Think of England

Haydn: Symphonies 76, 77 & 78; J. C. Bach: Symphony in G minor

I've been following Giovanni Antonini's Haydn 2032 series for a long time; this is the fifth disc I've reviewed, out of the twenty that have been released so far. I love everything about this series: Antonini's superb scholarship, his use of two crackerjack ensembles - Il Giardino Armonico and the larger Kammerorchester Basel, the introduction of works by other composers to provide context, the illuminating documentation, and, finally, the inclusion of pictures by a different Magnum photographer for each release.

Haydn's home in the second part of his career, after he left Esterhazy, was London. The theme of this disc is "For English Gentlemen", and it's a perfect vehicle for the photography of the late, great photographer Martin Parr, who died last December. Included is this wonderful shot from Ascot, from Parr's series Think of England, 1999. One of my favourites!

While the three Haydn symphonies included here - no. 76 in E♭ major, no. 77 in B♭ major and no. 78 in C minor, all from 1782 - come before the composer's move to England, they were written for the English. Haydn was aware of English taste through his familiarity with the works of composers of London residents like Johann Christian Bach. He says in a letter that he wrote the symphonies "for the English gentlemen, ... easy and not too concertante". But these are not pot-boilers, and nor are they without interest for the erudite connoisseur. Antonini and his Basel musicians judge this balance between light and serious fare perfectly; these are sparkling, highly enjoyable performances. 

Johann Christian Bach, Johann Sebastian's youngest son, spent so much time in London that he was known as "the English Bach". His G minor Symphony, op. 6 no. 6, dates from 1769, and while one can see similarities with the three later symphonies, especially #78 in C minor, this is generally more tempestuous and theatrical than the more placid, more assured Haydn works.

So another triumph on the road to Joseph Haydn's 300th birthday: March 31, 2032!
 

Haydn Symphonies "Les Jeux et Les Plaisirs"

Joseph Haydn Symphonies 61, 66, 69

Michael Haydn Toy Symphony

Under the direction of Giovanni Antonini, the Kammerorchester Basel performs three middle-period Haydn Symphonies - numbers 61, 66 and 69 - with a special bonus for the youngsters out there. This is the 12th release in the wonderful Haydn 2032 series from Alpha; only 10 more years of these records until the project is complete and we can break out the cake with 300 candles for Papa Haydn!

This is a fun disc from start to finish. To be sure, in these symphonies Joseph Haydn makes use of the common tropes of the international galant style, but he always puts his own stamp on his symphonies. At this point in his career Haydn does not stray far from the galant schemata, but he conceals within them a complex and cunningly wrought art that seems effortless.

Giovanni Antonini is taking the long view of this immense series of symphonies; he has planned each album's program with care, taking into account the long arc of a great musical career as well as each hour and twenty minute segment. He's plucked three joyful works from 1775-76 to contrast with the more dramatic and erudite group in the 11th disc (which I reviewed here). The sense of fun is palpable in these performances; Antonini and his band are obviously enjoying playing this music, & that's immediately communicated to the listener.

Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael has written a small kitsch masterpiece in his Toy Symphony, and it receives a spirited performance here. There are parts written for various toy instruments, from trumpet, drum and triangle to ratchet, quail, organ hens and cuckoo. The result is a splendid noise:

I was curious about the bird sounds, so I ran the symphony through the Merlin Bird ID app from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I was pleased to see that there was no fooling the Merlin algorithm; it heard no actual birds. As Susan Sontag says in her "Notes on Camp", 

"All camp objects, and persons, contain a large element of artifice. Nothing in nature can be campy."

As with every disc in the Haydn 2032 series, this release is matched with a Magnum photographer; in this case it's the fabulous Spanish photographer Cristina García Rodero. I was thrilled to see these photos, since I only knew her black and white pictures (which are stunning). A number included here are from García Rodero's 2020 exhibition "Holi, the celebration of love".  Holi is an Indian festival of colour, where young people throw colored powders to desire love, fortune and vitality, while they dance and sing in the streets and temples. What a follow-up to a lifetime of amazing black and white photography!

Great Haydn Symphonies "Au Goût Parisien"

Haydn: Symphonies 2, 24, 82, 87

Alpha's Haydn 2032 project continues with this album, the 11th release in the series. In about half the recordings Giovanni Antonini conducts his ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, but here he returns to the Kammerorchester Basel for four Haydn Symphonies with a Parisian connection: 2, 24, 82 and 87. 

Though the Basel orchestra is considerably larger than Il Giardino Armonico - the string complement is ten Violin I, seven Violin II, five Viola, three Double Bass - this is a nimble group that Antonioni takes through the twists and turns of Haydn's music as if he were driving a Ferrari. I've always loved the six Paris Symphonies commissioned by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges in 1788; two are included here. Number 82 is subtitled "L'Ours", for the comical, slightly grumpy features of its finale, complete with the drone of a folk instrument, perhaps a kind of bagpipe. Though it doesn't come with a cute title, Symphony 87 is a perfect mature Haydn symphony, an on-ramp for the Beethoven Symphony Freeway to come. The 24th Symphony is from 1764, a period when Haydn brought a bit of mystery and drama to the gallant symphonies of the time. It's bracketed by two stone-cold masterpieces - number 22, "The Philospher", and number 26, "Lamentatione" - but number 24 has its own positive qualities. I find it at once unsettling and exciting. There's something a little bit dangerous in this performance!

