BaL 22.02.14 - Haydn: Symphony no. 44

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

9.30am Building a Library
Nicholas Kenyon is the guide to recordings of Haydn's inventive 'Trauer' Symphony, No.44 in E minor.

Available versions:

Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, Marso Boni
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Iona Brown
Arion, Gary Cooper
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies
Philharmonia Hungarica, Antal Dorati
Anima Eterna, Jon van Immerseel
Heidelberger Sinfoniker, Thomas Fey
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer
RIAS Radio Orchestra, Ferenc Fricsay
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Ferenc Fricsay
Hannover Band, Roy Goodman
Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ton Koopman
Staatskapelle Berlin, Andris Nelsons (DVD/Blu-ray)
Orkiestra Kameralna Mala Filharmonia, Marcin Nalecz-Niesiolowski (download)
The English Concert, Trevor Pinnock
RPO, Stefan Sanderling
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen (download)
Cantilena, Adrian Shepherd (download)
Les Soloistes de Paris, Henri-Claude Fantapié
Orchestra Libera Classica, Hidemi Suzuki
Tafelmusik, Bruno Weil
Radio Chamber Orchestra, Mogens Wöldike
Capella Istropolitana, Barry Wordsworth

[verismissimo]

Thanks, Alpie. One of my absolute favourite Haydn symphonies. From his wonderful Sturm und Drang years.

[mikealdren]

Thanks, Alpie. One of my absolute favourite Haydn symphonies. From his wonderful Sturm und Drang years.

I agree completely, one of my earliest LPs of Haydn symphonies was the CFP version with the LPO and John Pritchard. I bought it for the Farewell but listened to the Trauer more.

Mike

[gurnemanz]

The "big beast" conductors do not seem to venture into the lower-number symphonies.

[Barbirollians]

The "big beast" conductors do not seem to venture into the lower-number symphonies.

Rattle does to an extent.

[waldo]

Another for the list:

Frans Bruggen, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Rattle does to an extent.

Not many beasts "bigger" than Scherchen Fricsay or Dorati, either. But gurne's point is generally valid - no pre-#80s recordings from Furtwangler, Karajan, Klemperer, Toscanini, Walter, Szell, Solti, Tennstedt, Bernstein, Reiner, Kripps, Kleiber (either), Boult, Beecham - or that chap in Manchester. Wotsisname?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's it: Loughran!

[HighlandDougie]

Although it's available as an MP3 (i.e. lo-fi) download, the Brüggen is not, I think, available as a CD. Spurred on by JLW's (wholly justified) enthusiasm for Brüggen's "Stürm and Drang" set, I resorted to e-bay to find a copy. They came in the big (13CD) set so, if anyone would like copies of Brüggen's "Paris" and "London" symphonies, PM me and I'll send them.

[Thropplenoggin]

I expect the Fey version comes with harpsichord accompaniment plinking away in the background. If so, is this historically accurate?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I expect the Fey version comes with harpsichord accompaniment plinking away in the background. If so, is this historically accurate?

Don't know about Fey, Thropple, but the Philharmonia score (edited by HCRL, who would've known) doesn't include a Cembalo part. However, HCRL does say in his prefatory remarks to the Passion Symphony (#49)

The presence of a Cembalo (Harpsichord), though not specifically required in Haydn's score, was a matter of course in the 18th Century, and a performance of this work without without this instrument is unthinkable. Particularly in the First Movement (eg bars 39ff) the Harpsichord fulfils a necessary harmonic, as well as colouristic, function.

(Haydn need not have written the part out, as he was himself responsible for the plinking. Similarly, there is no Bassoon part written in the score. This does not necessarily mean that Haydn didn't want them/it to play - he simply expected them/it to play from the 'cello part.)

[Barbirollians]

That's it: Loughran!

I thought you meant Hamilton Harty. Loughran seems also to have been sadly lacking in conducting Lachenmann.

Sir John Barbirolli on the other hand - although he confined himself to later Haydn symphonies did conduct the odd rare work such as L'isola disabitata: Overture in G minor, Hob.Ia:13

[Thropplenoggin]

Don't know about Fey, Thropple, but the Philharmonia score (edited by HCRL, who would've known) doesn't include a Cembalo part. However, HCRL does say in his prefatory remarks to the Passion Symphony (#49)

The presence of a Cembalo (Harpsichord), though not specifically required in Haydn's score, was a matter of course in the 18th Century, and a performance of this work without without this instrument is unthinkable. Particularly in the First Movement (eg bars 39ff) the Harpsichord fulfils a necessary harmonic, as well as colouristic, function.

Haydn need not have written the part out, as he was himself responsible for the plinking.

Thanks, FHG. I didn't mean for 'plinking' to sound derisory but for me it just sounds odd hearing one in classical works as opposed to baroque works (see my encomium of the Dunedin Consort's Brandenburg Concertos).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I thought you meant Hamilton Harty.

- sadly, no recordings of even the later symphonies from this source.

Loughran seems also to have been sadly lacking in conducting Lachenmann.

Whislt in Manchester, true. When he headed Hamburg there were a couple of performances - sadly not making it to the recording studio.

EDIT: "Hamburg"? Schamburg" - Loughran's German orchestra was the Bamberg SO; and re-checking dates, there's no evidence that the Lachenmann performances were conducted by Loughran. Barbie was right - Loughran seems to be as sadly lacking in his programming of Lachenmann as he was of Vaughan Williams.

[waldo]

Don't know about Fey, Thropple, but the Philharmonia score (edited by HCRL, who would've known) doesn't include a Cembalo part. However, HCRL does say in his prefatory remarks to the Passion Symphony (#49)

The presence of a Cembalo (Harpsichord), though not specifically required in Haydn's score, was a matter of course in the 18th Century, and a performance of this work without without this instrument is unthinkable. Particularly in the First Movement (eg bars 39ff) the Harpsichord fulfils a necessary harmonic, as well as colouristic, function.

(Haydn need not have written the part out, as he was himself responsible for the plinking. Similarly, there is no Bassoon part written in the score. This does not necessarily mean that Haydn didn't want them/it to play - he simply expected them/it to play from the 'cello part.)

This is very much the "old", traditional view of the use of continuo. There is now a consensus among modern Haydn scholars that it is wrong, or least lacking the kind of evidence needed. Indeed, the balance of evidence now points the other way: that Haydn did not use a continuo when he performed these symphonies at Esterhazy. For one thing, there was no continuo in the music room there, and if they had moved one it would have taken up too much space. Even HCRL has now reversed his opinion on this subject and has joined the ranks of those who believe that the symphonies were not composed with a continuo in mind: "There is no evidence that Haydn played harpsichord in the symphonies". He has suggested that dispensing with continuo in the symphonies might have been "another of Haydn's innovations, just as he got rid of the harpsichord in the string quartets."

Others, of course, disagree. But the consensus is now very much against the use of continuo.