Haydn Archive
Franz Joseph HAYDN. Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1— Roman Rabinovich — First Hand Records
A great advent of recordings of Haydn Sonatas!
The Vivaldi Project, Vol. 2 = The Classical String Trio, works by J.C. BACH, CAMIONI, HAYDN, and others – MSR
The relatively neglected delights of the Baroque string trio enjoy sober but fervent realization by The Vivaldi Project.
HAYDN: Piano Sonata; RACHMANINOFF: Corelli Variations; LISZT: Paganini Etudes – Jooyoung Kim – MSR
An excellent recital of superb depth.
Tesla Quartet – RAVEL: String Quartet; HAYDN: String Quartet Op. 54; STRAVINSKY: Concertino for String Quartet – Orchid Classics
The debut album by the Tesla Quartet pays homage to their namesake by crisply realizing works of harmony and invention.
Sir Thomas Beecham: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Live in the Royal Festival Hall, 1954-1959 = Symphonic Works by HAYDN; BOCCHERINI; MENDELSSOHN; MOZART; BEETHOVEN; BRAHMS; WAGNER; LISZT – ICA Classics
ICA restores a series of Beecham broadcasts and performances that testify to his artistic discipline and “mercurial” spirit.
Changyong Shin – Keyboard works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven – Steinway and Sons
Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven (Piano Works)—Changyong Shin (piano)—Steinway and Sons 30041—59:22, ****1/2: I always enjoy hearing recitals by emerging artists. Shin studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and has been a winner in a number of prestigious competitions. This recital is a means to showcase his versatility with the standard repertoire. He performs Bach’s Toccata, BWV 912, Mozart’s Hunt sonata, K. 576, Haydn’s sonata no. 60, and Beethoven’s A major sonata, op. 101. Shin is a technically-precise musician, but likewise applies rubato and dynamic shading to his playing. The recorded sound in this release is first-rate. The piano—a Steinway D—is even-toned, blooming ever so much in the middle register. The acoustic is live enough to celebrate the piano’s sound without anything feeling washed-out. Shin descends into the quiet shadows capable of the instrument many times so that the few outbursts come across as grand, rich explosions of color, as in the Beethoven Vivace Alla Marcia. Shin’s Bach for me is polite and somewhat underwhelming. This is a pianist approaching Bach, with no attempt to reference the sound world of Bach’s keyboard instruments. The opening is played forte, with even pressure but then the first cadences feel artificial. There’s nothing […]
Franz Josef HAYDN: Piano Sonatas — Anne-Marie McDermott, piano — Bridge
Franz Josef HAYDN: Piano Sonatas, Volume 2 — Anne-Marie McDermott, piano — Bridge 9497, 69:00, (5/27/18) ****1/2: The love comes across in this recital of Haydn sonatas by an experienced artist Anne-Marie McDermott presents four sonatas by Haydn in her second volume of his piano sonatas: numbers 48, 39, 46, and 37. I already knew McDermott for her technical abilities with fleeting fingers alongside her panache for crisp articulation. Despite my personal preference for a period piano and a chamber acoustic, this album presents an honest recital that’s chock full of love for this music by an experienced and capable artist. Haydn would have known the earliest pianos and harpsichords as the keyboard instruments in his time. The modern piano offers a significantly wider dynamic range and more significant sound. The modern performer on the piano has decisions to make: do I limit my playing to limit the dynamic range and volume, or, perhaps, see what the modern instrument can offer the music? McDermott takes the latter approach, employing the full capabilities of Yamaha’s top-tier concert grand to Haydn’s music. A profound example of this approach is the slow movement of the 37th sonata, marked Large e sostenuto. Complete with […]
Joseph Haydn: Piano Trios – Trio Wanderer – Harmonia Mundi
Trio Wanderer brings a superb presentation to five piano trios by Joseph Haydn—a welcome addition to the library! Joseph Haydn: Piano Trios, Hob XV: 14, 18, 21, 26, 31. Trio Wanderer—Harmonia Mundi HMM902321—69:00, ****1/2: This is my first survey of the Trio Wanderer (Vincent Coq, piano; Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, violin; and Raphaël Pidoux, cello). Their newness to me, however, betrays their prodigious career, recording the variable canon of trios for piano, violin, and cello: Discography | Trio Wanderer. This marks their second recording of trios by Haydn, the first appearing in 2001 (Harmonia Mundi HMG 501968). To help situate these works, I turned to Charles Rosen’s The Classical Style (Norton, 1972) who devoted a chapter to Haydn’s trios, considering them Haydn’s third great collection of works, following his symphonies and string quartets. They are not chamber music in the usual sense, but works for solo piano, solo violin, and accompanying cello. For the most part the cello serves only to double the piano’s bass, although in a very few places it is briefly independent. Despite liking the pieces, he also says: They may be splendid pieces, but they are unprogressive, backward in style, and should have been written differently. And… In […]
