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.

Charming music from a great eccentric

Lord Berners: Ballet Music, Les Sirènes, Cupid and Psyche
 

Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, aka Lord Berners is one of the great English eccentrics. He wrote his own epitaph, for example, which appears on his gravestone:

Here lies Lord Berners
One of the learners
His great love of learning
May earn him a burning
But, Praise the Lord!
He seldom was bored.

Though he hung out with such forward-looking artists as Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dali and Gertrude Stein, his music (except for some early works) isn't especially avant garde or modernist. Rather, it is accessible, tuneful and light.

Lord Berners by Bill Brandt, 1945

"I wonder if by any chance you are free to dine tomorrow night? 

It is only a tiny party for Winston [Churchill] and GBS [George Bernard Shaw].

There will be no one else except for Toscanini and myself."

Indeed, the music often sounds much like superior English Light Music, in the style of Eric Coates or Percy Grainger. The charming 30-second Fanfare, though, hearkens back to Façade, by William Walton & Edith Sitwell, while the Habanero from Les Sirènes is awfully similar to Darius Milhaud's Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. So progressive to a degree, though his models were 20 to 30 years in the past.

The key word here is "charm". It doesn't require any deep thought, but as ballet music (with choreography in both ballets by Frederick Ashton) it shouldn't. More than an hour of uninterrupted charm is a true gift.

The wonderful cover painting is Edward Burne-Jones's "Cupid Delivering Psyche", from 1867.

This album will be released on March 11, 2022.