Haydn 2032

[Richard Barrett]

In the end, isn't the only query how Haydn intended it to be understood rather than how it could be understood? Modesty rather than dismissiveness?

It's pretty clear from the context that he wasn't too serious - I don't think it's worth making a meal out of (so to speak). He was asking in 1803 to be supplied with a score of a piece written 30 years earlier (which had at the time been partly put together out of incidental music for a play), because it had been requested by the empress. He would no doubt have preferred to have been asked for something more recent, since his style had developed so much in the meantime, and/or for something with more musical integrity. I don't think there's really any more to be said!

[vinteuil]

.

... all I know is that this is making me want to get back to listening to more Haydn symphonies

[ahinton]

.

... all I know is that this is making me want to get back to listening to more Haydn symphonies

Well, that's got to be a good thing!

[Sir Velo]

I haven't seen that second meaning of it anywhere... while the Kaiser in Kaiserschmarrn is Franz Josef (1830-1916), Schmarrn (or Schmarren) as a dish had already existed for centuries in the southern German-speaking regions, as had its informal usage to mean "worthless stuff" or "nonsense".

Cf the north English dish of tripe.

[french frank]

It's pretty clear from the context that he wasn't too serious - I don't think it's worth making a meal out of (so to speak). He was asking in 1803 to be supplied with a score of a piece written 30 years earlier (which had at the time been partly put together out of incidental music for a play), because it had been requested by the empress. He would no doubt have preferred to have been asked for something more recent, since his style had developed so much in the meantime, and/or for something with more musical integrity. I don't think there's really any more to be said!

Yes … knowing Haydn as "we" do, it's unlikely he was being serious, whatever the word's meanings down the ages.

[Pulcinella]

Getting slightly more back on topic, the only Haydn symphony scores I have date from my time at Oxford, probably from when the college orchestra played them: 31 (bought 21 June 1972) and 60 (bought 10 November 1973).

I would have to check the college/society archives, but I have a distant memory of a young Simon Rattle coming up during his time with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta to conduct a concert, and I think that number 60 was his choice of work, which might suggest that it has long been one of his favourites.

Sadly, I have no memory of the concert itself; nor do I have a recording of the work.
I do remember the Hornsignal, though, and I do have a recording of that!

[MickyD]

But though the Haydn 2032 project has just the one conductor, it has two different orchestras, so the lack of a complete survey by the same forces will remain the case. I got the Hogwood box (which I supplemented with the BBCMM cover disc of 76 and 77) when it was released, and was a bit miffed when fairly soon after the Hogwood/Brüggen/Dantone box made its appearance. However, if you favour Hogwood's approach, both boxes are required, since in the latter box, where recordings by both Hogwood and Brüggen exist, the Brüggen was chosen.

I bought all the Hogwood boxes as they came out - an expensive option, but I couldn't resist at the time. I like his approach and recordings very much. As for the later symphonies that he never got round to recording, well, I got the Dantone and Kuijken with the OAE and La Petite Bande. They will do me very nicely as a complete cycle.

[jayne lee wilson]

45 in f sharp: 'Farewell'.

HAYDNSEEKER AWARD (Distinction***)

[Tony Halstead]

HAYDNSEEKER AWARD (Distinction***)

[jayne lee wilson]

Haydn 2032, vol. 4 (24/96 download, qobuz)

Try as I might, I found it hard to connect with Haydn’s Symphony No.60. Il Distratto, under Antonini’s dispassionate control with his Giardino Armonico. The first movement is physically exciting, yes - the timps thump around your room, while above, the drily deadpan strings skitter about percussively. But couldn't the winds have been more forward, in both physical and emotional senses? Why so anonymous in such a theatrical assumption?.
There’s a po-faced quality to this performance, more obviously in the 3rd and 4th movements, which lack much inner animation with their studied evenness of rhythm, tempi, coolly calculated shadings of phrase and dynamics. All so literal and metrical, with little contrast between minuet/trio, or the two main andante ideas.
I listened on to The Distracted One. I looked out of the window, distractedly…

