlety in dynamics may escape the inattentive listener, so alertness in hearing this CD is strongly recommended. This is not fluff playing, but rather the kind of performance that brings you deeper into the heart of the music. Based on this single disc, I would go so far as to recommend hearing virtually any of their Haydn quartet releases to date, which so far includes some op. 50 quartets (1, 4, and 5) on MDG 3071585 (which got a rave review in these pages from Burton Rothleder), op. 76 Nos. 2–4 on MDG 3071683 (a rave review on Music Web International ), the op. 20 quartets Nos. 2, 4, and 6 on MDG 3071706 (another good review from Rothleder), but oddly enough I can’t find Vol. 1 of this series on either ArkivMusic or Amazon! (Maybe it hasn’t come out yet.)


In short, this is good stuff. If you don’t have these quartets in your collection, in performances you enjoy, go for it!


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

HAYDN String Quartets: op. 20/2, 4, 6 • Leipzig Qrt • MDG 307 1706-2 (70:11)


I was greatly impressed with the Leipzig String Quartet’s complete traversals of the Schubert and the Mendelssohn quartets, but I found (in a Fanfare review not yet published at this writing) their approach to Haydn’s op. 76/2–4 not at all to my liking. My complaints centered on choices of tempo, unwelcome embellishments, and lack of “conviction.” On the current disc, as on the op. 76 disc, the order of presentation is numerically reversed (6, 4, 2 and 4, 3, 2, respectively).


In this op. 20 disc, tempos are reasonable, there are no objectionable embellishments (but there are some that I would prefer not be present), and the playing is everywhere convincing. All exposition repeats and development and recapitulation repeats are observed. A restrained vibrato is used that I find appropriate and pleasing. In a possible attempt to profit from studies of historically informed practices, occasional slight swells and attenuations are inserted, and this I find appealing. This is especially noticeable in the opening movement of No. 6. Most curious is the disregard of Haydn’s final fugal movement sempre sotto voce marking in Nos. 2 and 6. The result is a loudness that abandons the gossamer textures that are otherwise so appealing in these fugues. (S empre sotto voce appears in my Dover scores. Perhaps the Leipzig Quartet used a more recent and more authentic edition of these quartets.)


There are some very positive aspects of these performances. The second movement of the second quartet (in C), a Capriccio that begins auspiciously in C Minor and leads to a cantabile in E?-Major, is played with a sardonic C Minor and an innocent E?-Major. No. 4 in D Major is notable for its D-Minor variations of the Adagio e affettuoso second movement and for the off-beat accents in the Menuet alla Zingarese third movement. These movements profit from exceptional interpretations by the Leipzigers.


For the present disc (and the op. 76 disc), the members of the quartet are Stefan Arzberger and Tilman Büning (violins), Ivo Bauer (viola), and Matthias Moosdorf (cello). For the Schubert and Mendelssohn disc sets, the first violin was Andreas Seidel. The result of this change in leadership may be the source of my observations. Although these quartets are better served by the Auryn Quartet and by the Lindsays, there are enough unique and attractive features here for a recommendation.


FANFARE: Burton Rothleder

Clean, thoughtful, satisfyingly classical accounts.

The Sunrise makes for a quiet, inward-looking and studious start to this CD. And you really appreciate the exposition repeat which allows you to get to grips with what it’s about. The first violin’s curvaceous ascent represents the sunrise. The first theme’s mellow consideration soon gives way to earnest activity, then back to the opening mood. The second theme mirrors the first but with the melody this time in the cello. In the development (tr. 1 4:19) the vigorous material becomes more spiky but what’s more attractive, and very well accomplished here by the Leipzig String Quartet, is the release of tension as the texture thins and the music eases into the recapitulation. I compared The Lindsays recorded in 1999 (ASV CDDCA 1077). Their opening is more affectionately inflected, their activity more animated, but the movement’s progression isn’t revealed with the sheer refinement shown by the Leipzigers.

The slow movement is a deep contemplation around a five note motif of which you are made clearly aware in the Leipzigers’ performance. Their presentation is plain but intent. The more searching, even rapt character of the second phase of the movement is satisfyingly revealed by the whole ensemble. Their understatement shows more warmth and inwardness than the more moulded but also self-conscious Lindsays.