The Paris connection for Symphony 24 is that it was performed there - to great acclaim - in 1773. The 2nd Symphony, written in the late 1750s, was actually published in Paris in 1764. At under 10 minutes, it's the shortest of his symphonies, but there's plenty of incident packed in here. It's slight in stature, but not in style; the Little Symphony That Could.

Antonini brings great energy to all four symphonies here - great and small. Though this series doesn't replace my all-time choice for the complete Haydn symphonies, Adam Fischer's version on 37 CDs with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, I'm beginning to see that we now have a very close challenger, not quite a third of the way to 2032. 

Each of the Haydn 2032 releases features a Magnum photographer in the album liner booklet, and this time it's the turn of the great Elliot Erwitt, a great choice considering the theme: "Au Goût Parisien". He took so many great photos of the City of Light; I'll post one here that he took in 1989; for some reason it isn't included in the booklet.

A promising new direction for Haydn 2032

Haydn: Symphonies 19, 80 and 81; Kraus: Symphony in C minor

Giovanni Antonini shifts gears with this fifth issue of his wonderful Haydn 2032 recordings, in the lead-up to the Haydn Tri-Centennial. This is a great series; volume 3 was my top release from last year. Instead of the marvellous Il Giardino Armonico, he now directs the Kammerorchester Basel, which will also get the call in volumes 6 and 7. What's the word on this new reliever from the bullpen?

It's very good news indeed. Though both play on original instruments, the Basel orchestra is considerably larger than Il Giardino, 6:6:5:3:2 in the strings versus 4:4:2:2:2. But though there's a fuller, richer, sound that's more appropriate for Haydn's Symphonies 80 and 81 from the mid-1780s, this is a very tight band that gives Antonini all the grace and lightness that Haydn still requires. I know these symphonies very well; my default version of Haydn's Symphonies is Adam Fischer's set with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, and the Basel musicians come close to this high standard. Stripped down to a smaller ensemble for the slight but charming (and fun) Symphony 19, we here have the same nimbleness of Il Giardino with all of expressiveness.

Haydn is great (great? - he's super-great!), but the star of the show here is Joseph Martin Kraus, an exact contemporary of Mozart, and a composer not too terribly far off in quality from the two great classical composers of the period. His Symphony in C minor is an outright work of genius. I slightly prefer this version over the very good Concerto Köln recording from 1992; the new recording is as theatrical, but its cooler temperature shows off its classical bones better.

A final note, once again, on Alpha's fabulous presentation for this series. The notes (in three languages) are excellent, and the featured photographs by a Magnum artist, in this case Stewart Franklin, are especially apposite. I await volume six with the Kraus Symphony set on repeat....

This disc is due to be released on November 3, 2017.

An arrest of attention

"I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction."
- Saul Bellow, Paris Review, 1966

The superb Haydn 2032 project of Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico continues with "Il Distratto", the 4th volume on the way to the complete Haydn symphonies in their historical context by the year 2032. The project has three sterling characteristics which place it at the very top of similar ongoing series by other groups: the highest musical standards (style, precision, musicality); a significant scholarly/intellectual component; and top quality presentation and marketing. I included the third volume, "Solo e Pensoso", in my Top 10 Discs of 2016. This new disc will surely end up in my 2017 list.

The disc takes its title from Haydn's 60th Symphony of 1774, which is actually a symphonic suite taken from the composer's incidental music for a revival of Le Distrait by Jean-François Regnard. This is perhaps the pinnacle of the musical joke genre, though closer to J.S. Bach than P.D.Q. Bach. It's clever and knowing, way over on the proper side of the Seinfeld-Hee Haw humour continuum. Haydn has some interesting things to say, I think, about an issue that began to be discussed for the first time in human history in the 18th century: the problem of distraction. According to sociologist Frank Furedi, the idea of distraction being a social evil relates to threats to moral authority, rather than to any new technologies or structural social changes. The Enlightenment, of course, was chock full of those threats, and there was plenty more to come in 1774. Furedi quotes the Scottish political economist William Playfair, who stated that "the inattention of the nobility to their duty was one cause of the revolution". Haydn actually quotes his own subtle challenge to moral authority, his Farewell Symphony of 1772 in this work. Much of the distraction is played for laughs, but it also provides Haydn with the opportunity to produce some arresting sounds, some that sound far, far ahead of their time. Haydn was the absolute master of building a life in which he had completely free range to exercise his artistic vision, without the compromises forced on poor Mozart or the angst that Beethoven suffered because of his own transitional social position.

Giovanni Antonini has found a perfect foil for Il Distratto in the mini-opera Il Maestro di Cappella, by Domenico Cimarosa. This is another self-aware piece that seems shockingly modern, with an orchestra that acts up, turning into one of the characters in the comedy. It reminded me of Raymond Queneau's 1968 novel The Flight of Icarus, whose main character acts up in much the same way as Cimarosa's orchestra.

