"With this review, I am taking the liberty of critiquing releases of three complete performances of the Haydn Symphonies:
To undertake a completely recorded set of Haydn's Complete Symphonies is a monumental and ambitious project. To complete it is a monumental accomplishment of having recorded a considerable body of work written by the "father of the symphony," which in itself must provide great relief and satisfaction to all involved upon its completion. Dennis Russell Davies has but three predecessors here: First, the forerunning, pioneer analog set with Antal Dorati conducting the Philharmonia Hungarica and then Adam Fischer digitally recorded the set with the Austro Hungarian Haydn Orchestra in the late 1980s through the early 1990s, first on the Nimbus label, then it was released as a set of its own on Brilliant Classics, then repackaged earlier this year as part of the commemorative Brilliant Classics Haydn Edition (which in spite of its sprawling 150 CDS is not yet "Complete."). And there is a Naxos set which has been released in its separate parts for some time, but has found a recent reissue in a complete boxed set for 2009 for about one hundred dollars, which is not reviewed here.
The Dorati set, which after all of these years, I still regard as the gold standard for these performances, is now recently released in its latest budget priced form commemorating the bicentennial of Haydn's death. The orchestra concerned, the Philharmonia Hungarica, was composed of émigrés from the abortive and Soviet suppressed 1956 Hungarian revolt. It is now available in its current version as a cardboard sleeved box of thirty three disks, now acquirable for literally a song, a little more than for sixty dollars. The set has had transformations in several incarnations itself: On London Records originally, when these were originally released on forty eight phonograph records in the mid 1970s. These were released in the late 1980s in a set of thirty two compact disks at high mid price in jewel boxed subsets of four to a jewel box. I bought this set in this first CD incarnation at a cost of some ten dollars per disk. Another release in the 1990s took it out of its jewel cases and put it in paper sleeves, which by no means detracted from the recordings and lowered their cost into the lower two hundred dollar range. In its current version, it is indispensable for any serious collector of Haydn's music. This set is only the beginning. And if one is to be the proud owner of only one cycle of Haydn's One Hundred Four, plus three. This is the one set to get if you can afford only one.
The Sony Dennis Russell Davies set, priced at seventy five dollars, recorded in the Daimler Benz concert hall in Stuttgart, arrived from Amazon in an "environmentally correct" box and packaging, no plastic jewel boxes, cardboard sleeves, divided into a half dozen color coded groups or subsets within the set: The Early Symphonies, The First Symphonies Written for Prince Esterhazy, The Storm and Stress Works, Symphonies for Entertainment Purposes, Symphonies for the Public at Large (which includes the "Paris" Symphonies and those after it before the "London" set), and the London Symphonies.
The set of what is now, the complete one hundred four, plus Sinfonia Concertante and Symphonies "A" and "B" (on the Dorati and Fischer sets) added as "Symphonies 105, 107, and 108, is a compilation of live recordings spanning some twelve years of recording of live performances on thirty seven compact disks, four disks more than both of Dennis Russell Davies`s predecessors, Antal Dorati and Adam Fischer. The applause from the live performances has been added to and included with all of the symphonies, and this might account for the necessity of the spreading out the project onto four additional compact disks. Arguably, it might be well worth it, but I find the interruptive applause intrusive.
The program booklet lists the one hundred four in Dennis Russell Davies's/Sony's recorded order, but timings of the individual symphony movements are missing in the booklet, and rather, we have the total recording time for each of the symphonies on the cardboard sleeve.
Unlike Dennis Russell Davies's earlier predecessors, who boxed their recordings in sequence according to the Eusebius Mandyczewski`s-Anthony von Hoboken's compilation 1-104, these are presented to the purchaser in order of completion rather than by order of publication, which appears on the first superficial glance to be arranged in little order at all: For example, Disk One places No. 1 with 37, 18, and 2 in that order. Disk Two has No. 4, 27, 10, and 20. Further on down, it's Nos. 15, 3, 6, and 7. The notes in the Sony-Dennis Russell Davies set give their detailed explanation for this. To listen to the symphonies in this order changes the experience to one which is new and to one with which one is unaccustomed, even for a familiar listener, for better or worse. It is my understanding that the Naxos set has not released the symphonies in their numbered order as well.