After this the Minuet is rather disarmingly jocular. The Leipzigers get across well the teasing quality of its tempo fluctuations though to a degree which makes the disruptions unduly gawky. The Trio has a rustic flavour to maintain such a mood, with its viola and cello drone over which the violins’ melody slides. But in its second section the viola is released to join the violins and your focus is switched to the sweetness and light of the first violin in upper register. The Lindsays’ more blatantly comic bounce in the Minuet blends better with a Trio that is at first still more feisty and assertive.

The finale, attractively presented by the Leipzigers with an easygoing blitheness, continues the later, sweeter mood of the Trio. Its increasingly faster, at first more feathery, closing section is trimly accomplished by the Leipzigers but you’re very much aware of it as a virtuoso technical display. The Lindsays are more provocative: they send up the first violin’s grace notes from the finale’s opening phrase and then float on the sustained notes. Their closing section begins nonchalantly and continues precisely etched.

The second quartet on this Leipzigers’ CD, the Emperor, is altogether different in manner. It’s direct, exuberantly forthright and uncomplicated. The Leipzigers begin it in chipper fashion. The sforzandos and lower parts are firmly projected and there’s more emphasis on ensemble than first violin dominance, its passages of semiquaver and demisemiquaver elaboration allowed just to wheel neatly above the rest. In the development (tr. 5 3:37) the sequences are presented with silvery tone before the theme is displayed in much more rugged manner as appropriate to the drone in viola and cello. The recapitulation is then an appreciated return to civil normality. It’s a pity the second half of the movement, unlike the first, isn’t repeated, especially because Haydn asks for the close, from 6:05 here, to be faster the second time, so you lose that adrenalin effect. The Lindsays (from 1998, ASV CDDCA 1076) do make the repeat and approach everything with more rigour and swagger.

The ‘Emperor’ (Austrian national anthem) theme of the slow movement (tr. 6) is stated calmly by the Leipzigers and gradually takes on more of the character of a formal dance. Variation 1 (1:04) offers a nicely rounded statement by the second violin and neat first violin filigree work above. Variation 2 (2:03) is treated as a lullaby, with the theme now in the cello and the first violin’s counter-play tender and sympathetic. In Variation 3 (3:00) the tune comes in the viola with denser involvement of the other parts but is still flexibly and companionably presented here. In Variation 4 (4:14) the tune is back in the first violin and more reflective in silky high register, sealing the whole presentation as a grateful homage. I prefer this to the more emotive Lindsays who for me become rather unctuous.

The Leipzigers’ Minuet is courtly, relaxed and attractive, but I feel the more rhythmic second part of both sections could skip more, as the Lindsays show. However, the Trio responds better to the Leipzigers’ understatement. It’s grave until transformed, even if only for a spell, from A minor to A major, like seeing the same person in different circumstances. In the Leipzigers’ finale you feel the rhetoric of the crotchet chords more than the shimmer of the quaver triplets, but these do later become more prominent. In the development (tr. 8 2:46) they cut across the melodic progress with more effect and things become more impetuous. The Leipzigers’ performance is finely proportioned but the Lindsays are more exciting.

The Fifths is a great study in subversion. Its first movement begins rigorously enough but the consolatory brightness of its second theme (tr. 9 0:23) is what you prefer to remember. The development (3:24) sees a transformation and mellowing of the initial material at the same time as its opening four-note motif (the falling fifths in the first violin) becomes more significant as a unifying and steadying force. The Leipzigers are more refined and intellectual than the Lindsays’ more personal and passionate approach (ASV CDDCA 1076 recorded in 1999) which offers a sweeter yet somewhat less substantial second theme. The winsome slow movement spotlights a first violin melody and here the Leipzigers’ Stefan Arzberger manages to be both folksy and gracefully sophisticated where Peter Cropper for the Lindsays is more modest and unassuming. Arzberger is the more classical. The Minuet returns to D minor rigour but of a very odd kind as the first and second violins are stalked by the viola and cello three beats behind. As both are in their lower register the effect is rather that of a trailing double-bass. This is clearer and more disturbing in the Leipzigers’ account though it has less gusto than the Lindsays. The D major Trio places a Vivaldian succession of crotchet chords as a backcloth for a sweet and toying first violin solo. The Leipzigers bring out the toying aspect more whereas the Lindsays are more exciting in dynamic shading. In the D minor finale the subversive brightness is confined at first to the first violin’s leap of a fifth at the end of the first phrase but you know the theme is going to end up, satisfyingly and after a little sleight of hand in the development, in the major. All this is stylishly effected by the Leipzigers, again more classically than the Lindsays’ more cheeky first violin leap. They also sport a feistier development and more delicate and sweet major version of the theme. A good way to end a CD of clean, thoughtful, satisfyingly classical accounts. The playing is refined and precise; the recording has fine immediacy and presence.

