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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great work reassessed, February 28, 2005
This review is from: Haydn: The Seasons (Audio CD)
I really can't add any more detail then the other reviewer, although I was slightly less bothered by the soprano and didn't feel that she marred my overall appreciation of the recording. I would say that a better soprano would have escalated this performance into the stratosphere. This performance grabbed my attention from the beginning and is the best performance on disc for ensuring that Haydn's weaker sections are put forth in the best possible light, minimizing those periods where one's attention can wander. Everything else the other reviewer said holds true for me. This is my vote for the most outstanding classical release of 2004.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
(Almost) perfect..., October 6, 2004
This review is from: Haydn: The Seasons (Audio CD)
This new recording of "The Seasons" seems to be getting a lot of good press and while it is certainly worth all the praise, it doesn't - in my view - represent such a bold step forward compared to, say the Gardiner from 1992 (Archiv), to be treated as a complete novelty. To be sure, Jacobs does a great job reminding his fans (I am certainly one of them) about this often underappreciated oratorio by Papa Haydn (if there is a conductor today who can put a piece of music on the map, it certainly is Jacobs) but before Jacobs there was Gardiner and a few others, including Karajan and Boehm.
I love this new recording more than the initial tone of my review may suggest but I am not completely happy with it. The orchestral playing is absolutely marvellous - colourful and imaginative, the choir sings gloriously, the soloists are first rate and yet it is among them that I find the weakest link of this recording which is surprising considering that Jacobs has a great ear for voices.
Both men - Henschel and Guera - are splendid, delivering the arias and recitativi with great intelligence and musicality (listen to Guera's "In grauen Schleier rueckt heran", CD 1/10 or the cavatina "Dem Druck erlieget die Natur"). The soprano, however, is only a little more than adequate, at least to my ears. I appreciate her great care for the text but I'd rather hear the text painted with the voice than simply "delivered". It is my personal impression for I am rather tired of white, "farblos" voices and Marlis Petersen's voice is just like that: strong, pure but without much colour in it. To think what Jacobs's star Dorothea Roeschmann would have done with this music only aggravates the pain - where was she!? Even Barbara Bonney (Gardiner), in spite of her not always perfect German diction, sung this music with more charm and dedication. Don't get me wrong - Petersen is fine but her singing isn't inspired and a recording like this deserves better. The splendor of the orchestral playing and the contribution of the choir and two male soloists certainly make it unforgettable.
I am waiting impatienly for Jacobs's "Creation" - a few years ago he confessed that recording of this great oratorio with a huge choir was his greatest dream. Let's hope he'll make it come true very soon. But with a different soprano!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fresh "Listen" to a Classic Work, December 19, 2005
This review is from: Haydn: The Seasons (Audio CD)
The one disclaimer I will make before I begin this review--and it's an important one--is that I have not hear John Elliot Gardiner's "The Seasons," which should be comparable to Rene Jacobs's in many ways. That said, I will proceed to opine that if you know just about any modern-instruments version of this choral-music gem--well, you don't really know the work. Haydn was supposed to say in his latter years that he had just learned how to use the wind instruments and now, doggone it (I'm paraphrasing) "I must leave this world." Jacobs will instantly show you what Haydn meant. This "Seasons" is chock-full of especially piquant utterances from the winds, especially oboe and bassoons (including contrabassoon), which Haydn cleverly uses to portray birds, beasts, thunderstorms, bagpipes: never has the ingenuity and downright beauty of Haydn's orchestral mastery been clearer. That goes for strings and brass as well. Flying insects, country fiddles, hunting horns: Haydn may simply be mimicking the coloristic use of instruments he learned from hearing works like "Israel in Egypt" while in London, but how wonderfully he adapts these sounds to an expanded late-eighteenth-century orchestra.
From the very beginning, Jacobs gives notice that the orchestra will have a special prominence in this performance. The orchestral introduction to the first section, "Spring,' depicts the raging winter winds. Jacobs's orchestra does so with a bounding energy that almost requires Baritone Dietrich Henschel to shout his first entry. But he does not. In fact, he gives an elegant, far-from-shouted performance throughout and provides the rock-steady low-voice underpinning that Haydn requires. I'm just as happy with Tenor Werner Gura, who has a tender, Wunderlich-style delivery that's exactly right for farm-boy Lucas. Others have expressed dissatisfaction with Marlis Petersen. It's true that compared to, say, Eugen Jochum's unforgettable Gundula Janowitz, Petersen is a non-starter. But in ensemble work, at least, she does quite well enough--especially with Jacobs shaping numbers such as "Ihr Schonen aus der Stadt" so effectively, with such wonderful cumulative force. The RIAS Chamber Chorus is simply outstanding; just sample the storm chorus or, even better the wine-celebration chorus "Juhe! Der Wein ist Da."
Harmonia Mundi provides rich, resonant, bigger-than-life sound that captures both the beauty and the occasional thrilling rawness of that excellent period orchestra. How else can you capture a summer thundershower? Or a barn dance?
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