Technically, the Dennis Russell Davies performances are sonically flawless without a glitch, and they are taken at tempi somewhere sanely halfway in between the Dorati to which I have long since grown accustomed, and the raced renditions of some of the Fischer as is the case in Haydn's slow movements such as in the opening No. 22, or in the No. 26 Adagio. So I would give the Sony/Dennis Russell Davies and Stuttgart the five stars here. There is a lengthy section within the program booklet which gives individual credit to the individual performers in the ensemble, and the orchestral sound is not overpowering, more chamber like, which inclines me to thing that these are period instrument performances. Unless one objects to that, and would rather be acoustically overwhelmed and overpowered by a Bernstein or a von Karajan, I would recommend the purchase. In all fairness, the Dorati "London" group of symphonies seems to have grown leanly orchestrated in its own right over time. A plus for the Fischer recordings is the intimacy and presence of the virtuosi, the solo instrumentalists of No. 6 ("Morning"), No. 7 ("Noon"), and No. 8 ("Evening").
If one is allowed to have but one set of Haydn, I would stick with Dorati's renditions, as it is and has been the gold standard by which I have judged the others as well as the newcomers. If you possibly can do it, for a little over two hundred dollars you can have all three cycles. I would strongly urge their acquisition for any Haydn fan. Dennis Russell Davies' set is arguably in a dead heat with or even surpasses what are some of Fischer's raced tempi and accelerated accounts for a second place finish, which is not so bad of a consolation for there being only three complete recordings of the essential acquisition for any serious classical music collector.
"
Essential for living
Brent A. Anderson | New England | 08/30/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"All of Franz Joseph Haydn's symphonies conducted by Adam Fischer and the Autro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra at a bargain basement price? I was there four years ago, and it was one of the best purchases I've ever made.
Dennis Prager says Bach taught him how to pray and Haydn how to laugh. While I can't vouch for that, I've enjoyed hundreds of hours of Haydn, my favorite composer. One can't go wrong.
When my local orchestra, the New Hamphsire Music Fesitval, finally played a Hayden symphony after nine years of my attending, it was a blessed relief. But I had to say that, pace the Woody Allen movie Bullets over Broadway, I was prepared to kill if they had screwed it up.
I take my Haydn very seriously. So should you, too.
Enjoy all 104 symphonies. You'd be crazy not to."
Great bargain
W. Burke | CA USA | 09/12/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"So much wonderful music that I have never heard before. Even the earliest have Haydn's endless inventiveness."
HAYDN SYMPHONIES (COMPLETE) - Adam Fischer, cond.
Terence Frazor | San Antonio, Texas | 03/16/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The playing of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra is clean, articulate and totally professional. In short, one could not ask for a better orchestra to undertake this massive project. Adam Fischer's primary strength is his always-excellent choice of tempi. Unfortunately, he too often opts for a generic reading, missing many opportunities to "turn" a more beautiful and elegant phrase. Also, there are many passages - always in forte - which are poorly balanced (this could certainly be the fault of the producer or even the recording venue, but surely Mr. Fischer approved the final edits?). Overall, this is an impressive collection which deserves to be heard by everyone who loves the music of Josef Haydn.
Terence Frazor
03-16-10"
Fischer/Haydn
Muslit | the world | 06/15/2010
(3 out of 5 stars)
"This is really an incomplete review, because I haven't finished listening to the entire set. Not one to buy complete sets of anything, I was pleasantly surprised when I purchased the complete Haydn String Quartets with the Angeles String Quartet on Philips. So, after listening to a few samples and reading some reviews here at Amazon, I decided to take a chance on the Fischer Haydn Symphonies.
My report isn't entirely a happy one, judging from what I've heard so far (symphonies nos. 35, 49, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, and the Sinfonia Concertante.) My first reaction was to the small (string) forces employed in the Paris Symphonies. There seem to be no more than three desks of first violins, and maybe fewer. So few are they in number, you can occasionally here discrepancies in tone (not intonation), giving the impression that the orchestra never played on a regular basis (the notes say 14[!] years of recording, two months a year). Along with personnel changes over the years, it would be difficult to maintain the kind of perfection required for perfect blending. This is not to say that the strings don't play well - far from it. Fast, technical passages are delineated very cleanly, and cantabile passages are often quite beautiful. One can hear clearly that the (hand-picked) string players are top-notch players. Of the woodwind and brass, the principal oboe stands out for exceptional vitality and musicality. The principal flute, less so. But the horns and trumpets are first rate. In general, one can hear that the orchestra is essentially a recording one - not one that plays and performs regularly.