-- Michael Greenhalgh, MusicWeb International

HAYDN String Quartets: op. 50/1, 4, 5 • Leipzig String Quartet • MDG 307 1585-2 (67:48)


From the six string quartets of op. 20 (preceded by 31 string quartets) to the two of op. 77, there are 45 remarkable works (excluding the Seven Last Words, which itself is also remarkable) in this form from Haydn’s pen. My familiarity with these quartets began relatively late in life, leaving me with the ambivalence of regret for being so tardy and of thankfulness for not being too late. The six op. 50 quartets lie at about the 40-percent mark of the total 45, and the three offered here are in my view the most attractive of this group of six. All six, however (all 45, for that matter), are strongly attractive pieces—remarkable in invention, distinctiveness, and musicality.


In these performances, the Leipzig String Quartet uses moderately restrained vibrato and observes all repeats (except those in the da capos ). Both of these practices are important contributors to the success of these performances. The Leipzigs approach the music cautiously, sometimes soulfully, yet know to let loose when appropriate, for example, in the memorable Vivace final movements of No. 1 and No. 5. At all times, each of the four voices is discernable. While Haydn’s string quartet part-writing was not as consistently developed as Mozart’s, its importance remains. Haydn was more open than Mozart in his use of humor, and he was more daring than Mozart in resorting to unconventional keys; e.g., E? Minor in the second variation of the op. 50/1 Adagio and F? Major to conclude the first movement and to begin the Menuetto of op. 50/4 (which is in the un-Mozartean key of F? Minor, the slow movement of Mozart’s K 488 piano concerto notwithstanding).


In competition, the Lindsays have recorded all 45 quartets in performances that excel in their verve and in the success of that group’s willingness to take chances in its interpretive approach, but intonation weakness is too often its principal failure. In its op. 50/4, there is too much out-of-tune playing by the first violin to make it a competitor to the Leipzig performance of that quartet.


The members of the 21-year-old Leipzig String Quartet on this disc are Stefan Arzberger and Tilman Büning (violins), Ivo Bauer (viola), and Matthias Moosdorf (cello). Three of its members were first chairs of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The quartet has concertized throughout the U.S. as well as throughout the world. It has recorded the complete string quartets of Schubert and of other composers. I can only hope that a “complete” (op. 20 and above) Haydn would be one of its eventual goals.


This is a Haydn quartet disc that I highly recommend.


FANFARE: Burton Rothleder

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.

Classical Music

Like Arnold Schönberg, Josef Matthias Hauer composed "with twelve tones" - but with a very different result! If dissonance, harmonic tension, and the highest degree of expressivity mark the musical process in Schönberg, then Hauer's music is free of all of the above. Of absolutely airy lightness, of extraordinary song character, and often concluding with euphonious major triads, Hauer's preludes and melodies recorded here for the first time in complete form by Steffen Schleiermacher offer a compendium of this composer's musical philosophy.

The 1987 Klinkhamer harpsichord is modeled after one by Chr. Zell of Hamburg from 1737; the 1996 Crinen, after one by H. Ruckers II of Antwerp from the first half of the 17th century.

HANDEL Water Music . Concerto grosso in A, op. 6/11, HVW 329 • Anne Röhrig, cond; Hannoversche Hofkapelle (period instruments) • MDG 90518286 (65:07)


The Water Music is one of those works that has become so iconic that it truly needs no introduction or reiteration. Composed in 1717, it is true outdoors music that was meant to accompany an outing on the Thames by George I, the erstwhile Elector of Hannover who had just become the English monarch. The mythology surrounding the tension between the King and Handel, owing to the latter’s overstaying his leave to compose opera for London, has largely been overturned. He may well have been “posted” to London to report on the lay of the land for a potential heir, meaning that the sojourn may have had a diplomatic function. Whatever the true reason, the music has been seen as iconic ever since, forming a sort of suite bookend to the Royal Fireworks Music of two decades or so later.


