Haydn: Violin Concertos - Complete

Frederico Guglielmo (Artist), Haydn (Composer), . (Conductor), L'Arte dell'Arco (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: L'Arte dell'Arco
• Conductor: .
• Composer: Haydn
• Audio CD (March 30, 2010)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Brilliant Classics
• ASIN: B002NWRMSQ
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,709 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major, H. 7a/1: 1. Allegro moderato

2. Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major, H. 7a/1: 2. Adagio

3. Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major, H. 7a/1: 3. Presto

4. Violin Concerto in G major, H. 7a/4: 1. Allegro moderato

5. Violin Concerto in G major, H. 7a/4: 2. Adagio

6. Violin Concerto in G major, H. 7a/4: 3. Allegro

7. Violin Concerto in A major ('Melker Konzert'), H. 7a/3: 1. Moderato

8. Violin Concerto in A major ('Melker Konzert'), H. 7a/3: 2. Adagio

9. Violin Concerto in A major ('Melker Konzert'), H. 7a/3: 3. Allegro

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be a Pal, Joey! Write Me a Concerto!, November 17, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Haydn: Violin Concertos - Complete (Audio CD)

It's likely that Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) wrote these three violin concertos specifically for his friend and concertmaster Luigi Tomasini, to be performed at Esterhaza, the opulent but isolated estate of his patron Prince. Tomasini was himself a competent composer as well as a virtuosic fiddler, whose technique inspired Haydn to write in a bravura style more 'baroque' than 'classical.' There probably wasn't much else to do, for either man, at lonely Esterhaza besides compose, rehearse, and flirt with ladies of appropriate lowly rank. Haydn in fact composed at least 45 concertos during his years at Esterhaza, especially in the 1760s, for performance by the twenty-or-so members of his resident court orchestra. Such concertos would have pleased the soloists at least as much as the aristocratic guests of the Prince who formed the only audience. There might be a touch of Vivaldi surviving in these Italianate concertos -- the serenade second movement of the Concerto in C, for instance, with its pizzicato backdrop for the lush melody of the solo violin. Two of the three concertos are score for strings only, while the third adds oboes and horns.

Haydn is HIPP. That is, Haydn's music has appropriately become the bailiwick of "historically informed performance practices." That phrase connotes more than the use of "original instruments", however. It's considerably more about how the instruments are played, in what sort of ensemble, and how the music is interpreted. Violinist Federico Guglielmo does indeed play museum-worthy violins: a "Haydnesque" instrument built in naples in 1757 and a baroque instrument from Genoa of 1710. Rather few such instruments have survived, alas, and many, even Stradivarii, have been rebuilt to 20th C specs. Most ensemble fiddlers play replicas built in their own lifetimes. As for the winds, well friends, we wind players are painfully envious. Almost all intact wind instruments of the baroque and earlier are ensconced in museums, where it's devilishly hard to get permission to handle them or measure them. We all play modern replicas, and the craft of building such instruments has needed to be painstakingly relearned, largely through trail and error, over the last five or six decades. Thus, before the art of playing "original" instruments could be polished, the replicas had to be well-made enough to be playable.

Guglielmo's ensemble L'Arte dell'Arco plays exclusively instruments appropriate for the known performance practices of the 18th Century, of Haydn's musical milieu. They play them with complete proficiency - no apologies! - and Guglielmo himself wields a very hot 'spiccato' bow. The best example of what he can do with that bow, which a modern fiddler can't quite match, is the complicated double-stopping (at intervals of a tenth) in the presto movement of the Concerto in C. But there's more that's HIPP in this performance than the flare of the soloist. The elegant sprightliness and the transparency which allows the voices of the whole ensemble to sing forth are the result of historically informed practice.

There's not much justification any more, to put it bluntly, for recording the music of Joseph Haydn on 20th C instruments or according to late-romantic 20th C taste. I don't want to be draconian -- oh no! not me! -- so if you have no other option, go ahead and play Haydn on whatever instruments you have, in the privacy of your garage or bedroom. And if you have family heirloom recordings of pre-HIPP Haydn, go ahead and play them now and the for 'auld lang syne.' :-)

In fact, there are surprisingly few recordings available of these violin concertos that are not HIPP. Amazon lists performances by Isaac Stern, Arthur Grimiaux, Oleg Kagan, Rainer Küchi, and Christian Tetzlaff. If you want to hear for yourself why I'm so assertive about the superiority of 'historical performance practices,' just compare this recording with any of those. The most recent one, by Tetzlaff, is quite well played but sounds thick and dull by comparison to Guglielmo's. And Tetzlaff is one of my favorite contemporary fiddlers!

You may already have this recording, by the way. It's included in the Haydn Masterworks Big Box from Brilliant Classics.