Haydn! (Random Reviews from the Overflow Room 13)

本站收录: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Hello friends. This is Dave Hurwitz executive editor at classics today.com here with random reviews from the overflow room.

[00:00:10]>> [music] >> And today we continue [music] our endless survey of Haydn stuff and I have some some intriguing things actually and here's some some nifty nifty stuff. First the Haydn London symphonies with Colin Davis and the Concertgebouw.

[00:00:31]This was for a lot of years the reference recording in these works because the Concertgebouw's playing was so beautiful and Colin Davis is a wonderful conductor of classical period music. I mean again, you know in those days he was more known probably for his Mozart than his Haydn. Although his Haydn was really very highly respected and he didn't champion Mozart and quite you know the most unbalanced way that people like Mackerras and sell did.

[00:01:02]You know it's really funny when when growing up watching records come out and seeing how the industry was evolving. You know Haydn was always a tough sell. He really was aside from maybe like the surprise symphony or something and you know he was more of a composer honored in textbooks as a father of the symphony and the string quartet but well he wasn't listened to.

[00:01:23]He really wasn't and and he was considered to be the stepchild of Mozart. Mozart was incomparably greater.

[00:01:30]The comparisons are just not even worth making frankly because they were very different composers actually but Haydn Haydn's genius was really not not very highly regarded.

[00:01:44]You know when Dorati started doing all those Haydn symphonies it was a labor of love. Nobody ever thought they'd make money at it God forbid and it was amazing that he actually was able to complete it. There had been some abortive symphony cycles before then but Colin Davis's Haydn was a thing. It was highly highly respected, and it is very beautiful and very well played. The great Haydn scholar H. C. Robbins Landon hated these performances because Davis did not use the new critical editions that he was producing, and so the editions are corrupt. Very corrupt. Um and you know, that doesn't matter too much. I unfortunately, I I do have to say that Davis was not consistent. He was a very inconsistent conductor generally, but his Haydn even was had its terrible moments, and I saw one of them.

[00:02:35]He was touring with the Staatskapelle Dresden. It was a concert I actually walked out on. I almost never walk out on concerts. There are only like two or three in my life So excuse me, that I walked out of, and that was one of them.

[00:02:48]He did the Haydn Military Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden, and I wanted desperately to hear that orchestra. I thought that they were great, and it was the most limp, tame, unimaginative, retro style performance. I mean, you know, period instrument movement was going like gangbusters. He could have at least played forte.

[00:03:11]You know, the trumpets and drums were barely there. The percussion in the military was just like It was It was like a toy symphony.

[00:03:19]It was so so unimpactful. Um and you know, it ought to be huge. It ought to be just huge. It ought to be crazy. You know, it ought to be Hermann Scherchen crazy. I I I still haven't heard a military that I think does the music full justice in terms of what you can do with it to make it really powerful. It should be played like a like Mahler, like a huge romantic exordium, but no, they didn't, and Colin Davis didn't. And that was really really disappointing.

[00:03:46]But these with the Concertgebouw on Philips now, Decca, >> [snorts] >> um are really really pretty pretty damn fine. I was wondering if you get any bonuses here. No, you don't. It's just the 12 London Symphonies and they are beautifully beautifully played. Sensible and intelligent and they've held up really quite well. Then we have Oh, look.

[00:04:09]The Creation Die Schöpfung with John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists.

[00:04:17]Well, this was from 1996 on Archive. It's a very good creation.

[00:04:23]Eliot Gardiner was a wonderful accompanist.

[00:04:25]>> [snorts] >> You know, people talk about you know, we don't make enough about that. You know, you find a lot of these conductors, especially the period instrument guys, who started out conducting vocal ensembles and specialized almost entirely in vocal music because that's what Baroque music is.

[00:04:40]And so to, you know, use period instruments and all that stuff is nice, but in terms of the conducting part of it, um there most of what they're doing is accompanying.

[00:04:50]And they accompany quite well. I mean, Gardiner is an exciting accompanist. He picks good soloists. He has the choir very well trained. Everybody knows now since subsequent historical events that he's a total jerk and he beats people up and he's nasty and miserable and you know, that often gets very good results and it does here. But at the same time, he's not a very warm conductor. He's you see he's a cold fish. And so you get great accuracy and and good rhythm and quite a bit of excitement, but not a lot of of lovability, a lot of warmth in his interpretations.

[00:05:30]And this is a typical one in that sense.

[00:05:33]Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Somewhere, you know, underneath that, you know, rather scuzzy exterior, there is a human being and and once in a while it peeps out.

[00:05:45]Um and it peeps out a little bit in part three when Adam and Eve are having an, you know, a time. Um, it's okay, uh, but it's colorful and it's it's it's typical Gardiner period instrument stuff. It's quite listenable. So, there's that one.

[00:06:01]Uh, what else have we got here? Oh, yes.

[00:06:04]Let's do this one.

[00:06:06]I think we should do this one. I've got so much of this stuff. Or what should we do that one and save this one? I don't know. We can do all of them. Yes. Let's do some of these. This is Harnoncourt doing the London Symphonies with the same orchestra as Colin Davis. And you would never know it's the same orchestra. It's unbelievable. And this particular twofer has, um, 101, 102, 103, and 104. Okay, the last London Symphonies. And they are alternately brilliant and perverse. Oh, my, the London Symphony, the scherzo of the London Symphonies ridiculous.

[00:06:41]Absolutely ridiculous.

[00:06:47]>> [clears throat] >> It's It's stupid.

[00:06:50]>> [laughter] >> It's just stupid. There's no other word for it. Um, but some of them are thrilling. Uh, the orchestra sounds, like I said, compare it to Colin Davis, you wouldn't know it's the same group.

[00:07:01]And so, these were fun to listen to for comparative purposes. And they do give the excitement that, you know, is missing in some of these older style performances. There is You you you can't say that they're not radical in their way. So, you know, there you go.

[00:07:18]And that's that's this batch. So, uh, keep on listening, friends. There's lots more Haydn to come. Take care.