BaL 5.02.22 - Haydn: Symphony no. 49 in F minor 'La Passione'

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30
Building a Library: Simon Heighes recommends his favourite recording of Haydn’s Symphony No 49 in F minor, ‘La Passione’.

This sombre and darkly dramatic Haydn symphony is one of a series of visceral minor key symphonies reflecting Haydn’s reaction to the German proto-Romantic literary movement, ‘Sturm und Drang’ – Storm and Stress – where passionate subjectivity and turbulent self-expression were the order of the day. The symphony was one of the most popular during Haydn’s lifetime and its ominous, almost continuous F minor intensity and arresting dynamism still make an impact today.

Available versions:-

Il Giardino Armonico, Giovanni Antonini
English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim
South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Ernest Bour *
Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Iona Brown
Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, Frans Brüggen *
Le Concert De La Loge, Julien Chauvin
Handel and Haydn Society, Harry Christophers
Consort of London, Robert Clark *
Philharmonia Hyngarica, Antal Dorati *
Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr
Heidelberger Sinfoniker, Thomas Fey
Les Metamorphoses, Raphael Feye
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer
New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert *
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Max Goberman *
Freiburger Barockorchester,Gottfried von der Goltz *
Hanover Band, Roy Goodman *
Ludwig Orchestra, Barbara Hannigan
Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood *
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen
Baltic Chamber Orchestra, Samuel Litkov *
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner
Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Ernst Märzendorfer
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Hans Müller-Kray *
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
The Mozartists, Ian Page
English Concert, Trevor Pinnock
Ferenc Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Janos Rolla *
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Dennis Russell Davies *
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen *
Cantilena, Adrian Shepherd *
Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Ignat Solzhenitsyn *
Hungarian Chamber Orchestra, Vilmos Tatrai *
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti
Northern Chamber Orchestra, Nicholas Ward
Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, Pinchas Zukerman *

(* = download only)

[Alison]

I grew up with the Orpheus version.

[jayne lee wilson]

A key work for me, one of the most extreme of Haydn’s sturm und drang, among those symphonies I love the most and feel most haunted by.

3 clear favourites: VSOO/Scherchen (1953), Heidelberg/Fey, IGA/Antonini (historical, mixed period/modern instrument, period instrument).
Those Vienna horns in the Scherchen minuet are uniquely dark and baleful - an incredible effect which I’ve heard no other recording bring out so explicitly. I often encore this movement just to dwell upon them again….

[Goon525]

Like Alison, I grew up with Orpheus, but Antonini is much closer to my current preferences in Haydn. Shame Richard Wigmore isn’t doing this one.

[MickyD]

I like Hogwood's version, but I also have one from Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra which collected 44, 45 and 49 on a useful, single disc. It still sounds good today.

[Barbirollians]

I like Hogwood's version, but I also have one from Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra which collected 44, 45 and 49 on a useful, single disc. It still sounds good today.

EConcert/Pinnock for me.

[MickyD]

It's a real shame for me that Harnoncourt and the VCM didn't do this symphony, would love to have heard it.

[jayne lee wilson]

Listening to the Heidelberger Sinfoniker/Thomas Fey on the Hanssler CD, I thought how difficult it would be to improve on this for expressing, so completely, everything this symphony has to say; for its shimmering textual clarity, melodic elegance and rhythmical poise; and (as ever on this series) wonderful recorded sound.
Fey makes minimal pause between movements, vital in this last Haydn symphony on the sonata-da-chiesa model. It should sound almost attacca.

When you then consider that the c/w No.52 and No.58 are also played to perfection and are two of Haydn's most remarkable creations, you have an exceptional album: from the restless turmoil of No.52 (with that strangely uneasy minuet, so strikingly a sister to that in No.44), through the even darker intensities of 49, to the beatific-yet-haunted serenities of the (out-of-place numerically) No.58. Marvellous sequence, One of the very finest in the outstandingly distinctive Fey series.

Great though they are, Scherchen is (irreplacably and unforgettably) Scherchen’s Haydn; Antonini also very much his 2032 personal sonic signature; but Fey seems to reach beyond that into the universal…a Haydn archetype.

[RichardB]

It's a real shame for me that Harnoncourt and the VCM didn't do this symphony, would love to have heard it.

Yes indeed. I had a brief listen last night to the new Antonini recording of no.87, and thought this is very nice but it doesn't quite have the sense of the music being created anew that Harnoncourt brought to it. As for no.49 it isn't up there with my most often listened Haydn symphonies but I haven't heard one that I liked more than Antonini, although the very different approach of Hogwood is sometimes exactly what's needed, there's something very "English" about it but after all Haydn's symphonies were also played in England back then.

[cloughie]

Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Ernst Märzendorfer Is the bargain download - £8.00 coupled with 105 other symphonies and the Sinfonia Concertante!
However my preferences are Dorati, Pinnock and Hogwood.

[RichardB]

£8.00 coupled with 105 other symphonies and the Sinfonia Concertante!

what a shame though, I have that coupling already

[Mandryka]

A key work for me, one of the most extreme of Haydn’s sturm und drang, among those symphonies I love the most and feel most haunted by.

3 clear favourites: VSOO/Scherchen (1953), Heidelberg/Fey, IGA/Antonini (historical, mixed period/modern instrument, period instrument).
Those Vienna horns in the Scherchen minuet are uniquely dark and baleful - an incredible effect which I’ve heard no other recording bring out so explicitly. I often encore this movement just to dwell upon them again….

The Scherchen is wonderful.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

what a shame though, I have that coupling already

[Darloboy]

Never been covered by BaL before. Makes a pleasant change from the London Symphonies. As it's Mr Heighes doing the honours, we're guaranteed a HIPP winner.

[rauschwerk]

An extremely striking work of which I'm very fond, even if it's not a great one. Modern scholarship suggests that it originated as incidental music, and was not written with the Passion in mind.

I have three recordings: English Concert/Pinnock, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orch/Adam Fischer and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. I don't find that there is a lot to choose between them. The bands are all about the same size. Pinnock omits one second half repeat and I wish he hadn't. The repeats in the Menuetto da Capo are not observed in any of these versions (I'm quite happy about that). The tempi are much the same. In the Fischer, the Viennese horns make a lovely sound in the trio of the minuet, but without dominating the texture. Fischer gets the most transparent recorded sound (at least to my ageing ears) in the palace at Eisenstadt.

The only other version I recall hearing is conducted by Barbara Hannigan. Her idea of allegro di molto (second movement) is more like prestissimo and I don't think that works at all.