Michael Haydn: Horn Concerto; Duo Concertante; Divertimento; Six Minuets


Michael Haydn: Horn Concerto; Duo Concertante; Divertimento; Six Minuets
Neville Marriner
Label
Decca
Catalogue No.
4803031
Barcode
00028948030316
Format
1-CD
About

Michael Haydn, brother of Joseph, was a highly proficient composer in his own right who earned the respect and affection of his contemporaries. A Gramophone reviewer described him thus: ‘He is a man whose character, it seems to me, always comes clearly through his music: he was cheerful, easygoing, unambitious (also, said the Mozarts, inclined to the bottle)’. In recent decades, his music has begun to be more widely appreciated, due largely to the efforts of the American musicologist, Charles Sherman, whose discoveries include this Horn Concerto in D major. This collection, originally issued on Decca’s ‘Serenata’ series in 1993, has long been out of circulation, and offers music of incredible charm and warmth. Hidden, as it were, from history, it is now exhumed on Eloquence.

TRACK LISTING / ARTISTS

M HAYDN
1-3 Horn Concerto in D major, P.134
4 Six Minuets, P.70
5-7 Duo Concertante for Organ and Viola, P.55
Barry Tuckwell, horn
Simon Preston, organ
Stephen Shingles, viola
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields
Neville Marriner

8-11 Divertimento in G major
Members of the Vienna Octet

Recording information

Recording Producers: Michael Bremner (Horn Concerto, Minuets, Duo Concertante); Christopher Raeburn (Divertimento)
Balance Engineers: Michael Mailes (Horn Concerto, Minuets); Stanley Goodall (Duo Concertante); James Brown (Divertimento)
Recording Locations: Kingsway Hall, London, UK, May 1967 (Horn Concerto, Minuets); Royal College of Organists, London, UK, January 1969 (Duo Concertante); Sofiensaal, Vienna, Austria, September 1962 (Divertimento)

Reviews

‘The neatest of orchestral playing informs these performances: alert strings, restrained wind, and enterprising harpsichord’ Gramophone

‘[The] Duo Concertante is a leisurely, expansive and extremely likeable piece … [it] is played here with spirit and feeling, and with the excellence of ensemble and unanimity of phrasing that one expects from the St. Martin in the Fields Academy. Stephen Shingles’ viola tone has a proper touch of reediness … Simon Preston […] plays fluently, and phrases sensitively’ Gramophone