A Spate of Haydn Works Comes to CD

Haydn is not a comfortable-making composer. Respected, of course. Loved? Hardly. His music is too sneaky for that: too full of surprise, of learned humor, of nervous rhythmic edges. He tends, unlike the beloved Mozart, to speak in short, terse phrases.

But Haydn’s music can also be comparable to Handel’s in its nobility and scope, as witness his oratorio “The Creation,” which with two recent additions is now represented in the compact disc catalogue by no fewer than seven versions.

The newcomers include what would seem to be the first appearance in this country of a 1964 studio job in which conductor Gunter Wand, around whom a minor and not-readily-explicable cult would seem to be growing, leads the Gurzenich Orchestra and Chorus of Cologne in a plodding, lumpy simulation of grandeur (Accord 200422, 2 CDs). The only occasional signs of life are provided by the ardent tenor of the young Peter Schreier and the ringing authority of basso Theo Adam.

Whereas Wand’s “Creation” represents an aspect of the Romantic view of Haydn, that of Joel Revzen--a name previously unknown to this department--is snappily up to date (Albany AR005-6, 2 CDs). Revzen, director of the Minnesota Chorale, leads that ensemble (smaller and more precise than Wand’s army) and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in a trimly au courant reading, which does not slight the grander aspects of the music.

Revzen has in soprano Lynne Dawson a ravishing, agile Gabriel (one looks forward to hearing this exceptional young artist Wednesday, with Christopher Hogwood, at Ambassador Auditorium); an intelligent if lightweight Raphael in basso John Cheek, and, alas, the strangulated tenor of the once-promising Neil Rosenshein to obliterate Uriel’s seraphic arias.

Period performances dominates the latest Haydn symphony releases. First, a trio of unsettling, relatively little-known marvels--Nos. 26 (“Lamentazione”), 52, and 53 (“L’Imperiale”)--in nervously brilliant interpretations by conductor Sigiswald Kuijken and his supremely accomplished Flemish ensemble, La Petite Bande (Virgin Classics 90743).

London’s Hanover Band, which has fared poorly in the authenticity sweepstakes over the years with its Beethoven symphonies and concertos and some late-Haydn, finally comes up a winner with its lean, propulsive performance, under Roy Goodman, of the splendidly dark Symphony No. 95 in C minor, part of an attractive program (on Nimbus 5126) that also includes Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony and the “Toy” Symphony once attributed to Haydn but now credited to Papa Mozart.

Still on the subject of the symphonies, Angel/EMI, in its budget Classics for Pleasure series, has begun to reissue the 1960 “Salomon” dozen by the 80-year-old Sir Thomas Beecham and his Royal Philharmonic, beginning with “The Clock” and “Drum Roll” (4530). The elements that marked these interpretations as stylish in their day may not be too obvious to contemporary ears. The outer movement do have velocity, but textures are thickish, the minuets ponderous and the occasional, unseemly ritards (the one that ends “The Clock” is a doozy) are irksome.

There is less eccentricity and less charm in the roughly contemporaneous Haydn of the aged Bruno Walter, who leads a bland, dumpling-like Symphony No. 88 and a “Military” Symphony notable only for its humorlessness and its crude, loud execution by the Columbia Symphony on another low-priced reissue (CBS-Odyssey 44777).

The foregoing longingly bring to mind two other pre-authenticity Haydn interpreters: the late Eugen Jochum, who knew as well as any conductor, even into his 80s, how to propel the symphonies and whose traversal for Deutsche Grammophon of the “Salomon” Symphonies is long overdue for CD reissue, and Leonard Bernstein, whose boisterous 1960s recordings with the New York Philharmonic should be given high re-release priority by CBS.

Among recent Haydn chamber music recordings, two on modern instruments are worth noting. The Takacs Quartet, formerly of Budapest and currently in residence at the University of Colorado, offers lively, witty readings of the first three of the great Opus 76 quartets (London 421 30) with the remaining three scheduled for release later this year in, one hopes, less harsh and boomy sonics.

Slashing energy, lyric lilt and keen balances characterize the program--recorded live, and with thrilling immediacy, in London’s Wigmore Hall--by the Lindsay Quartet: the familiar “Lark” Quartet, the dark little gem in D minor, Opus 42, and the glorious Opus 76, No. 5 (ASV 637). Don’t miss this one.