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Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra – Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 92 & 93, 97-99 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:12:55 minutes | 2,68 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © LSO Live
The late Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra present a collection of Haydn’s expressive and resplendent London Symphonies alongside the spirited and melodic Oxford Symphony.
Sir Colin Davis was long recognised as a pre-eminent Haydn interpreter. During his Indian summer with the orchestra he recorded both Die Schöpfung (The Creation) and Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons) for LSO Live. These symphonies presented here were recorded in 2011 during this same period, and make for revelatory listening.
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Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan – Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 104, 88, 101 (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:12 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Philharmonia Baroque
San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra celebrates its 30th Anniversary Season in 2010-11. Led by Music Director Nicholas McGegan since 1985, Philharmonia Baroque is recognised as one of the finest chamber orchestras, as well as one of the most exciting period instrument ensembles, in the country. This trio of Haydn symphonies displays the remarkably consistent quality and inventiveness of the composer’s output: from the clever and concise symphony No.88 to the humorous ‘Clock’ to the dazzling and sonorous Symphony No.104 (Haydn’s swan song to the genre), this superb collection bears eloquent witness to Haydn’s consummate mastery.
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Haydn Philharmonie, Adam Fischer – Joseph Haydn: Symphonies No. 97 & 102 (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 51:34 minutes | 924 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MDG Records
How much Haydn is enough Haydn? Now that all the symphonies have been recorded several times, now that period-instrument and modern-instrument performances are available, and now that original versions, published versions, and variant versions have all been documented, is there really a need for more Haydn recordings? More specifically, is there really a need for a second series of recordings of Haydn’s symphonies with Adam Fischer leading the Österreichisch-Ungarische Haydn-Philharmonie (aka the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic)? After all, they had already recorded all of Haydn’s symphonies label in the ’90s for the English Nimbus in performances that were smart and stylish, and that set well with the composer’s unique combination of high art, deep feeling, and good fun. If the performances are all as fine as this coupling of the Symphonies No. 97 and No. 102 with the Overture “L’anima del filosofo,” the answer is yes.
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Haydn Philharmonie, Adam Fischer – Haydn: Symphonies No. 88 & 101 (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 55:16 minutes | 800 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MDG Records
Founded in the late ’80s just before the collapse of the Iron Curtain by Hungarian conductor Adam Fischer, the Österreichisch-Ungarische Philharmonie (aka, the Austro-Hungarian Philharmonic) had already recorded the complete symphonies of Franz Josef Haydn for the English Nimbus label in the ’90s when it returned to selected symphonies for the German Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm label in the 2000s. And good as the earlier performances were, the later performances – in this case, Symphonies No. 88 and No. 101 plus the Overture to the opera L’isola disabitata – are even better. Familiarity with the entire body of Haydn’s orchestral works has bred only deeper understanding and greater fondness in these musicians and the thousands of small but telling improvements in their performances. Listen just to Symphony No. 88’s Menuetto and Trio – to the swaggering upbeat into big timpani downbeat in the Menuetto or the evocative woodwinds in the Trio with the strings swelling delightfully behind them. In every moment of these performances, Fischer and his musicians show that sort of attention to detail – and that kind of affection for idiom. Recorded in breathtakingly realistic sound in the main hall of Estrahazy Castle – the room for which most of Haydn’s orchestral music was originally conceived and executed – this disc deserves to be heard by anyone who loves great music and great art. Review by James Leonard
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Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Marco Boni – HAYDN: Symphonies Nos. 22, 44, 64 (2003)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 55:44 minutes | 831 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Marco Boni leads the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra on this recording featuring Haydn’s best known early symphony, his No. 22, subtitled “The Philosopher.” The album also includes Symphony No. 44 “Mourning”, a portion of which Haydn asked to be played at his funeral; the Symphony No. 64, nicknamed “Tempora Mutantur” (“the times change”), completes the programme.
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Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle – Haydn: Symphonies 88-92, Sinfonia Concertante (2007/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 02:25:24 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics International
From the included liner notes by Sir Simon Rattle:
I have always felt that Haydn is our greatest neglected composer. His life’s work, staggering in its variety and quantity, is a gold mine of invention, intelligence, humour and profound deep feeling. The depths are all the more affecting for being glimpsed rather than openly displayed, as if the music knows that it is enough to discern the shadow to realise that darkness lies beyond.
