Still working my way through the box. Just heard no. 68 - the Adagio must be one of the loveliest Haydn ever wrote and the Presto finale with all its tricks has me grinning from ear to ear!
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One disc per evening, accompanied by a glass of something chilled, looking out at a perfect warm cloudless sky. Bliss!Comment
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That sounds ideal, Dougie.
I've finally got to the 'Morzin' symphonies, the ones that were first recorded in the cycle. I have finally found one criticism and that is the use of harpsichord continuo in those early works. I guess I'm so used to the Hogwood recordings in which he eschewed a harpsichord for various reasons and I have to say I do prefer his leaner sound. But this is nitpicking really - the Solomons box is just so extraordinarily good in every respect. I'll be sad when I get to the end, but hey, I'll just start the discs all over again!Comment
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Just had to check - found I'd already got that box - sitting on my shelves! Not sure if I [or anyone I leave the set to] will be able to get that much for it, but worth knowing.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
... what you really want is this -
(I see the price has gone up. It was 80 euros when I got it in 2010...
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Just started listening to the Solomons Haydn box. I think it'll take a while. Makes a change from other things I might be doing.
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....well indeed a spin of the dice makes the day go around....Originally posted by Dave2002 View Postbong chingComment
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Just finished the 18th and last disc - one regret is the lack of even just a few programme notes on each of the symphonies, but the box is surely one of the happiest purchases I have made in the last few yearsComment
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... just back from three weeks in that part of the world, the last three days spent in Saint-Félix-Lauragais - made a pilgrimage to the tombs of Déodat and Aldo : happy to report that as well as a plaque on his house ( "a plaque on all your houses" sez I ), there is now an Espace Déodat de Séverac in the main square with various of his things : the woman in charge was an elderly aristocratic Parisienne - we very much suspected she might be a de Séverac... There is also a rather good bust of him on the south side of the château walls. Here follows an advertorial for the town -Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... the lovely little township of Saint-Félix-Lauragais was the birthplace of Déodat de Séverac. There is a plaque, but I'm not sure the house is visitable. But the place is well worth a visit in its own right (excellent restaurant avec chambres too... )
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(Aldo Ciccolini is buried in Saint-Félix-Lauragais , near to the tomb of Déodat de Séverac... )
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[ I can if necessary provide further info on the interesting cimetière des Anglais at Saint-Félix-Lauragais referred to in the above : the dead wounded after the Battle of Toulouse 10 April 1814 (by which time Napoleon had already capitulated) - but I fear we have already drifted too far from the marvellous Derek Solomons box of Haydn symphonies... ]
.Last edited by vinteuil; 14-08-24, 14:59.Comment
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How fascinating, Vints... welcome back! Sounds like a delightful pilgrimage and I do hope that your suspicions of the elderly doyenne are correct.
I see there's another chance to get the Ciccolini set on Amazon, so I'm just off to snap it up.
Where are you with the Solomons set?Comment
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I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I’m doing a Haydn symphonies complete listen in the current best-guess chronological order. (It’s a bluesky thing…sorry not to be writing it up here as well but even doing it in one place is sometimes a bit of a stretch on the time front.)
Today I reached 63, which according to the chronology I’m following is the last one in the Solomons box. I will be very sorry not to have a Solomons recording to turn to for the rest of the journey! (I am using the Decca Haydn 107 box as my main reference but I have constantly been turning to Solomons too, especially for the Sturm und Drang symphonies where the Decca box uses the Bruggen recordings, which are not my thing at all.) Not all the box is absolute top notch but so much of it is just so blisteringly good that I reckon anyone who believes in (a) period-instrument Haydn and (b) CDs simply must grab a copy while they’re still available in the wild.Comment
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I was disappointed that Decca had not chosen to include all the Hogwood recordings in that '107' box, but I have grown to like Bruggen's orchestra and his interpretations. I 've been able to get the remaining Hogwoods and Solomons as downloads. Where they score, for me ,is in their treatment of Haydn's long, lyrical slow movements in his 'middle ' symphonies. I sometimes think Haydn was the 'wisest' of all composers.Comment
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I too agree that it's a shame that all the Hogwood recordings are not in that box. Like the Solomons, they are polished and seem to me to choose just the right tempi in general. They both also enjoy à very pleasant open acoustic which suits me.
For my complete set, I have all the Hogwoods, then from the late 70s onwards, the Dantone and then Kuijken for the rest (Paris and London symphonies). I'm very content with that and the recent release of all the Solomons recordings was a very happy bonus.Comment
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There is indeed no box which contains all the Hogwoods, as far as I understand! The box which collates the CDs from the abandoned series doesn’t contain 76 or 77—for that you need to seek out a BBC Music Magazine CD
or the Decca 107 box. It does at least also have the handful of late symphonies he’d already recorded.
If you have the Decca Haydn 107 box and decide you want the Hogwoods they’ve left out, you need to find the L’Oiseau-Lyre box and duplicate dozens of symphonies, or find four of the single boxes from the 10-volume set and still duplicate lots of things although then you get player listings and James Webster’s very fine booklets. If they’d used their Hogwoods for the Sturm und Drang symphonies, everything would have been in there, Bruggen fans could easily get his S&Ds in one place (the Philips box) and you wouldn’t get the almighty jolt between Bruggen’s interpretations and the approach Hogwood establishes in the early symphonies. I feel Decca have dealt very shoddily indeed with the Hogwood recordings, even besides the fact of them pulling the plug on the series.Comment
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I completely agree and really wonder what the reason was for supplanting the Hogwoods with the Bruggens. Does Bruggen's name sell more discs now? Cavalier treatment indeed, one mustn't forget that at one time in the 80s, Hogwood was outselling Karajan and Decca must have done very well out of it.Originally posted by oliver sudden View PostThere is indeed no box which contains all the Hogwoods, as far as I understand! The box which collates the CDs from the abandoned series doesn’t contain 76 or 77—for that you need to seek out a BBC Music Magazine CD or the Decca 107 box. It does at least also have the handful of late symphonies he’d already recorded.
If you have the Decca Haydn 107 box and decide you want the Hogwoods they’ve left out, you need to find the L’Oiseau-Lyre box and duplicate dozens of symphonies, or find four of the single boxes from the 10-volume set and still duplicate lots of things although then you get player listings and James Webster’s very fine booklets. If they’d used their Hogwoods for the Sturm und Drang symphonies, everything would have been in there, Bruggen fans could easily get his S&Ds in one place (the Philips box) and you wouldn’t get the almighty jolt between Bruggen’s interpretations and the approach Hogwood establishes in the early symphonies. I feel Decca have dealt very shoddily indeed with the Hogwood recordings, even besides the fact of them pulling the plug on the series.
I'm just so grateful that I got the original 10 boxes with their splendid Webster notes. The BBC disc of 76 and 77 was kindly given to me by the AAM for some TV archive material I donated to them.Comment
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... I hope you also have Hogwood's recording on florilegium / l'oiseau-lyre of symphonies 94, 100, & 104 - in the Salomon arrangement, with the Salamon Quartet and the AAM Chamber EnsembleOriginally posted by MickyD View Post
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