Almost all of the performances on disc, and they are legion, feature the music divided into three separate suites: one in F Major that features the horns; one in D with trumpets, horns, and timpani; and one in G wherein the flute plays an important solo role. How these are distributed along the disc varies of course with the ensemble, but these apparently follow a sequence in several sources. Here, however, the entire music is played (ahem!) en suite , meaning that it goes through all three in an order that apparently mirrors the original performance, lasting about an hour. This is thanks to a score apparently written about 1718 and rediscovered in 2004 by Terence Best. Since the entire work is a bit short for a disc, director Anne Röhrig has chosen to supplement the Water Music with one of the op. 6 Concerti Grossi. This work, a six-movement suite, was written towards the end of Handel’s career in 1740, itself being an arrangement of an Organ Concerto premiered the year before. This, of course, has nothing to do with the Water Music , but rather is a nice, if non sequitur, complement.


One need not ruminate over the plethora of discs with both of these pieces that are available, given that many period instrument groups seem to have a fondness for recording it (often paired with the Fireworks Music in some fashion). For example, both Trevor Pinnock and Neville Marriner recorded it back in 1990, the former on Archiv and the latter on Decca, allowing for a comparison between period instruments with The English Concert and modern instruments with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. I happen to like both of these, and find the sound and performances equally entertaining. In 2009 Andrew Manze and the first-named ensemble even produced a DVD wherein there was an attempt to recreate the boating party of 1717, which was a great deal of fun. Thus, at last count there were well over two dozen recordings over the past two decades, and therefore this is not exactly an unknown quantity. But none of these have exactly the same arrangement as found in this disc, which should be somewhat of an enticement.


As for the performance itself, I find that the Hannoversche Hofkapelle’s is the equal in every way to any of the other performances. The string playing is tight and disciplined, the tempos all flow in a nice unity, and the intonation is spot on. The horns are suitably raucous when needed, and in the Lentement (formerly of the D-Major Suite), both horns and trumpets are smooth and lyrical, a nice contrast to the fanfare-like character elsewhere. In short, this is a worthy addition to the Water Music canon, and I for one would recommend it over the others, not just because of the quality of the performance, but rather especially for the organization of the music so that one might be able to appreciate what seems to be Handel’s original concept.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

A Handel masterpiece from Greek forces springs a welcome surprise

We’re lucky enough to be having rather a clutch of important Handel recordings emerge at the moment. This latest is the first recording to use the version of Tamerlano performed at its premiere. And George Patras’s Greek forces do the opera proud. In a real ensemble achievement, Nicholas Spanos is outstanding in the title-role, surmounting the vocal hurdles with ease.

-- Gramophone [2/2008]

HANDEL Joshua • Peter Neumann, cond; Myung-Hee Hyun ( Achsah ); Alex Potter ( Othniel ); James Gilchrist ( Joshua ); Georg Poplutz ( Angel ); Konstantin Wolff ( Caleb ); Cologne CCh; Collegium Cartusianum (period instruments) • MDG 332 1532 (2 CDs: 122:40 Text and Translation)


Joshua is not one of Handel’s great oratorios. Although it is patterned on the previous year’s Judas Maccabaeus with a perfunctory love story tacked on, Morrell’s mediocre libretto did not inspire Handel to the heights of their earlier collaboration. But there are some very good things in Joshua , and second-rate Handel is better than music from some composers’ top drawer, so Joshua is worthy of the occasional performance and recording.


My only previous encounter with Peter Neumann’s Handel is his excellent Athalia , which I consider the preferred recording of that work. His work here is on the same high level. He paces the work well, giving scrupulous attention to Handel’s tempo markings. In the few da capo arias, ornaments are tasteful and appropriate. Orchestra and chorus perform at a very high level, and one is almost unaware that English is not the choristers’ native tongue.


As with other period-instrument recordings that have come my way in recent months, I am puzzled by the use of continuo keyboards. The organ is sometimes used in place of the harpsichord in recitatives and arias. Neumann even goes further, sometimes using organ, harpsichord, and lute together, contrary to correct historical practice.


