Haydn: The Seasons

The Seasons was Haydn's followup to his successful The Creation. In four parts, each musically depicting a season, it offers plentiful opportunities for all the participants to shine and conductor Jacobs, his splendid orchestra and chorus, and three outstanding soloists deliver a committed performance that's a delight from the first note to the last. Jacobs is known for his gutsy interpretations and this set is no exception; tempos are lively, the few passages of second-drawer Haydn (still preferable to most composer's top-drawer stuff) retain interest, and the period orchestra delivers crisp, lively playing. Haydn's genius transforms many genre scenes: a summer storm, hunting episodes, daybreak, the gloomy winter fog, peasant dances, and imitations of nature, like frog croaks that will bring a smile to your face. Special kudos for the RIAS singers, who bring a finely blended sound and colorful word painting to the choral numbers. Güra's mellifluous tenor makes his solos a joy, but Petersen's light soprano and Henschel's firm baritone are as effective. This is The Seasons to get if you're having only one. --Dan Davis Amazon.com

Props

As I type this, I am about to perform the work in about two hours as a member of the chorus. When I began singing it, I really didn't care for it. It is a difficult piece, at least in my opinion.

This recording really helped me like the piece more than I ever would have before. The natural horns, the intense trombones, the excellent oboist, the soloists (especially the duet near the end of Disc 2, Track 5), and the choir. Jacobs can is very adept at bringing the tender cantabile passages out where appropriate and conducts the ensemble in what I have termed "appropriate brashness" in the sections requiring this.

Finally, the sizzle that I have heard with HIP instrumental ensembles like the Boston Baroque is definetely present, a feeling you cannot come close to accomplishing with a modern orchestra on older pieces, in my opinion.

Love it! November 30, 2007

Excelente Version

Creo que Jacobs entendio perfectamente lo que quizo describir Haydn en este bello oratorio y lo plasmó perfectamente en la ejecución con instrumentos de la época que puedo escuchar en estos discos,el caracter y el nivel alcanzado con los cantantes y los instrumentos merece un reconocimiento ya que una ejecución de este tipo no es nada fácil (afinación,tiempos),recomiendo comprar este CD,he escuchado otras versiones de este oratorio(Karajan,Böhm,Collin Davis)son muy buenas tambien pero si quieren escuchar lo que quizo expresar Haydn musicalmente y sobre todo con el sonido de la epoca me quedaría con esta. February 15, 2006

WONDERFUL HAYDN

Franz Joseph Haydn happens to be one of my very favorite composers. His oratorios and masses are indeed very special. "The Seasons" finds dear Haydn at his very very best. It is a work with splendid vocal and chorus writing along with masterful writing also for the orchestra with all melding together to form a masterpiece that fully exploits the attributes of the Classical period of so-called classical music as well as being a harbinger of the Romantic period of Classical Music to come (especially its descriptive side of music). In this recording, Rene Jacobs and his forces do Haydn proud providing a marvelous performance of this great work.

Playing on "original instruments" Jacobs leads a spirited account of the seasons imparting marvelously the "sounds" of each season from both orchestra and chorus. Never do these "nature recreations" sound weird or laughable as in some recordings that I've heard.

No, Marlis Petersen is no Gundula Janowitz (who is?); however, she does sing very well and is a great contributor to the ensembles which are important to this work. I also enjoyed her solo numbers. Tenor Werner Gura and Baritone Dietrich Henschel gave me considerable pleasure also singing with sweet but powerful (when needed) voices. The chorus is "spot on" singing really rather well-listen to the "Drinking Song" "Juhe! Der Wein ist Da." marvelous! Jacobs certainly imparts wonderfully the vitality and rowdiness along with the tenderness of this work!

I thoroughly enjoyed hearing this work again with this very fine recording--you will too by buying this CD set. (The sound is marvelous too capturing all of the forces masterfully!)
February 4, 2006

A Fresh "Listen" to a Classic Work

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? December 19, 2005

Good performance of Haydn

I have always loved Haydn's masses and chamber music, as an amateur performer, listener and student of composition. However, performances of his symphonies have frequently left me somewhat indifferent. Important works, yes, and individually some fine performances by various artists, but not in the same class for me as those of Mozart or Beethoven.

I am a big fan of Baroque music and own multiple recordings of the major works of this era, especially the oratorios of Handel and the Passions and cantatas of Bach and his forerunners. I have often wondered what an HIP performance of a Haydn oratorio would sound like. I own several sets of his symphonies done HIP and it has at least rekindled my interest in those works.

So, when I saw that Rene Jacobs had a hand in this recording I decided to see what a Haydn oratorio with an HIP slant would sound like. Would it come across as his symphonies in many hands, nice but not really packed with emotion? Or would it knock my socks off? Well, I am wearing no socks!

The performers are all first rate and the engineering is good too. The performance has a crisp feel to it. The male voices are especially outstanding. The choral and orchestral work here are both first rate.

Rene Jacobs certainly understands Baroque opera, so that is why I think he does such a great job here. He knows how to treat the oratorio as vocal music that tells a story. Jacobs knows how to deliver performances that convey excitement, but don't go "over the top" and turn to choral mush.

If you want to approach this less often performed classical era oratorio under the tutelage of a master of Baroque vocal music, this is your recording. Buy it! September 19, 2005

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