More Haydn for Mozart Year

Joseph Haydn, Mozart’s favorite composer, has prospered during the latter’s nominal big year. And with the recording industry’s characteristic--inevitably suicidal--overkill, Haydn, whose music still steadfastly refuses to sell, is running a not-that-close but still-unprecedented strong second to Mozart in sheer volume of recordings released this year.

There are new Haydn symphony cycles in progress from two British labels--Hyperion and L’Oiseau-Lyre--both on period instruments, while London is in the process of re-releasing the pioneering canon--107 completed works--of the 1970s, on modern instruments, conducted by Antal Dorati.

The Hyperion project, which has Roy Goodman directing the Hanover Band, kicks off with Symphonies Nos. 73 (“La Chasse”), 74 and 75 (66520) and Nos. 90, 91 and 92 (“Oxford”) (66521).

The big works here are, indeed, the nickname pieces, led with energy to burn by Goodman, not from the podium or the concertmaster’s chair--from which positions Goodman’s work is preserved on a few dozen Nimbus releases--but from the harpsichord. Goodman, clearly a handy fellow, is not one to hide his talents under a bushel.

But while there are vitality and intelligence here to counterbalance some rough ensemble, that harpsichord becomes a distracting entity, rather than a filler-in of harmonies. It is too prominently recorded, perhaps even redundant in these richly scored, late-ish to late symphonies.

Withall, Hyperion has found a resonant yet clarifying acoustic for its Haydn, in place of the dense sonics that have often afflicted the Hanover Band’s Nimbus recordings.

Where it might be expected as an enhancing presence, the harpsichord is absent from the earlier symphonies--Nos. 21-24, 28-31, 34--on the initial release (oddly labeled Volume 4) of the cycle in progress from Christopher Hogwood and his Academy of Ancient Music (L’Oiseau-Lyre 430-082, three CDs).

But scholarly opinions do vary as to the appropriateness of the keyboard continuo even in these earliest of Haydn’s Esterhazy symphonies. Whatever the case, nothing really seems to be missing from the dashing, superbly executed and, when appropriate, solemn--as in the striking opening movements of Nos. 21 and 22 (“The Philosopher”)--Hogwood-Academy collaboration.

Among the modern-instrument editions, one of particular local interest displays the Classical predilections of Esa-Pekka Salonen, who leads the Stockholm Chamber Orchestra in the reasonably familiar Nos. 22 and 82 (“The Bear”) and the rarely encountered No. 78, an intensely dramatic, edgy work that Salonen presented with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in April.

Salonen’s readings here are for the most part fleet, crisp and superbly detailed, with wind solos notably full of character, although one might wish for a bit more dash in the minuets (Sony 45972).

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, whose performances with his period-instrument Vienna Concentus Musicus have set more than a few teeth on edge with their often outre interpretive notions, seems more inclined toward clarification and simple entertainment than mystification these days. The evidence is in his grand, even heroic readings of Haydn’s “London” symphonies with the modern-instrument-playing members of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Harnoncourt’s latest releases couple No. 94 (“Surprise”) with the under-appreciated No. 95, in C minor (Teldec 73148), and the great symphonies in B-flat, No. 98, and E-flat, No. 99 (Teldec 46331), with their ever-surprising inventiveness and jagged grandeur.

This is sonorous, big-band Haydn, executed with incisiveness and skill. Harnoncourt’s generally laissez-faire attitude toward the solo winds is particularly welcome given the stylishness of the Concertgebouw principals.

The situation is quite the reverse in the budget Odyssey reissue (45672, two CDs) of the first six “London” Symphonies--Nos. 93-98--recorded by George Szell and his Cleveland Orchestra in the late 1960s.

Szell is so intent on conducting every 32nd note of the solos (to say nothing of the tuttis) that the winds lack impact. Haydn’s toughness is everywhere apparent. His wit and lyricism are, however, forced into hiding by the conductor’s ironhanded control.