HAYDN: Piano Sonata; RACHMANINOV: Variations on a Theme of Corelli; LISZT: Paganini Etudes – Jooyoung Kim, piano – MSR
Jooyoung Kim delivers an audacious program of both Classical and Romantic repertory that exhibits polish and fiery bravura at once. HAYDN: Piano Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:48; RACHMANINOV: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42; LISZT: 6 Grandes Etudes de Paganini, S. 141 – Jooyoung Kim, piano – MSR Classics MS 1636, 56:52 Distr. by Albany] ****: Recorded 14-18 January 2017, these polished performances of music by Haydn, Rachmaninov, and Liszt show off an active recitalist and pedagogue, Jooyoung Kim, who currently serves on the faculty of Indiana University. Kim opens with Haydn’s sprightly 1789 Piano Sonata in C Major, a two-movement work that dispenses with certain, usual formalities. It begins Andante con espressione, in a two-bar theme that suffices in variation for the whole movement. Each phrase from the evolving melody adds another note to the accompanying chord. The C Major antics find response in the parallel minor, and Haydn develops the material in the form of an ongoing improvisation. The charming Rondo: Presto conforms to sonata-form, the secondary tune evolving from the opening motif. There comes a diversion into C minor, but this episode yields to the joyous impulse of the main idea. Kim plays […]
The Music Treasury, 11 March 2018
The theme for this week’s show of The Music Treasury is the Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras. His works span a range of large orchestral works, opera, and the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Mackerras was regarded as an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart. He was the conductor at several several opera houses in Australia and throughout Europe. While he covered an expanse of musical traditions and styles, and was a particular champion of works by Janáček. The show this week, hosted by Dr Gary Lemco, will feature works by Mahler, Handel, Haydn, Franck, Delius, and Sullivan—including the latter’s Cello Concerto, as well as works from his collaboration w Gilbert. The Music Treasury can be heard on 11 March 2018, between 19:00 and 21:00 PDT, as well as a live streaming of the show from kzsulive.stanford.edu on the Internet. Sir Charles Mackerras
Streams and Podcasts, 16 Feb 2018
In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, we celebrate conductor Victor Desarzens, who led the ensemble from 1942 to1973. Of the many highlights of his career, Desarzens is to be particularly noted for his re-vitalization of baroque music as well as championing contemporary composers. The show will feature works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Hindemith, Malipiero, and Frank Martin. Host Gary Lemco will be presenting this show on Sunday evening, 18 February 2018, from the sponsoring station KZSU in Stanford, as well as concurrent streaming broadcast on the ‘Net at kzsu.stanford.edu. The show runs from 19:00 to 21:00, PST.
“Change of Keys” = Piano Works by HAYDN; BEETHOVEN; CHOPIN; SCHUMANN/LISZT; DEBUSSY; BARTOK – Carol Leone, piano – MSR Classics
A varied and nicely complied recital played with strength and conviction. “Change of Keys” = HAYDN: Sonata in C, HOB XVI: 50; BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 30 in E, Op. 109; CHOPIN: Ballade No. 1 in g, Op. 23; SCHUMANN (arr. LISZT): Liebeslied “Widmung” S.566; DEBUSSY: L’Isle joyeuse, L.106; BARTOK: Sonata, BB 88, SZ.80 – Carol Leone, piano – MSR Classics MS 1616, 73:09 [Distr. by Albany] ****: Carol Leone, currently a professor of piano at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of Music, counts among her pedagogues Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute of Music, and Guido Agosti after earning an honors diploma during a summer at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. She has the chops for this wonderfully varied and intrepid program, displaying formidable technical acumen and a fine sense of lyricism. Her Haydn is crisp and sturdy, while his student Beethoven’s late work suitably introspective without losing the superb yet odd structure that couches so much of Beethoven’s later music. Chopin’s opus is quite a change, yet Leone manages the transition without a second thought, and the short step to Liszt’s Schumann arrangement proves mild indeed. Only the Debussy seems odd to me here. Not an especially beloved piece […]
“Remembering Jacqueline Du Pre” = Cello Concertos by HAYDN; DELIUS; ELGAR – Jacqueline Du Pre, cello – Praga Digitals
