Haydn: Horn Concerto No. 2 in D major, Hob.VIId:4

A generous collection of Haydn Concertos, Overtures and Dances, this 2CD set offers the Philips recordings of the Cello Concertos and the Argo recordings of the remaining works. Although issued in various reissues, the Marriner/Argo Haydn Concertos have never before been offered collectively, and this collection offers a great opportunity to explore these recordings from 1966–69. Familiar works such as the E flat major Trumpet Concerto and the two Cello Concertos appear together with the little-known Organ Concerto. Also on offer are two sets of German Dances/Allemandes (both making their first appearance on CD) and a pair of Overtures, of which that for Acide e Galatea is a first-on-CD release.

There has been some doubt about the authenticity of Haydn’s Horn Concerto No. 2 but there is no doubt that it is a genuinely fine work for the natural horn. Wilhelm Brun is a specialist on this instrument and has made a name for himself as a chamber musician and soloist. These more obscure works make an interesting addition to this series.

Jasper de Waal has occupied the position of first horn with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2004.

He won several regional music competitions for young musicians in1983 and 1984. Jasper can be heard as a soloist on dozens of recordings of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. His other recordings include the horn trios of Johannes Brahms and Jochem Slothouwer and Gregson’s horn concerto.

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is made up of orchestral players of the highest international standing. Many of them can be heard not only in the orchestra but also regularly in chamber music performances. After all, the fabulous wealth of that repertoire is a rewarding challenge for any musician.

In the CD series ‘First Chairs of the RoyalConcertgebouw Orchestra’, musicians submit their personal calling card, as it were, with their very own choice of music from their particular instrument’s repertoire. This is one of the ways that the orchestra can proudly introduce its musicians as individuals.

This ebullient collection features Concertos and chamber works for Horn by both Michael and Joseph Haydn.

The supreme, voluptuary realist of French painting, Jean Ingres, exclaimed that Haydn was music’s alpha and omega: ‘Whoever studies music, let his daily bread be Haydn…the first who created everything, discovered everything, taught everything to the rest!’ While an intervening century or two of musicology might tell us that if Haydn was father to the symphony and string quartet, there were some interesting midwives among his contemporaries, Haydn’s sheer industry remains unequalled; but so too his creative facility and fertility in returning to the well time and time again, and never returning empty. In this first volume of Brilliant Classics’s survey of Haydn’s music, issued to mark the 200th anniversary of his death in 1809, are many of his most famous works: all 104 symphonies, his two oratorios of imperishable power and beauty, The Creation and The Seasons, as well as another with much no less striking music, The Return of Tobit. There are several of the operas he wrote for the court at Eszterhaza, where he was more or less a servant-prisoner for most of his adult life, and – a first on disc – a complete recording of the 126 trios written at the behest of the court’s prince for an obsolete string instrument, the baryton, in which the prince had himself attained a modest accomplishment. Most of the string quartets are here too, in recordings made especially for Brilliant by the Buchberger Quartet, and historically informed interpretations of the complete piano sonatas on instruments of Haydn’s day. This is a significant contribution to the anniversary of one of the great composers, with much new material, and at an unbeatable price.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Bonus CD-ROM contains song texts and a specially commissioned essay exploring Haydn’s music, genre by genre, by the renowned Haydn authority, Richard Wigmore New recordings of bayton fios and other chamber works made especially for this set and not previously released.