The Haydn Thread

[jayne lee wilson]

Three of Bruggen's finest there, Thropps... I bought the original release of 19 sturm und drang symphonies, in 1999 on Philips in a pale green box. A compelling collection - I listened to nothing else for weeks - and these 3 were among the very best.

[Thropplenoggin]

Three of Bruggen's finest there, Thropps... I bought the original release of 19 sturm und drang symphonies, in 1999 on Philips in a pale green box. A compelling collection - I listened to nothing else for weeks - and these 3 were among the very best.

In that case, I shall order it without further ado.

[vinteuil]

In that case, I shall order it without further ado.

... I don't know whether the philips Bruggen box is still available - a 13 CD set, containing those 19 sturm & drang symphonies with the OAE; plus the 6 Paris, the 12 London, nos 88-92, and the sinfonia concertante - with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. It was a bargain when I got it...

EDIT - no longer a bargain, I fear...

http://www.amazon.fr/dp/B00006YXOR

[Thropplenoggin]

... I don't know whether the philips Bruggen box is still available - a 13 CD set, containing those 19 sturm & drang symphonies with the OAE; plus the 6 Paris, the 12 London, nos 88-92, and the sinfonia concertante - with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. It was a bargain when I got it...

EDIT - no longer a bargain, I fear...

€463! Dem's aint small patatas!

I have trudged the highways and byways of Ye Olde Internet Superhighway in search of this nigh-mythical beast, but, as you have seen for yourself, I missed the boat. There are odd collections available, such as the Paris Symphonies, available s/h, but the sellers only sell to the UK. This most necessary purchase shall have to wait until I am safely re-ensconced in perfidious Albion later this year.

[vinteuil]

€463! Dem's aint small patatas!

.

... tho' I see amazon.fr has a secondhand copy for 166 euros

[Thropplenoggin]

... tho' I see amazon.fr has a secondhand copy for 166 euros

Who needs two kidneys anyway, right?

[MickyD]

I don't even remember this set coming out...lucky Vints to have snapped it up when you did! Would you say that the Paris and London symphonies under Bruggen are better than those by Kuijken?

[Thropplenoggin]

I don't even remember this set coming out...lucky Vints to have snapped it up when you did! Would you say that the Paris and London symphonies under Bruggen are better than those by Kuijken?

For a start, there's no harpsichord continuo, Micky. I can't speak for the Paris symphonies, as I haven't heard them all, but some are available on YouTube here.

Also, as you're in France, the London symphonies are available to stream on Qobuz, spread over two albums on Philips:

Vol. 1: http://player.qobuz.com/#!/album/0002894685462

Vol. 2: http://player.qobuz.com/#!/album/0002894689272

[rauschwerk]

I don't even remember this set coming out...lucky Vints to have snapped it up when you did! Would you say that the Paris and London symphonies under Bruggen are better than those by Kuijken?

If I may put in my two penn'orth: I have both the Bruggen and Kuijken Paris sets and find them equally good, though some way from ideal. Bruggen gets a rather disembodied recording (live in three different venues) with recessed winds, whereas Kuijken gets a lot of reverb (a surprising amount, given the Abbey Road venue).

Bruggen's London set is unconvincing - not a patch on Davis or even Solti.

[MickyD]

Thanks Throppers and Rauschwerk for the comments...seems like there is still room for more HIP recordings. For the moment, I've ordered the ridiculously cheap Kuijken Paris set as it got such glowing reports earlier on in this thread.

Yet again I bemoan the fact that Hogwood never got the chance to finish his intégrale...but before that cycle, he did previously give us some good accounts of four London symphonies - nos. 94, 96, 100 and 104 which I think you may still find available on CD. Hogwood himself said in an interview about further releases in the cycle: "we will probably do them again" - it is a matter of great regret for me that he and the AAM never did so.

[vinteuil]

... tho' I see amazon.fr has a secondhand copy for 166 euros

Who needs two kidneys anyway, right?

... come now, M de la Trop-le-Noguin -

166 euros will barely get you a nice meal for one at Taillevent or Lasserre - and you jib at this paltry sum for a lifetime's Haydn pleasure?

[ostuni]

HIP symphonies: has anyone mentioned the Minkowski/Musiciens du Louvre set of the London Symphonies, on Naïve? Not always very subtle, but harpsichord-free.

[Thropplenoggin]

... come now, M de la Trop-le-Noguin -

166 euros will barely get you a nice meal for one at Taillevent or Lasserre - and you jib at this paltry sum for a lifetime's Haydn pleasure?

Je suis chômeur, monsieur, whiling away the lonely hours in a garret like Dr. Johnson, with two cats for company (neither called Hodge*), on a keyboard where the letter 'w' refuses to work (those w's were copy-and-pasted), and penning the Great British Novel. If you know of anyone wishing to have their memoirs ghostwritten, pray do pass them my calling card.

Coincidentally, I have dined once at Lasserre for my brother-in-law's girlfriend's birthday. Since I wasn't picking up the tab, ol' de la Trop-le-Noguin filled his boots and plumped for the 'pigeon André Malraux', stuffed with foie gras. Très légère. It was all gastronomically superb but very 'rigide' in that French dining way, where people whisper across the starched linen and feel on edge, ever fearful they are about to be lambasted by the stern maître d' for not sitting up straight, etc.

For the Thropplenoggin wedding feast, we chose Le Laurent on the Champs-Elysées; equally exquisite on the palate, but with a far more affable ambience.

Taillevent is one I hadn't heard of before. Looking at the prices, I can see why: 82 euros for the humble lunch menu. Can I take it as tacit that Le Grand Vinteuil has dined thither?

*I learned a delightful fact regarding Hodge 'pon reading Henry Hitching's Defining The World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary: that Dr. J used to go to the market specifically to procure oysters for his cat.

[vinteuil]

a delightful fact regarding Hodge.

"Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.' "

[ Boswell Life of Johnson , for the year 1783 (Birkbeck Hill/Powell vol IV p 197) ]

[Thropplenoggin]

"Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;' and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.' "

[ Boswell Life of Johnson , for the year 1783 (Birkbeck Hill/Powell vol IV p 197) ]

'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive...'

Boswell's Life is a treasure, but I must confess to having a preference for his own journals. I have three: Boswell In Holland 1763-1764 (in which he refers to himself in the second person and is frequently instructing himself to be 'retenu'); Boswell For The Defense 1769-1774; and my favourite, as it is filled with his bawdy wenching misadventures, Boswell's London Journals 1762-63.

Indeed, Boswell was the inspiration behind my own nom de plume and the tales of sexual derring-do, In Like Thropplenoggin!, rejected by many a publisher and the BBC (in screenplay form).

Boswell's use of English is a constant delight. O, that people spoke like this today!

"I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of social joy."

"I had seen no warm victuals for four days, and therefore played a very bold knife and fork."

"As I was coming home this night, I felt carnal inclinations raging through my frame. I determined to gratify them. I went to St. James's Park, and, like Sir John Brute, picked up a whore. For the first time did I engage in armour, which I found but a dull satisfaction."