Terrific remastering of essential recording by a unique and irreplaceable artist. “Remembering Jacqueline Du Pre” = HAYDN: Cello Concerto in C, Hob. VIIb:1; DELIUS: Cello Concerto, RT VII/7; ELGAR: Cello Concerto in e, Op. 65 – Jacqueline Du Pre, cello/ English Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim/ Royal Phil. Orch./ Malcolm Sargent/ London Sym. Orch./ John Baribirolli – Praga Digitals PRD 250 380, 80:09 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] *****: Those who love the late great cellist Jacqueline Du Pre do so with a jealousy that borders on the obsessive—count me among them. There has certainly never been another cellist—ever—that to my sensibilities equals her startling and innate musicality, coupled with a love of music so deep as to be almost impenetrable. She was one of a kind, who, like so many others with gifts far beyond mere mortals and rarely deserving of them, left this world far too soon. In this very welcome collection by Praga, which I had hoped would be subjected to the Super Audio treatment but still sound fantastic, we are given two concertos that she virtually defined, and one that is slightly esoteric to the general public, but still remarkable. The latter is the concerto by Delius, once […]
The Young Isaac Stern = Violin Concerti by HAYDN; MENDELSSOHN; TCHAIKOVSKY – Isaac Stern, violin/ Leopold Stokowski/ Pierre Monteux/ Serge Koussevitzky – Pristine Audio
Vintage, youthful Isaac Stern has three fine collaborations revived in this trinity of violin concertos. The Young Isaac Stern = HAYDN: Violin Concerto No. 1 in C Major; MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in e minor, Op. 64; TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 – Isaac Stern, violin/ Philharmonic-Symphony of New York/ Leopold Stokowski/ Philadelphia Orchestra/ Pierre Monteux/ Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra/ Serge Koussevitzky – Pristine Audio PASC 519, 79:51 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****: Mark Obert-Thorn resuscitates live recordings, 1945-1950, of the Ukrainian-American violinist Isaac Stern (1920-2001), whose musicianship later became clouded by his idiosyncratic and ruthless version of empire-building, abetted by Columbia Artists Management. The young Isaac Stern, who practiced his chosen instrument with due diligence, admitted his need for punctual and punctilious technical application, and the sheer will to endeavor paid off in his 1943 debut at Carnegie Hall with his esteemed piano accompanist Alexander Zakin. The earliest of the revived broadcast performances, from Philadelphia (13 January 1945), features a last-minute program change, substituting the Mendelssohn Concerto for that of the Beethoven, and the Philadelphia Orchestra enjoys the rare leadership of veteran Pierre Monteux. A few nervous measures at the opening soon resolve into a dramatic, often piercing interpretation of […]
TEN BEST CLASSICAL OF 2017 – II
Best of the Year Classical List for 2017 Recommendations by Fritz Balwit Bela Bartok: Complete String Quartets – Heath Quartet – Harmonia Mundi 907661.62 This young quartet has achieved the highest levels of concentration on this complete set of the quartets. All aspects of Bartok, from prickly agitation and folk humor to serene contrapuntal abstraction, are perfectly rendered. There is real excitement in the playing and the soundscape is outstanding. This recording narrowly edges out a release by the superb Chiara quartet, which, uniquely, plays the music without scores. Bjarte EIKE: The Ale-House Sessions – Rubicon 1017 This recording, reviewed on these pages this past summer, has only gotten better with repeated listening. Bjarte Eike has succeeded in presenting a frothy, joyous and surprising repertoire of Purcellian inspired fiddle music to popular audiences. The fiddlers can bawl out sea-shanties as well, but when Mr. Eike turns his bowing talent to a lament, there won’t be a dry eye in the house. Grand fun and superb musicianship. Star rating has been upgraded to *****! Link to Review DVORAK & SCHUBERT: String Quartets “Death and the Maiden” & “American” – The Dragon Quartet – Channel Classic 39417 Four […]
Nadia Reisenberg: The Remastered HAYDN Recordings, 1955-1958 – Nadia Reisenberg, piano – Romeo Records