Could any composer be a better dinner companion? I doubt it. For all of us, it has been an immense privilege to work so closely on these works written in a short space of time, but so utterly different from each other.
Just a word concerning the extraordinary finale of No.90: not many jokes have punchlines that still work after more than 200 years, but this written-in false ending (heard twice because of the repeat) never fails to catch out the audience. The audience reaction, when it realises that it has been fooled not once but twice, are part and parcel of the music, almost an organic necessity. However, we have also provided the possibility of hearing the finale without audience reactions for those who would enjoy being fooled for themselves. But I do believe that, unlike coughing and delinquent mobile phones, these audience sounds are written in to the score, even if invisibly. And I’m sure that if Haydn was writing symphonies today, that one would have a mobile phone in the instrumentation…
I hope that these symphonies give you at least some part of the joy that we have had in performing them.
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Chiaroscuro Quartet – Haydn: ‘Sun’ Quartets Op.20, Nos. 4-6 (Vol. 2) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:08 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The so-called ‘Sun’ quartets of Joseph Haydn’s Op. 20 are often said to represent an unprecedented flowering of his string quartet writing, establishing a high watermark to which every other subsequent composer of quartets has paid homage. The six quartets are not a monument of compositional rectitude or propriety, however – it is rather their flexibility, variety and unpredictability that make them so compelling. Every bar is full of a sense of musical adventure, a palpable feeling that Haydn is creating bridges between styles and ideas and forging a composite vision of four-part string writing that draws on every historical source that he knew as well as the furthest reaches of his musical imagination.
On this second instalment, the last three quartets of the set are performed by the Chiaroscuro Quartet, a highly international ensemble formed in 2005 by the violinists Alina Ibragimova (Russia) and Pablo Hernán Benedí (Spain), the Swedish violist Emilie Hörnlund and cellist Claire Thirion from France. Dubbed ‘a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music’ in Gramophone, the quartet plays on gut strings, and the previous instalment was singled out as a recommended disc by The Strad, whose reviewer described its contents as ‘period-instrument performances of the utmost subtlety and refinement.
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Chiaroscuro Quartet – Haydn: ‘Sun’ Quartets Op.20, Nos. 1-3 (Vol. 1) (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:43 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
The six so-called ‘Sun’ quartets of Joseph Haydn’s Op. 20 are often said to represent an unprecedented flowering of his string quartet writing, establishing a high watermark to which every other subsequent composer of quartets has paid homage. For all their iconic status the Op. 20 quartets are not a monument of compositional rectitude or propriety, however – it is rather their flexibility, variety and unpredictability that make them so compelling. Every bar is full of a sense of musical adventure, a palpable feeling that Haydn is creating bridges between styles and ideas and forging a composite vision of four-part string writing that draws on every historical source that he knew as well as the furthest reaches of his musical imagination.
On this first volume, the first three quartets of the set are performed by the Chiaroscuro Quartet, a highly international ensemble formed in 2005 by the violinists Alina Ibragimova (Russia) and Pablo Hernán Benedí (Spain), the Swedish violist Emilie Hörnlund and cellist Claire Thirion from France. Dubbed ‘a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music’ in Gramophone, the quartet plays on gut strings and its unique sound – described in The Observer as ‘a shock to the ears of the best kind’ – is admired by audiences and critics all over Europe. Appearing for the first time on BIS, the Chiaroscuro Quartet has a growing and acclaimed discography and in 2015 received Germany’s most prestigious CD award, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.
