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Haydn: Symphonies No 45 "Farewell" & No 81 / Orpheus CO

Release Date: 12/04/2014
Label: Deutsche Grammophon Catalog #: 423376 Spars Code: DDD
Composer:  Franz Joseph Haydn Orchestra/Ensemble:  Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Number of Discs: 1
Recorded in: Stereo Length: 0 Hours 50 Mins.

More Haydn from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, whose Beethoven Prometheus recording (DG 419 608-2GH, 4/87) made me sit up and listen to this hard-working New York cooperative. The bright opening chords and the quality of their demure rejoinder compel no less attention at the beginning of the Symphony No. 45; and it starts as it means to go on. The joy of this performance is the players' real sense of excitement in the wit of Haydn's part-writing and the subtlety of his levels of recession. They also delight in listening acutely to each other: this is particularly evident in the flute's tracing of the melodic line of the Andante and in the robust rusticity of the wind serenaders in the Menuetto.

Some listeners may find the Read more nature of the attack on the opening descending arpeggios of the Farewell Symphony a little over-aggressive, and the clarity and immediacy of the recording itself a little glaring. I find the ends here justify the means; and after the fine chamber-music making in the coda's gradual exits, there was nothing I wanted to do more than to call them all back.

-- Hilary Finch, Gramophone [6/1988]
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