In the other two Haydn symphonies included here, no. 12 and 70, there are hints of extra-musical connections. In his excellent liner notes Antonini posits that "In the ascending direction of tre soggetti of the fugal finale [of no. 70], we can glimpse a favourable omen for the erection of the new Esterhaza opera house at the laying of its founding stone - the occasion on which the symphony was first performed." So consider Haydn a proto-Oulipian, in his use of constrained musical composition to create novel forms and structures. It looks forward to the moderns, yes, but back as well to J.S. Bach's mathematical games that weave through so much of his music. The astounding thing about this music is that as clever as the games are, the final result is so artistically sound, and so often arrestingly beautiful.

Telemann's surprises

We'll be hearing a lot of Telemann in 2017, the 250th anniversary of the great composer's death. I doubt, though, that many discs will be as well-planned and stylishly performed as this splendid release from Alpha Classics, with Giovanni Antonini leading Il Giardino Armonico, and playing recorder and chalumeau.

Antonini raises the curtain with a clever little Prelude for solo recorder by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre. Telemann's Suite in A Minor is quite well known, but this is a performance to take special note of. Antonini is in a groove throughout both as a soloist and conductor, providing a high level of virtuosity, but never missing out on Telemann's many expressive possibilities. Some of the other works are a bit more obscure, but there are many gems to be uncovered here. Most astonishing is the Grave movement from a Quartet for 2 chalumeaux (early clarinets), violin and continuo. This is a kind of salon piece with the slightest hints of Eastern European folk music and even tango, a very sexy number! 

Here is the entire Quartet; the Grave movement begins at 6:10. Also, listen for the mock heroics in the finale; Telemann is having fun here! And the musicians are as well.

The whole disc is full of moments like this. I am astonished by the endless surprises Telemann gives us. He has lived in Bach's shadow for a very long time; perhaps 2017 will be his year in the sun.

Here is the fifth movement from Telemann's Suite in A Minor, entitled Réjouissance (Rejoicing). We can indeed rejoice in such invention by Telemann, and such virtuosity by Antonini and his fellow musicians.

Illuminating Haydn

The Haydn 2032 project picks up steam in this third release from Alpha Classics, "Solo e Pensoso". It takes its title from sonnet XXXV from Petrarch’s Il Canzioniere that was set by Haydn in 1798:

Alone and deep in thought, through the loneliest fields
I tread with slow and sluggish steps,
and keep my eyes watchful, intent on flight
wherever a human footprint appears in the sand.

"Alone and deep in thought" is not how we think of the lively and above all social music making of the Baroque period, so this is an important milestone on the way to the solitary-genius composer whose epitome was Mozart, and in a heroic and Romantic form, Beethoven. But we're not used to thinking of Haydn in these terms at all. Putting Haydn's dramatic but still pensive setting at the centre of this new project, and presenting it in such as stylish way, with the musicians of his superb band Il Giardino Armonico and soprano Francesca Aspromonte, Giovanni Antonini once again makes us look at Haydn in a new way.



This time around the program is all-Haydn, though a Mozart aria from 1789, Vado, ma dove?
KV 583, featured in the 2015 concert programs for this project but didn't make it onto the disc. The three symphonies, #4 completed in 1760, #42 of 1771, and #64 from 1773, are given context by Haydn's Petrarch setting and another work from the stage, the overture to L’Isola Disabitata from 1779. Thus we have music from Haydn's early, middle and late periods, but Antonini has something much more sophisticated in mind than a mere chronological approach. Rather, he is following threads from the vast tapestry of Haydn's symphonic output to illustrate his theme.

Symphony #42, which begins the program, has an arresting combination of operatic incident and a more abstracted and wistful counterpoint. In tone if not always in musical style this seems quite close to Mozart. This is even more true of the great Symphony #64, with the mysterious "missing cadences" of its eccentric Largo and possibly contemporary nickname Tempora mutantur (the beginning of a Latin tag that goes "Times change, and we change with them: how so? Mankind gets worse with time.") One theory is that this music was part of a lost project of Haydn's to provide incidental music for Shakespeare's Hamlet. We're a long way from the Papa Haydn stereotype here! Symphony #4, which ends the program, is a surprisingly cultivated and refined work for its time, with its ghostly middle Andante not giving up a sense of muted melancholy in the more dramatic, but still, in the end, contemplative and thoughtful finale.

The marketing of Haydn 2032 is world-class. Go to the Solo e Ponsoso portion of the project website for the full deal, including amazing photos by Bruno Barbey and superb analysis by musicologist Christian Moritz-Bauer. There's even a Haydn 2032 shop planned for the future. But none of this matters if the music isn't special, and to my mind it certainly is. In fact, these are ground-breaking performances,  In #64 there's an immediacy and presence that clearly outshines Christopher Hogwood's version with the Academy of Ancient Music. Even the version of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra under Adam Fischer, my reference standard for Haydn, seems less nimble and expressive. I'm so pleased with what I've heard so far from Haydn 2032, and look forward to the long journey to Haydn's Tricentennial.