This week's releases reviewed
HAYDN: STRING QUARTETS OP 17
The period instruments players of the London String Quartet began their survey of Haydn with the Op 9 set of 1769, which the composer wanted reckoned as his real start in quartet-writing. Here, in the Op 17 set that followed in 1771, the group plays with an often nasal, grainy tone that evokes the much older world of the viol, and also the every-notematters approach of the best of viol consort playing. Early Haydn is rarely presented with the expressive grip of these performances, which also take the unusual course of following the details of a specific, late 18th-century edition, published by Welcker in London in the 1770s. It takes its anomalies and inconsistencies as the key to “a world of music-making where spontaneous choices have to be made”. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c
MICHAEL DERVAN
HAYDN: PIANO SONATAS VOL 2
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The second volume of Haydn piano sonatas from Marc-André Hamelin is nicely timed to fall in the middle of this Haydn anniversary year. His selection here runs to nine sonatas (Nos 26, 31, 33, 34, 35, 39, 42, 48, and 49 in the numbering from Hoboken’s catalogue), plus the profound Variations in F minor and the flighty Capriccio in C. Hamelin has 10 of the fleetest fingers around, and it’s in the high-spirited fast movements that he comes into his own. For responsiveness to the recitative-like flavour that Haydn often adopts in slow movements, Hamelin can’t compare with the likes of Alfred Brendel. Spontaneity, rather than reflection, is his watchword. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c
MICHAEL DERVAN
REGER: CLARINET SONATAS
The dangerously shifting harmonic sands of Max Reger hold no fears for Dutch clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer. In fact, he’s become deeply in thrall to their particular appeal, savouring what he calls “the melancholy shades of the sonatas, the deep autumn colours, that solemn dark brown, the sun suddenly breaking through the clouds”. His new recording places the Sonata in B flat, Op 107, completed in 1909, before the earlier pair that the composer wrote in 1900. It’s a smart move. The later work is purer, more distilled, less distracting and less dizzying in its chromatic journeyings, and it functions as an apt preparation for the earlier style. Pianist Hans Eijsackers is an impressive grounding force in all three pieces. www.challenge.nl
MICHAEL DERVAN
VIVALDI: FOUR SEASONS; GEMINIANI: 2 CONCERTI GROSSI
If you’ve ever sampled a fair share of the recordings of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
, you may well have come to the conclusion that some performers simply set out to be different. You could explain it as a kind of marketing ploy to help them to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Martin Pearlman’s new version with Boston Baroque chooses a rather more central course and, with Christina Day Martinson decorating the solo part tastefully, the route of eccentricity and gasp-inducing antics is clearly being left to others. The coupling offers two of the attractive concertos that Francesco Geminiani (who died in Dublin in 1762 and is buried there) created out of violin sonatas by Corelli. www.telarc.com
MICHAEL DERVAN