There are issues with the sound of the recording. Done at the Haydnsaal at Esterhazy Palace (the place where many of the symphonies had their premieres), with small string forces and most likely no doubling in the woodwinds in tutti passages, you're going to get a lot of echo and blurring in the sound, especially with added tympani, horn, and trumpet parts. Loud tutti passages with scurrying strings are especially muddled. The upper strings and treble woodwinds are often drowned out. At times, the sound is just a 'wash'.
The Sinfonia Concertante is one of the happy successes here. The balance between the orchestra and soloists is perfect. The soloists (violin, cello, oboe, bassoon) are all exceptional, with a naturalness to the playing which compliments the 'Austrian-Hungarian' tradition of music-making (more of that later). The slow movement is especially beautiful. Some might quibble with a few passages of uncertain intonation in the violin and cello in the final movement, but hardly enough to take away from the high quality of playing in general. One of Haydn's greatest excursions into the concerto form.
One good thing in Symphony no. 35 is that Maestro Fischer's presto in the finale is presto to the very last note - no last minute broadening of tempo as in Nicholas Ward's recording on Naxos with the Northern Chamber Orchestra, robbing the finale of its built-in joke (the expectation that the three initial forte chords will always be followed by...something).
Symphony no. 49 (La Passione), which Karl Geiringer characterizes as a "...feverish fierceness of expression that few musical or poetical works of the eighteenth century surpassed" ('Haydn, A Creative Life in Music'), is just not fierce enough here. I would describe this performance as energized, but lacking in the Sturm und Drang necessary in the 2nd and 4th movements to describe it as driven (compare the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on DGG). Fischer opts for what seems like a vibrato-less first movement, and but I'm not sure that color can be sustained throughout without a certain tediousness.
In the later symphonies, I had more issues with Maestro Fischer's interpretations. In the (undernourished) notes, he explains about the 'Austro-Hungarian Way of Music-Making' found in central Europe - an 'oral' tradition of performing and interpreting - a local 'vernacular', which includes a 'natural flow of ritardandi, rhythmical deviations, accents, and so on.' (Which also might include glissandi in the strings.) Most of these things didn't bother me (the delayed downbeats in some of the minuets are deliciously executed). More troublesome are the rhythmic deviations. For instance, in the Adagio introduction to symphony no. 85 (La Reine), all 16th notes are changed to 32nd notes, even in measures where Haydn explicitly makes the distinction between the two. A procedure common in the Baroque era, it seems wholly out of place here (and jarring, if you've never heard or played it before - absent in three other recordings I own, and in the five times I've performed this symphony, either in the United States or Europe). After reading the bit about exaggerated accents, I was expecting explosions in the development section of the first movement of the Oxford Symphony (no. 92), one of the most intricately accented passages in any Haydn symphony. Unfortunately, the 'fz's are rather tame.
On the whole, tempi are on the brisk and energetic side, with a perfectly timed (in my opinion) Adagio for the Oxford Symphony. But why an Andante for the Capriccio-Largo (and I don't mean the Baroque kind) of Symphony no. 86, one of Haydn's most profound movements? (The Bernstein recording with the New York Philharmonic is the only one I am aware of that comes close to a 'largo' reading.)
I think the most questionable deviations from the text on Maestro Fischer's part are in Haydn's orchestrations. In many trios of the minuets, for example, he compliments a solo woodwind with a solo string part (not indicated by Haydn). And there are examples in other movements where the tutti is done away with (near the ends of symphonies 86 and 92, where a solo violin suddenly appears in place of the entire violin section). Aside from the many instances where Haydn DOES indicate a solo string part in his symphonies (i.e., solo violin in last movement of Symphony no. 98, solo cello in the trio of Symphony no. 95), I don't think it wise to tamper with the orchestration of one of the great orchestrators. Perhaps making adjustments for acoustical considerations, or for the 'Austrian-Hungarian way of Music-Making', or just for personal preference, I think it should be avoided.
So, with the above reservations, in spite of often fine and energetic playing, I've given this massive endeavor three stars (really 3.5), based on what I've heard so far. I will update the review."
Track Listings (17) - Disc #1
