Haydn symphonies - Adam Fischer

[Karafan]

Having just received and de-cellophaned (is that a word?!) the 33CD Brilliant Classics box of Haydn symphonies with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra under Adam Fischer, I am wondering just where to start.

Anyone have any favourite recommendations out there from that box?

Cheers.

K.

[Chris Newman]

If it were me, Karafan. I would avoid the obvious dive into the popular Londons, Paris, etc. and start at the beginning.
Stop it, you are tempting me to buy the lot.
bws
Chris

[Bryn]

Despite the few missing string quartets (those not yet recorded at the time of the set's release), I would highly recommend the 150CD Brilliant Classics Haydn editon. It has all the Fischer symphonies, I think all the keyboard works, a few operas, nearly all the string quartets, all the 'piano' tiros, he baryton trios ... . You can't really go wrong. None of the recordings are really what might be called dross, though quite a few are hardly top notch either. Search around for the best price. I got mine as a 'pre-order' for around 85 GBP.

http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/of...&condition=new seems to be the best bet at the moment.

[MickyD]

The early and middle period symphonies are definitely my favourites, Karafan. I particularly love No.16, 22, 27, 34, 37, 44, 49 ....oh, I could go on for hours raving about them! Best thing to do would be to start from the beginning and just enjoy the whole lot!

[johnb]

I do like the performances but many of the recordings have (IMO) an over-reverberant acoustic which niggles with me.

As far as I remember, the earlier symphonies were recorded later and by that time the engineers had got the acoustic more under control.

[Roehre]

Having just received and de-cellophaned (is that a word?!) the 33CD Brilliant Classics box of Haydn symphonies with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra under Adam Fischer, I am wondering just where to start.

Anyone have any favourite recommendations out there from that box?

Cheers.

K.

Karafan, in this type of situations and not knowing what to expect, i tackle this problem by systematically listening to all of them. Both the Dorati and the Fischer sets I first listened to by starting with no.1 and then 11, 21, 31 ... 101, then 2, 12, 22 ... 102, etc. i prefer this to listening chronologically as it more speedily shows Haydns development as (symphonic) composer.
I did/do the Bach cantatas following their ecclesiastical use. This type of systematic listening saves you the trouble to have to decide which work to choose, and you will be surprised by the music anyway (assuming that at the moment you don't know too many of it)

[Gordon]

Beware that the numerical order is not necessarily the chronological order, even with the London sets.

I've had the Dorati for many years now and I just took the booklet and worked out the chronological order that it suggested [Robbins Landon IIRC] cross checked with Grove and listened that way. Took me weeks!!

I have some of those Fischer recordings in a Nimbus box. Very fine they are too if a bit reverberant. Tempting though that big box is I'll give it a miss because I have most of the other stuff anyway - the Brilliant Classics keyboard box is very good indeed and has modern recordings on various instruments.

[Karafan]

Thanks everyone for the words of advice - very much looking forward to getting stuck in. Might get a few ripped to the iPod for the walk to work (nice, quiet, undisturbed "me-time"!)

[Karafan]

Did I say "walk to work"? I meant skate!

K.

[pastoralguy]

Karafan, in this type of situations and not knowing what to expect, i tackle this problem by systematically listening to all of them. Both the Dorati and the Fischer sets I first listened to by starting with no.1 and then 11, 21, 31 ... 101, then 2, 12, 22 ... 102, etc.

Nice idea! Must try that the next time I go through the Haydn symphonies. In fact. it may work well for the Scarlatti sonatas too.

[Idamante]

Shut your eyes and take a lucky dip? I am working my way thru the Dorati set currently, roughly in chronological order but also jumping around at random a bit

best wishes
Idamante :cool2:

[Alf-Prufrock]

When I bought the Dorati set I still used a BBC microcomputer on which I had learned BBC BASIC, so I wrote a little program which randomly selected a number from 1 to 106 (the number of symphonies in the box) and listened to that symphony. The program had a safeguard in which it was not possible for a number to appear twice.

I do not know how to program on a PC, so my suggestion is obviously worthless now, unless somebody knows of a site which provides a random selector. Or you could enlarge a bingo set to 104+, I suppose.

If I won the lottery I should pay for Roy Goodman, the Hanover Band and Hyperion to finish their set. I have all the Haydn symphonies they recorded and find them invariably exhilarating.

[Idamante]

I do not know how to program on a PC, so my suggestion is obviously worthless now, unless somebody knows of a site which provides a random selector.

here you go:

http://www.random.org/integers/

Just ask it to generate 1 random integer with a value between 1 and 106

Sorted! :cool2:

[Steerpike]

Or, to generate 106 randomly (ok, pseudo-randomly) ordered numbers with no repeats - if you're an Excel user:
Put =rand() in cell A1 and drag down to cell A106 - this gives you 106 random numbers.
Put 1 in cell B1 and =1+B1 in cell B2 and drag down to B106 - this gives the numbers 1 to 106 in order.
Copy column B into column C using Paste Special selecting 'Values' - this puts 1 to 106 in col C but without using a formula.
Delete column B.
Then sort data using col A as the sort criterion and col B will have 1 to 106 in random order.
If you don't like the first sort you can repeat the sorting any number of times until you find a congenial one.

It's much quicker and easier than it sounds.

Alternatively you can mix a nice cup of Horlicks and pick out whatever number you like the sound of!

[MickyD]

"If I won the lottery I should pay for Roy Goodman, the Hanover Band and Hyperion to finish their set. I have all the Haydn symphonies they recorded and find them invariably exhilarating."

...some time ago I said exactly the same on the boards about completing The Academy of Ancient Music's unfinished set! That would give us a nice choice - one set with harpsichord continuo, the other without.