Nadia Reisenberg: The Remastered HAYDN Recordings, 1955-1958 [Selection List Below] – Nadia Reisenberg, piano – Romeo Records 7324/5 (2 CDs) 72:13, 76:17 [Distr. by Albany] ****: Nadia Reisenberg’s 1950s Haydn programs receive new and astonishingly cleargloss from Romeo Records. Romeo Records refurbishes the series of Haydn performances that Nadia Reisenberg (1904-1983) produced for the Westminster label, 1955-1958, that had originally appeared on three LPs and then found their way in 1998 onto Ivory Classics (70806) under the supervision of Michael Rolland Davis. Although Reisenberg had “virtually retired” from active concert life by 1947, she made periodic appearances in the recording studio and at chamber music venues when the spirit and the camaraderie so moved her. The initial reaction to Reisenberg’s Haydn—rare enough at the time on records, with only occasional incursions into this vast repertory by the likes of Artur Balsam and Erno von Dohnanyi—proved unanimous and definitive: “[Reisenberg] has an unfailing understanding of classical form and spirit,” vaunted the Detroit Sunday Times. Robert Sherman, Ms. Reisenberg’s son—and a former colleague from my days at WQXR-FM – has re-arranged the Haydn works into two distinct groups of variations and sonatas, with the piano sonatas’ having been arranged chronologically from the […]
TEN BEST CLASSICAL OF 2017 – II
TEN BEST CLASSICAL OF 2017 – Fritz Balwit Bela Bartok: Complete String Quartets – Heath Quartet – Harmonia Mundi 907661.62 This young quartet has achieved the highest levels of concentration on this complete set of the quartets. All aspects of Bartok, from prickly agitation and folk humor to serene contrapuntal abstraction, are perfectly rendered. There is real excitement in the playing and the soundscape is outstanding. This recording narrowly edges out a release by the superb Chiara quartet, which, uniquely, plays the music without scores. Bjarte EIKE: The Ale-House Sessions – Rubicon 1017 This recording, reviewed on these pages this past summer, has only gotten better with repeated listening. Bjarte Eike has succeeded in presenting a frothy, joyous and surprising repertoire of Purcellian inspired fiddle music to popular audiences. The fiddlers can bawl out sea-shanties as well, but when Mr. Eike turns his bowing talent to a lament, there won’t be a dry eye in the house. Grand fun and superb musicianship. Star rating has been upgraded to *****! Link to Review DVORAK & SCHUBERT: String Quartets “Death and the Maiden” & “American” – The Dragon Quartet – Channel Classic 39417 Four young Chinese musicians, who have established […]
Altius Quartet: “Dress Code” = Haydn Quartet in C major Op.74 No.3; Bolcom Three Rags; Arrangements of Dave Brubeck, Led Zeppelin, Ben E. King, and a-ha – Altius Quartet – Navona Records
Altius Quartet: “Dress Code” = Haydn Quartet in C major Op.74 no.3. Bolcom Three Rags. Arrangements of Dave Brubeck, Led Zeppelin, Ben E. King, and a-ha – Altius Quartet (Joshua Ulrich and Andrew Giordano, violins. Andrew Krimm, viola. Zachary Reaves, cello) – Navona Records NV6078, 55 minutes, (4/14/2017) ****: Altius Quartet brings fresh life to a classic masterpiece within a contemporary framework… Whatever possessed the Altius Quartet to come up with a program blending the talents of Franz Joseph Haydn and William Bolcom with four pop arrangements turns out be a most fortunate inspiration, and the Altius Quartet chose wisely and played well, laying out their sequence of interspersed music like one continuous scroll. Haydn particularly benefits from this approach because it enables you to focus on and realize just how powerfully he creates his musical worlds. Each of the movements of his extraordinary String Quartet Op.74 No.1 has entirely its own personality and structure, each contains at its core an overwhelmingly affectionate joke, and each is blessed with rare beauties. The Quartet have captured this well, even adding to the occasion with a little joke of their own in the form of an unwritten crescendo on the opening chord […]
George Li Live = HAYDN: Piano Sonata in B Minor; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2; RACHMANINOV: Variations on a Theme of Corelli; LISZT: Consolation No. 3, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 – George Li – Warner Classics
George Li Live at the Mariinsky = HAYDN: Piano Sonata in B Minor, Hob.XVI:32; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 35; RACHMANINOV: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42; LISZT: Consolation No. 3 in D-flat Major; Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in c-sharp minor – George Li – Warner Classics 0190295812942 68:56 (10/6/17) ****: George LI raises sparks and a silver sheen at the Mariinsky Theatre in 2016. George Li (b. 1995), silver medalist of the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, offers a recital (4-5 October 2016) from St. Petersburg that testifies to the range of colors in his digital arsenal. Li opens with the 1776 Sonata in b minor of Haydn, a curious mix of sturm und drang and Scarlatti at once. The quick staccatos of the Allegro moderato find consolation in D Major, punctuated by broken runs and pert accents. The upper registers enjoy a light color offset by a kind of cello or bassoon figure in the bass, which descends dramatically. The contest between major and minor continues into the succeeding Menuetto, which opens in B Major but whose trio becomes agitated in the tonic minor. The Finale: Presto moves in nervous, quicksilver periods, rife […]
