Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten [Import]

Franz Joseph Haydn (Composer), John Eliot Gardiner (Conductor), English Baroque Soloists (Orchestra), Monteverdi Choir (Orchestra), Barbara Bonney (Performer), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Barbara Bonney, Anthony Rolfe Johnson
• Orchestra: English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir
• Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
• Composer: Franz Joseph Haydn
• Audio CD (March 9, 1992)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Import
• Label: Archiv Prod Import
• ASIN: B0000057E0
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #204,426 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

cds are free of scratches. Hardly used. May be some handling wear to the cd case.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Everything There Is a Season., July 17, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten (Audio CD)

Joseph Haydn lived too long and too well, for which his reputation has suffered. He can't compete as a romantic hero with Mozart, whose tragic early death amounted to apotheosis, or Beethoven, the Promethean rebel, also tragic because of his deafness. So Papa Haydn has been taken for a mere fashionable servant of patronage, however skillful, and his music performed accordingly. Not by everyone, of course! but by many casual lovers of classical music. Programmers on classical music radio and even impresarios of symphonies have contributed to this image of a gemuetlich but mundane composer.

I own one much older performance of The Seasons, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, which I bought in the mid '60s on LPs and which I've never listened to beyond the first platter. Honestly, it seemed gemuetlich but mundane. But now, here's John Eliot Gardiner to rescue Die Jahreszeiten from my neglect. This is not a recent recording by the way - 1992 - but such was my aversion to the cumbersome interpretations I'd heard before that I just got around to hearing Gardiner's by riding the crest of his superb Beethoven performances.

Haydn was a master of orchestration, and that's where Gardiner's English Baroque Soloists excel, in orchestral fireworks. The Monteverdi Choir is perhaps a trifle too large to be recorded as faithfully as I might wish, but the three soloists - soprano Barbara Bonney, tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson, and Bass Andreas Schmidt - are "right there in your living room." Johnson has a lovely tenor timbre, but his German pronunciation is mushy, if that matters to you. Still, it's the orchestral music that sings to me, in the overtures and in the complex, expressive accompaniments of the arias. Without the orchestra, Haydn's vocal lines might sound gemuetlich indeed. I can't help imagining the tenor and bass with Alpenstocks in their hands, and poor Barbara looking a lot like the St. Pauli Girl. But then, perhaps that's what Haydn intended, since this oratorio is close to the finale of the long tradition of Pastoral music.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended, May 10, 2004

By 

55anonymous55 "55anonymous55" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten (Audio CD)

Haydn's "The Seasons" is not nearly as popular as his earlier oratorio "The Creation", but I think that listeners who enjoyed "The Creation" would also like "The Seasons" very much. The general critical consensus seems to be that Haydn was handicapped in writing "The Seasons" by an inferior libretto, but that musically "The Seasons" is at least the equal of the earlier oratorio.

John Eliot Gardiner and his team bring the virtues of authentic performance style to this music: clarity, rhythmic propulsion, and vivid musical timbres. As elsewhere, it's like removing the varnish from an old painting, letting its brilliance shine through.

I have two criticisms. The tenor soloist, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, has the habit of placing the dynamic peak of each note rather late, so that his singing is like an endless sequence of little crescendos. I find this irritating but not enough to spoil the pleasure in what he's singing. There is also a bit of harshness in the instrumental playing: the brass produce a buzzing sound in forte passages, and the side drum and tambourine in the drinking chorus seem a bit obtrusive.

Everything else is wonderful: the solo singing from Barbara Bonney and Andreas Schmidt, the contributions of the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, and the supremely musical and imaginative direction from Gardiner that has put him at the top of his field.

To sum up, if you enjoy Haydn's music, this is a "don't miss" recording.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sir John and the Spectres of Oblivion, January 29, 2012

By 

Bernard Michael O'Hanlon (Wilsons Prom, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joseph Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten (Audio CD)

Jeggy was gloom-ridden as he sat on a frilly pillow in the dark. While he was still the darling of the Gramophone Magazine and BBC 3, his dismissal from Deutsche Grammophon rankled him. Was he not the greatest conductor in the world? Had he not recently sat, Petronius-like, in the front row when Chailly unveiled his Beethoven symphonies to the public?

"Commercially unviable!" Gardiner snarled to himself. "I'll show those blighters!"

"Name?" the Witch of Endor croaked.

"Summon the spirit of Joseph Haydn," John Eliot Gardiner said snootily. "I want him to endorse my recording of The Seasons - that'll teach those Hunnic ingrates at Deutsche Grammophon!"

When the woman saw Gardiner's leonine mane of white hair, she cried out, "Why have you deceived me? You're that Jeggy bugger!"

"Don't be afraid!" the conductor exclaimed stoutly. "It is I! Now what do you see?"

"I glimpse a ghostly figure coming up out of the earth."

"What does he look like?"

"An old man with a large nose," the witch murmured.

The conductor knew it was Haydn. He bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

"Jeggy, why have you disturbed my sleep?"

"I am in great distress," the founder of the English Baroque Soloists whined. "The Philistines are raging against me and DG has terminated my contract. Their President no longer answers my calls. It's quite awful! So I have called on you for assistance. You must surely be aware of my landmark recording of Die Jahreszeiten from 1992. If you could bestow your imprimatur upon it, it would be rather helpful!"

The phantasm shuddered in agony. "Why do you consult me, now that the DG has departed from you and become your enemy? DG has done what was predicted. The classical music industry has torn the kingdom from your hands and given it to your adversaries - to Harnoncourt and Jacobs in Die Jahreszeiten. I am familiar with your tepid little recording: it's sprucely dry, unimaginative and lacking in humanity. Its coldness is semi-masked by fast tempo and high energy but it's glacial all the same. Your `Skip to my Lou' prelude to summer skates over the innate majesty of the score. Blink and you'll miss the Bird as Prophet - the oboe-passage that augurs in the onset of Summer. Only you, Jeggy - yes, only you could attempt to transform the finale to summer into evensong and nearly succeed in doing so. Dionysus fails to make an appearance in the Drunkards' Chorus in Autumn. Anthony Rolfe Johnson sings grittily. With no phrase left unclipped, the English Baroque Soloists scratch their way through the score. Come the finale of Winter, there is no sense of the Second Coming: it's tea-on-the-lawn."

Jeggy whimpered.

"Because you did not obey the spirit of the score, soon enough your bloodless recording of the Seasons will join me in oblivion!"

Immediately Jeggy fell full length on the ground, filled with fear. His strength was wasted for he had eaten nothing organic from his verdant hamlet in Dorset.

Filled with pity, the Witch of Endor raised Jeggy to his feet and dusted him off.

"I don't want you to go home famished. Here is some Soup for the journey."

She handed over a copy of Karajan's recording of The Seasons from 1972 Haydn: Die Jahreszeiten

Jeggy wept.