United Kingdom Haydn, CPE Bach: Jonathan Manson (cello), Dunedin Consort, Peter Whelan (director/harpsichord). Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 12.2.2023. (SRT)
Haydn – Symphony No.6 ‘Le matin’; Symphony No. 7 ‘Le midi’; Symphony No. 8 ‘Le osir’
CPE Bach – Cello Concerto in A serious, Wq.172
You may not robotically affiliate the interval instrument performers of the Dunedin Consort with the music of Haydn. Certainly, he doesn’t function on their programmes something like as continuously as Bach and Handel, their bread-and-butter staples. However, Haydn’s music can profit simply as a lot from the revelation of interval types and methods, and the early Esterházy symphonies aren’t really so distant in time from the good music of these earlier Baroque masters.
Either means, Peter Whelan was an enormously participating information by them on this live performance. He is greatest identified to Scottish audiences as the previous principal bassoon of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, however he left a number of years in the past to give attention to conducting. That means he is aware of this music from either side of the rostrum, so he has an excellent knack at preserving each viewers and performers engaged. His enthusiasm for the music is totally infectious, not least in his opening patter with the viewers. (My favorite second of that was when he described CPE Bach’s concerto as ‘just wild!’) He’s additionally monumental enjoyable to observe as he virtually dances alongside to the music whereas he directs from the harpsichord.
The orchestral sound that he and the musicians conjured up was good for this trio of symphonies, all courting from Haydn’s first yr on the Esterházy Palace. This being the Dunedin Consort, the ensemble was a small one, nevertheless it fitted the acoustic of the Queen’s Hall as if it had been tailored for it, and there was by no means any sense of loss or of getting by with a smaller group. The zingy strings have been mild on their ft, and the terrific winds oozed character, not least when a pair of flutes appeared to chirrup their means by the gradual motion of Le midi. The pure horns performed with their bells thrust defiantly skywards, and virtually each part received its second within the solar with some terrific solos. Christine Sticher deserves a particular point out on the double bass, for a collection of ever-more-outrageous solos in every third motion trio. Haydn should actually have favored his unique double bassist!
All of Haydn’s musical footage and jokes sparked into life, such because the flowing dawn and botched music lesson of Le matin, or the quasi-operatic recital of Le midi’s gradual motion. The storm that completed Le soir was on the well mannered aspect, reminding us that Haydn’s Sturm und Drang years have been nonetheless a way off. It very a lot felt like we have been watching this playfully scampering tempest from the consolation of a heat inside, nevertheless it was no much less satisfying for that.
While it is smart to carry out these three symphonies as a set, it’s fairly a number of medication to swallow in a single sitting. So I used to be glad for the variability offered by CPE Bach’s Cello Concerto, and what a change it was! While Haydn’s music exemplifies properly worked-out refinement, CPE’s appears to fizz off in a number of instructions without delay like an out-of-control firework. From its busy opening to its dazzling jig of a finale, you by no means fairly knew the place it was going subsequent, and its exceptional lament of a gradual motion, with its tortured chromaticisms and darkish harmonics, typically looks like it’s knocking on the door of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Principal cello Jonathan Manson performed it with aptitude and relaxed ease, his cello’s wiry sound abandoning a lot cantabile high quality for energetic athleticism. Nor have been there any problems with steadiness, with Whelan shaping the sound in order that the cello took its place as first amongst equals.
Simon Thompson