HAYDN: Cello Concertos 1 and 2; CPE BACH Cello Concerto in A major; BOCCHERINI Adagio; MOZART – Steven Isserlis, cello. Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – Hyperion
Steven Isserlis = HAYDN Cello Concertos 1 and 2, Hob VIIb:1 and 2. CPE BACH Cello Concerto in A major Wq 172. MOZART “Geme la tortorella” from La finta giardiniera. BOCCHERINI Adagio from Cello Concerto G.480 – Steven Isserlis, cello. Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen – Hyperion CDA68162, 77:47 (9/1/17) *****: On an exceptionally well-filled disc, Isserlis makes his first recordings of the two Haydn concertos since 1996, when he did them for RCA with Roger Norrington conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. This one features Isserlis himself at the head of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, playing his supremely beautiful Marquis de Corberon “Nelsova” Stradivarius of 1726. Recorded in the orchestra’s hall, the soundstage, space and balance are ideal, just slightly ahead of the band, capturing Isserlis’s tawny cello sound, fingers occasionally slapping against the fingerboard with astonishing dimensionality. In addition to his relaxed, confident, commanding technique, which seeks musical solutions rather than what will be easiest or most flashy, Isserlis brings a deep knowledge of stylistic options—and buys into, in an entirely 21st century way, the implications and obligations of such knowledge. As it turns out, his performances of the two Haydn concertos also make a strong case for the equivalency […]
Horenstein Early Recordings = BACH Choral Preludes (trans. Schoenberg); HAYDN: Symphony No. 94; MOZART: Overtures, Le nozze di Figaro and La Clemenza da Tito; SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 5 – Berlin Phil. Orch./ Jascha Horenstein – Pristine
Horenstein Early Recordings = BACH (trans. Schoenberg): Gott, Schoepfer, Heiliger Geist, BWV 631; Schmucke dich, O liebe Seele, BWV 654; HAYDN: Symphony No. 94 in G Major “Surprise”; MOZART: Le nozze di Figaro – Overture, K. 492; La Clemenza da Tito – Overture, K. 691; SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, D. 485 – Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/ Jascha Horenstein – Pristine Audio PASC 506, 69:02 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****: Pristine restores Jascha Horenstein’s German-Austrian repertory of 1929 to the active catalogue. Mark Obert-Thorn re-masters the 1929 Polydor recordings by Jascha Horenstein (1898-1973), his electrical performances of music to which he did return later in his recording career. Some collectors will recognize this program as having had prior issue on the Koch Legacy label (5-7054-2) in inferior sound. What becomes significant in this program lies in the fact that circumstances—mostly political—would prevent Horenstein’s access to the recording studio until Vox Records signed this versatile conductor in 1952. Each of the performances presents a driven, committed interpreter of the Great German Tradition, rather linear in conception and quite brightly lit in the interior vocal lines, especially in the Mozart selections. The Marriage of Figaro Overture suffers no “romantic” distortion in what proves a […]
Beecham at the Royal Festival Hall, Vol. I = HAYDN: Symphony No. 101; LALO: Symphony in G Minor; DEBUSSY: Cortege et Air de Danse – Royal Phil. Orch./ Sir Thomas Beecham – Pristine Audio
Beecham at the Royal Festival Hall, Vol. I = HAYDN: Symphony No. 101 in D Major “Clock”; LALO: Symphony in G Minor; DEBUSSY: Cortege et Air de Danse from L’enfant prodigue – Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/ Sir Thomas Beecham – Pristine Audio PASC 502, 58:42 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****: The first of the Beecham concerts from Royal Festival Hall displays the conductor’s brio in his chosen repertory. The “inimitable” Sir Thomas Beecham (1897-1962) appears in the first of three volumes dedicated by engineer Andrew Rose to the two concerts of 25 October and 8 November 1959 at the Royal Festival Hall. Typical of the “Beecham effect,” the spirits of these concerts remain thoroughly gracious and accessible, since before an audience – as opposed to his meticulous rehearsal methods – Beecham never took himself too seriously. The conductor’s geniality derives mainly from his thorough knowledge of his repertory, combined with his ensemble’s total technical control and nuanced response to their conductor’s wishes. While some commentators bemoan Beecham’s use of what now scholarship considers corrupt editions of Haydn, his measured, affectionate d minor Adagio of Symphony No. 101 spreads forth a luxuriant carpet that soon erupts into a festive 6/8 Presto that gallops and sachets […]
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Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
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