Turn to Harnoncourt with the CMW, and you’re in another league for characterisation, warmth and sheer individuality, the pace and rhythm constantly shifting according to each paragraph, each shade of mood. The orchestral sonorities are that much more seductive. That intuitive sense of performer involvement typical of Harnoncourt - so listener involvement is much closer too. As you can hear in his startling gearshift into the andante’s 2nd idea, Harnoncourt always sought the story behind the music and articulates it in his own so idiosyncratic manner. Listen to the lovely drawing-out of the strings’ phrasing just afterward: beauty of tone, depth of feeling.

If Rattle is the sublime Romantic in this No. 60, finding a surprising degree of lofty nobility and symphonic stature about it, then NH is the wild-eyed dramatist - I don’t like everything he does: the oddly swift, cool and shadowy trio, or the grandly rhetorical conclusion of the 4th movement - but at least he keeps your ears on their un-distracted toes, so whatever your orientation toward his assumption of the various personae, it won’t be neutral. This a theatrical symphony so we can’t complain too much if he hams it up a bit.

Lacking much genuinely musical contrast beyond mere notation, Antonini and his crack little band sound a bit Gradgrind-ish in such company I’m afraid. “What I want is notes… teach these boys and girls nothing but notes…”

***
It goes similarly with Symphony No.70, where he misses the larger sense of ebb and flow in the double canon, the tailing off at the minuet’s conclusion seems worryingly casual, and the terrific fugue in the finale doesn’t build up much of a head of steam. Just compare Thomas Fey with his Heidelbergers here, holding everyone's breath.... - then firing off his instrumental salvoes! The fugal episode becomes almost a movement-within-a-movement. His brilliantly dramatised performance of No.70 is wonderfully inspirited by that extra degree of stress and tension across movements as a whole. Such cloistered mystery in the canonic andante too.
But about these beautifully-played-and-recorded latest Haydn 2032 recordings, it’s often hard to find much to say really. They start, they stop. They conclude.

***
I could feel a bit shamefaced about this after what I said recently about JEG - his use of tempi, dynamic and rhythm to make his expressive points, without much "caressing warmth of phrase" - but JEG’s later recordings (Beethoven, Mendelssohn) do in fact offer rather more than that - in terms of an individual, driving musical personality - and perhaps it took another, rather documentary-transcript style 2032 anthology to remind me of just how much.

[Tony Halstead]

Haydn 2032, vol. 4 (24/96 download, qobuz)

Try as I might, I found it hard to connect with Haydn’s Symphony No.60. Il Distratto, under Antonini’s dispassionate control with his Giardino Armonico. The first movement is physically exciting, yes - the timps thump around your room, while above, the drily deadpan strings skitter about percussively. But couldn't the winds have been more forward, in both physical and emotional senses? Why so anonymous in such a theatrical assumption?.
There’s a po-faced quality to this performance, more obviously in the 3rd and 4th movements, which lack much inner animation with their studied evenness of rhythm, tempi, coolly calculated shadings of phrase and dynamics. All so literal and metrical, with little contrast between minuet/trio, or the two main andante ideas.
I listened on to The Distracted One. I looked out of the window, distractedly…

Turn to Harnoncourt with the CMW, and you’re in another league for characterisation, warmth and sheer individuality, the pace and rhythm constantly shifting according to each paragraph, each shade of mood. The orchestral sonorities are that much more seductive. That intuitive sense of performer involvement typical of Harnoncourt - so listener involvement is much closer too. As you can hear in his startling gearshift into the andante’s 2nd idea, Harnoncourt always sought the story behind the music and articulates it in his own so idiosyncratic manner. Listen to the lovely drawing-out of the strings’ phrasing just afterward: beauty of tone, depth of feeling.

