Haydn's Haus

[Madiel]

My op. 50 is by the Festetics.
Not my kind of musicianship I'm afraid.
Maybe it's time to find a recording I'll pull out to enjoy.

For op.50 I have the Amati Quartet.



Others I'd suggest trying are the Nomos Quartet, and if you can find them the old Tokyo Quartet recordings are very widely praised. The Tokyo might only be something that you can get on streaming/download/CD-R, if that bothers you.

[Valentino]

Thanks.
Download is fine. I rip all cds anyway.
Also found Nomos on Spotify.

[Gurn Blanston]

For op.50 I have the Amati Quartet.



Others I'd suggest trying are the Nomos Quartet, and if you can find them the old Tokyo Quartet recordings are very widely praised. The Tokyo might only be something that you can get on streaming/download/CD-R, if that bothers you.

I like that Amati,  one of the few non-HIP recordings I still listen to,  and another is the Tokyo.  For HIPpies  Op 50 is the best of the series by the Salomon Quartet,  but LHQ also does a very nice job with it. I was rather underwhelmed by Festetics here,  sad to say 😔.

🤠😎

[DavidW]

I like that Amati,  one of the few non-HIP recordings I still listen to,  and another is the Tokyo.  For HIPpies  Op 50 is the best of the series by the Salomon Quartet,  but LHQ also does a very nice job with it. I was rather underwhelmed by Festetics here,  sad to say 😔.

🤠😎

Well good luck with that if you don't already own them.  Both ensembles are on Hyperion records whose business model is let most of their catalog go OOP on cd, don't stream anything and maybe make some of the catalog available as downloads directly on their website (which most people wouldn't think to check).  I wouldn't be surprised if the Salomon Quartet set is already out of print.

[JBS]

Well good luck with that if you don't already own them.  Both ensembles are on Hyperion records whose business model is let most of their catalog go OOP on cd, don't stream anything and maybe make some of the catalog available as downloads directly on their website (which most people wouldn't think to check).  I wouldn't be surprised if the Salomon Quartet set is already out of print.

Going by Amazon pricing, it is, but some cheap used copies are available.

[Gurn Blanston]

Going by Amazon pricing, it is, but some cheap used copies are available.

That's how I got the entire cycle.  Except for Op 77, which I downloaded the FLAC's from Hyperion.  Gotta really watch out for CD's of that vintage from them,  it's right in the heart of the bronze disk era. 

🤠😎

[DavidW]

I've been relistening to Haydn's symphonies and just have to say the 24th symphony is simply glorious!  If you haven't heard it in awhile, give it a spin.

[calyptorhynchus]

I never had any problems with bronzed disks. I had some that looked as if they had been sitting on the beach for hours, day after day, but this didn't affect the playback. I sold them just to be on the safe side 

[Gurn Blanston]

I never had any problems with bronzed disks. I had some that looked as if they had been sitting on the beach for hours, day after day, but this didn't affect the playback. I sold them just to be on the safe side 

I  sure have!  But with Hyperion I just wrote to them and they asked for the numbers on the hub of the disk and then they sent me links to download the FLAC's. They knew it was messed up,  they just verified that I actually had it.  All very civilized.  They couldn't send me a replacement because it had been OOP for years.

🤠😎

[SonicMan46]

My op. 50 is by the Festetics.
Not my kind of musicianship I'm afraid.
Maybe it's time to find a recording I'll pull out to enjoy.

Hi Valentino - although I own most of the Festetics, not in Op. 50 - have the first two below, but that last one's cover art is tempting me!  Dave

   

[Valentino]

Zaïde is a winner!

[Madiel]

How do people generally feel about the Leipziger recordings? They've been jumping about in the opuses in much of their (as yet incomplete) series.

I'm trying out op.17 at the moment (where they didn't jump about), and initial impression is quite good from the first couple of movements of op.17/2. Not for the old instruments crowd as far as I can tell? But with a performance style that seems at least somewhat HIP informed.

[Gurn Blanston]

How do people generally feel about the Leipziger recordings? They've been jumping about in the opuses in much of their (as yet incomplete) series.

I'm trying out op.17 at the moment (where they didn't jump about), and initial impression is quite good from the first couple of movements of op.17/2. Not for the old instruments crowd as far as I can tell? But with a performance style that seems at least somewhat HIP informed.

I don't have any of their Haydn,  but I have their complete cycle of Schubert,  and I  like their style and sound.  If I wasn't part of the old instruments crowd I would certainly give their Haydn a try.   

🤠😎

[DavidW]

Leipzig SQ is one of my favorite ensembles, I didn't realize they've recorded Haydn before!  I'll have to check it out.

[Madiel]

Leipzig SQ is one of my favorite ensembles, I didn't realize they've recorded Haydn before!  I'll have to check it out.

They're up to 13 or 14 volumes now. Though all only single discs I think.

[amw]

I don't think their Haydn lives up to the standards set by their Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert—partly because of the change in first violinist, partly because it can feel at times almost like sight reading by an extremely good ensemble (due to somewhat of a lack of energy or large-scale shaping). That said, those initial standards were so high that their Haydn is still at least as good as that of the Kodaly or Tatrai or Angeles Quartets etc. I wouldn't necessarily criticise it if I didn't know they were capable of better. (It may be worth waiting for the eventual box set. You can listen to almost every volume on Deezer I think, and potentially other streaming sites, to determine whether you like them.)

I also turned out not to be extremely fond of the Zaide Quartet's op. 50, which was in a style that would have worked well on period instruments, but sounded harsh and grating on modern ones. Think of the Apponyi Quartet's op. 33 and then exaggerate all of its mannerisms.

[Madiel]

The first violin has actually changed back again to who it was a few years earlier (but to the second person out of 3, not the very original). And the cellist has changed too.

So membership during the Haydn cycle varies!

[Karl Henning]

I  sure have!  But with Hyperion I just wrote to them and they asked for the numbers on the hub of the disk and then they sent me links to download the FLAC's. They knew it was messed up,  they just verified that I actually had it.  All very civilized.  They couldn't send me a replacement because it had been OOP for years.

🤠😎

Excellent customer service.

[amw]

The first violin has actually changed back again to who it was a few years earlier (but to the second person out of 3, not the very original). And the cellist has changed too.

So membership during the Haydn cycle varies!

That's true. I was thinking of the loss of the original first violinist actually. There have just been numerous moments when I've been listening to a quartet and thinking "you know who would have phrased this first violin part better/had better intonation/etc? Andreas Seidel", or "how much did they rehearse this? it sounds great but where's the energy?" which is I guess something people also say from time to time about the Auryn Quartett or the Kodálys and so on. I guess the main fault there is that it's very hard to maintain every single Haydn quartet in your repertoire for a long period of time, because there are so many of them, so most of the ensembles recording complete cycles do wind up having to learn at least some quartets during the recording process.

I do think they're very good, though. I have almost every volume. But since their Beethoven is a top 5 cycle for me, their Brahms a top 3, etc., I was expecting "best ever", not merely "very good". That's probably unfair of me.

[Madiel]

Righto, I've figured out who I want as my first go for opuses 1, 2, 9, 17 and 20...

That only leaves me with opuses 42, 77 and 103 to get. Which the Auryn and Leipziger are nice enough to package together for me. (EDIT: And the Lindsays, hmm...) Some others have 77 & 103 together but not op.42... any particularly good op.42 out there? Is it even worth it?