MICHAEL HAYDN: Quartet in F Major for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello; Quartet in D Major for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Cello; Divertimento in G Major for Flute, Horn, Violin, Viola, and Cello; Divertimento in D Major for Horn, Viola, and Violone – Dieter Flury, flute / Lars Michael Stransky, horn /Martin Zalodek, violin / Gerhard Marschner, viola / Robert Nagy, cello / Michael Balderer, doublebass – Camerata CMCD-28164, 50:01 [Distr. by Albany] ****:
History has not been generous to Joseph Haydn’s younger brother Michael who, like most eighteenth-century Austrian composers, lives in the long shadows cast by Mozart and Bruder Joseph. Fortunately, a proliferation of modern recordings is compensating somewhat for this slight. Many if not most of Michael’s well-crafted and often witty symphonies are now available on disc, and the best of his choral music, including the excellent Requiem, has been recorded too. Joseph went so far as to modestly (and insupportably) opine that Michael’s sacred music was finer than his own. He was probably echoing held opinion: Michael’s reputation was as burnished as his own for much of the eighteenth century. Michael’s fame spread throughout Europe; commissions arrived from as far away as Spain, and toward the end of his life he was even elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
I guess Michael has become a bankable enough brand now that recording his entertainment music is deemed a viable enterprise. But the present disc is not all Haydn, or at least two of the pieces recorded here have been deemed spurious attributions and are now considered the work of the prolific Anonymous. In fact, the so-called Quartets in F and D Major are too fragmentary to be considered genuine quartets and are probably instead alternative movements to unknown divertimentos or serenades. They’re pleasingly melodious but not the meat of the disc.
That would be the two Divertimenti. The G Major Divertimento of 1785 is the finer piece of music, but the D Major, written almost fifteen years before, grabs attention, being scored for the quirky combination of horn, viola, and violone. The violone, a forerunner of the doublebass, is replaced by the latter instrument here. Plaudits to doublebassist Michael Balderer for his nimble playing and serious musicianship; it’s not his fault if the elephantine lumbering of his instrument induces a smile or two along the way.
Both divertimenti are lightweight as expected but are well put together and have much of the quiet wit and charm of Michael’s symphonies. The Allegro spiritoso second movement, which keeps the players busy with all sorts of runs and ornaments is, as the notes to this recording imply, a real wakeup call after the measured, easy-going march of the first movement. Sorry to interrupt the soup course, ladies and gents. . . .
The playing by the Vienna-based players is polished, gracious, respectful of this modest but craftsman-like music. Though taken down in a studio, the sound has a bloom to it that suggests a smallish hall—just right for this music, probably meant to accompany a banquet or similar assemblage. If you have a taste for the lighter music of the eighteenth century, the two Divertimenti especially are prime examples of the genre.
-Lee Passarella