If Rattle is the sublime Romantic in this No. 60, finding a surprising degree of lofty nobility and symphonic stature about it, then NH is the wild-eyed dramatist - I don’t like everything he does: the oddly swift, cool and shadowy trio, or the grandly rhetorical conclusion of the 4th movement - but at least he keeps your ears on their un-distracted toes, so whatever your orientation toward his assumption of the various personae, it won’t be neutral. This a theatrical symphony so we can’t complain too much if he hams it up a bit.

Lacking much genuinely musical contrast beyond mere notation, Antonini and his crack little band sound a bit Gradgrind-ish in such company I’m afraid. “What I want is notes… teach these boys and girls nothing but notes…”

***
It goes similarly with Symphony No.70, where he misses the larger sense of ebb and flow in the double canon, the tailing off at the minuet’s conclusion seems worryingly casual, and the terrific fugue in the finale doesn’t build up much of a head of steam. Just compare Thomas Fey with his Heidelbergers here, holding everyone's breath.... - then firing off his instrumental salvoes! The fugal episode becomes almost a movement-within-a-movement. His brilliantly dramatised performance of No.70 is wonderfully inspirited by that extra degree of stress and tension across movements as a whole. Such cloistered mystery in the canonic andante too.
But about these beautifully-played-and-recorded latest Haydn 2032 recordings, it’s often hard to find much to say really. They start, they stop. They conclude.

***
I could feel a bit shamefaced about this after what I said recently about JEG - his use of tempi, dynamic and rhythm to make his expressive points, without much "caressing warmth of phrase" - but JEG’s later recordings (Beethoven, Mendelssohn) do in fact offer rather more than that - in terms of an individual, driving musical personality - and perhaps it took another, rather documentary-transcript style 2032 anthology to remind me of just how much.

IMV, the late and much-lamented Chris Hogwood's Haydn was perfectly poised between the extremes of Antonini and Harnoncourt. Do have a listen to his #60!
NB: I simply can't understand why Sir JEG hasn't recorded any Haydn symphonies!

[Richard Barrett]

poised between the extremes of Antonini and Harnoncourt.

It's strange you should say that because I don't hear Antonini and Harnoncourt as being so very different, and Hogwood as quite different from either. Nor do I hear Antonini as dispassionate, although I haven't yet heard his latest instalment. I do think that nobody comes near Harnoncourt in the Haydn symphonies he recorded - in theory I'm somewhat troubled by his overelaborate interpretation but in practice I'm knocked out by it.

[Beef Oven!]

I've listened to a fair amount of the first 4 releases that I've downloaded and enjoyed them, on the whole. I especially like symphony #22 with its measured first movement - really works for me. But I can't help feel that something is missing in these performances so far. Somehow, two comments from RB and Jayne respectively really resonate with me - "too conducted" and "They start, they stop. They conclude". The performances never really seem to catch fire - they are pretty solemn (for the want of a better way of putting it).

Giovanni Antonini’s performances of early music have benefitted from a certain irreverence. That's missing so far, IMV.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting project that, if we are fortunate, we'll be able to follow in real-time to its conclusion. And who knows, it may reveal its worth as more performances are released.

As for the latest release specifically, I'm pleased that it has familiarised me to a certain degree with symphony #60. A symphony that I've heard, but not paid much attention to, until now.

[Richard Barrett]

The performances never really seem to catch fire - they are pretty solemn (for the want of a better way of putting it).

My favourite piece in the series so far has been no.46, whose many subtleties and strange turns are I think brilliantly brought out by Antonini and his ensemble. This has been the revelation for me so far. I think too many interpreters seek to emphasise the light of Haydn's symphonies at the expense of the shadow, and Antonini for me is one of the few who doesn't.

[Beef Oven!]

My favourite piece in the series so far has been no.46, whose many subtleties and strange turns are I think brilliantly brought out by Antonini and his ensemble. This has been the revelation for me so far. I think too many interpreters seek to emphasise the light of Haydn's symphonies at the expense of the shadow, and Antonini for me is one of the few who doesn't.

Very interesting. I will have your observation at the front of my mind when I next listen.