The soloists are a very accomplished group. James Gilchrist, one of only two native English soloists, is excellent as Joshua. He is very responsive to the words he is singing, projecting what drama there is in his role when he is given the opportunity. Despite the fact that most of the other soloists are German-born, they sing the English words with practically no hint of an accent. Myung-Hee Hyun was born in Korea, but has studied in Germany. Her diction is also excellent, as of course is that of Alex Potter, the other native English singer. None of these singers need yield anything to the soloists on Robert King’s recording on Hyperion, the main competition to this recording.


There are two additional recordings of Joshua in the current catalog. I have not heard the recording conducted by Budday on K & K, but it received a negative evaluation in Fanfare 31:5. The recording conducted by Palmer on Newport has its attractions, but is outclassed by slightly better competition. Anyone looking to add Joshua to his collection could not go wrong with either King or Neumann.


FANFARE: Ron Salemi

Classical Music

With Athalia, Neumann has achieved another notable success... Despite the considerable virtues of the Hogwood recording [NLA], my feeling is that the new Neumann comfortably surpasses it. In the spheres alike of conducting, orchestral playing, and recording, there is a trade-off to be observed. Unusually for him, Neumann sets somewhat headlong tempos in two or three of the faster arias, where Hogwood might be called more rationally moderate. But though Neumann’s singers are thereby pushed to the limit in terms of vocal poise and verbal precision, the gain in dramatic urgency provides abundant compensation; and this result is enhanced both by the powerfully propulsive bass line that, more typically, he draws from his Cologne-based orchestra and by Werner Dabringhaus’s ideally clear and at the same time resonant recording. At times, indeed, the contribution of the Collegium Cartusianum’s brasses and of timpanist Martin Piechotta, thwacking away mightily with his wooden sticks in the big choruses, attains to a degree of boisterousness that might almost be considered too much of a good thing—but I love it myself. There is, in any case, no lack of more subtle effects, such as the sheer velvet beauty of the string figurations in Joad’s act-III air with chorus, “Jerusalem, thou shalt no more a tyrant’s guilty reign deplore.” So far as the two choruses are concerned, it should be noted that Hogwood’s uses boy sopranos and exclusively male altos, whereas the 28-member Cologne Chamber Choir has female sopranos and a mix of female and male altos. Personal preference in this regard may point collectors in one or the other direction. I find both groups excellent, but again, effects like the dramatic choral staccatos in the final chorus of act II are more compellingly brought off by the German ensemble.

Among the solo performances, the most striking successes in the new set are not exactly where I expected to find them. Reviewing a disc of Handel duets conducted by Alan Curtis, I made bold to call Simone Kermes “one of the greatest Handel singers of our time.” Her performance here as Athalia is again exciting, and she easily trumps Sutherland dramatically with a characterization of sometimes positively shrewish vividness. But the two other sopranos, the Ukrainian Olga Pasichnyk and the Norwegian Trine Wilsberg Lund, achieve even more mellifluous results in this particular performance. Singing with winning lyric lightness of tone but also with a clean, firm line, Pasichnyk makes Emma Kirkby’s Josabeth sound a touch too “in your face”; and Wilsberg Lund, no less charming as the young king Joas, is vocally more accomplished than the boy soprano in Hogwood’s version. Surprisingly again, the young American tenor Thomas Cooley proves at least the peer of the much more experienced Anthony Rolfe Johnson as the plausible but unpleasant apostate priest Mathan, and Wolf Matthias Friedrich similarly matches and even surpasses David Thomas’s familiar virtues as the honest soldier Abner. For the crucial role of the Jewish high priest Joad, moreover, Neumann has found his best countertenor yet. Born in Buenos Aires (though described in the French version of the booklet biography as of Italian origin), Martín Oro possesses a voice of beguiling warmth which he deploys with both firmness and delicacy, and may well please many listeners (no doubt including my former colleague Ralph V. Lucano) more than Hogwood’s authoritative but somewhat aggressive-sounding James Bowman.

Vocal embellishments throughout are conceived and carried out in admirably natural style, and though Anglophone listeners may find an occasional vowel from one or another singer in Neumann’s cast slightly foreign-sounding, there is nothing like the mangling of the language that disfigured Martini’s performance. Altogether, then, this may be accounted a near-ideal presentation of a work that every Handelian, and for that matter every potential Handelian, needs to know. What wonderful music this is! To know it, I venture to suggest, is to love it.

Bernard Jacobson, FANFARE