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The London Haydn Quartet – Joseph Haydn: String Quartets, op.33 (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:13:30 minutes | 2,45 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
The calling card here is the use of an Amsterdam edition of Haydn’s Op. 33 string quartets that reverses the order of some of the inner movements. It’s never made clear why this edition should get priority over the dozens of others that circulated around Europe, with and without Haydn’s consent, but so be it; there are some tempo novelties here that shed some light on how Haydn’s music was received, at least in some quarters. There the good news ends. These performances are sterling examples of the kind that gave historical-instrument readings a bad name for so long among ordinary listeners. The problem is not with the Classical-era bows and gut strings that many musicians have applied profitably to Classical chamber music. Nor is it with the lack of vibrato, which done right gives Haydn a brisk, bracing humor. The problem is instead with the total lack of humor and gradation in the music, which is as inexpressive as you will find anywhere. The London Haydn Quartet proclaims itself to have been born out of “a passion for Haydn’s string quartets,” but the passion is hard to hear, and the group’s playing would be more typical of musicians with a background in the terraced dynamics of Baroque music; for the most part they have an inflexible attitude toward dynamics. There may be a market for this among the historical-performance hard core, but even for this leaner in that direction it did not satisfy. Sample well before buying. Even the normally unimpeachable sonics of the Wyastone Estate concert hall get distorted here, with the players unpleasantly closely miked. –James Manheim
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The London Haydn Quartet – Haydn: String Quartets Opp. 54 & 55 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:33:08 minutes | 2,82 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
The London Haydn Quartet reaches the six great quartets published in 1788 as Opp 54 & 55 in another unmissable two-for-the-price-of-one set. Is it possible to have too much Haydn? The only sensible answer is ‘no’, especially when the music is performed with such intelligence and humanity as here.
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The London Haydn Quartet – Haydn: String Quartets Op 50 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:28:52 minutes | 2,91 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
The London Haydn Quartet turns to the six Op 50 quartets. More serious—intellectually taut—than the Op 33 ‘Russian’ quartets which they follow in Haydn’s output, these six ‘Prussian’ quartets dazzle in such committed performances as these.
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Gordan Nikolic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra – Haydn: Sinfonia Concertante In B Flat Major; Symphony No. 100, Military (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:06 minutes | 934 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone Classics
This album from PentaTone Classics features Gordan Nikolic as both solist and conductor with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. The recording opens with the overture “L’isola disabitata,” which Nikolic conducts from the harpsichord. The Sinfonia Concertante features Nikolic on violin, Herre-Jan Stegenga on cello, Toon Durville on oboe, and Margreet Bongers on bassoon. The performances are bright and brisk, and the recording quality is top-notch.
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Marc-André Hamelin – Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3 (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:37:34 minutes | 2,41 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
Hyperion’s Record of the Month is the third double-volume release in Marc-André Hamelin’s much-praised series of Haydn’s keyboard sonatas. Haydn wrote around sixty keyboard sonatas and this selection of eleven focuses on those from the 1770s, including the great C minor sonata from the composer’s ‘Sturm und Drang’ period, with its dynamic contrasts and virtuoso demands. These are bookended by three from Haydn’s earliest output from the 1750s, most likely penned for his young female pupils to play, and the D major sonata written during the second of the mature composer’s triumphant London visits in 1794.
In all these fascinating, idiosyncratic works, Marc-André Hamelin wears his renowned virtuosity lightly, while playing with understated wit and the elegant, immaculate musicianship that has come to define one of the greatest pianists of our time.
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Ronald Brautigam, Concerto Copenhagen, Lars Ulrik Mortensen – Haydn: Piano Concertos (2004)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:15:54 minutes | 688 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BIS
Here is a jewel of a record. Fresh from his triumphant reading of Haydn’s entire output for the fortepiano Ronald Brautigam now brings us four concertos for piano and orchestra by the great composer. The piano concerto of this period naturally means Mozart. No one would dispute his pre-eminence in the genre. But when we actually listen to Haydn, as opposed to nodding at his technical ability, breadth of application and so on, we are always surprised; his music is not just brilliantly skilful but deeply impassioned and full of delightful surprises. Lars Ulrik Mortensen is also a musician to bring out these elements. Widely recognized as a harpsichord player of unusual insight and personality he directs the period ensemble Concerto Copenhagen from the continuo bench. Surely no one can fail to respond to this heart-warming disc?
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Collegium Musicum 90, Richard Hickox – Haydn: London Symphonies, Vol. 2 (2000)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:16 minutes | 962 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
One of the most striking features of the twelve symphonies that Haydn composed for London between 1791 and 1795 is the strong sense of rapport between the composer and the intended audience. It was a popularity that he nurtured so that the tastes and enthusiasm of his audience were gradually developed. – for Haydn, popularity went hand in hand with artistic integrity. The three symphonies recorded here were all premiered in different seasons and reveal these qualities to the full.
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