Delphine ou Les Plaisirs Simples

Today almost ignored by musicologists and performers, and totally unknown to music-lovers, Johann Paul von Westhoff [1656-1705] was nonetheless an outstanding figure in late seventeenth-century musical life. He is one of those composers with an endearing personality who achieved a synthesis of the multiple trends in European music. He was held in high esteem by his contemporaries, including the Sun King himself, before whom he appeared in 1682.

The twelfth volume in the Haydn2032 series, in which Giovanni Antonini conducts the Kammerorchester Basel, is devoted to ‘games and pleasures’. The symphonies recorded here, nos. 61, 66 and 69, were composed for the daily theatrical performances held at Eszterháza Palace in the spring of 1776. For Haydn they marked the end of a festive period, before he had to return to the serious business of writing operas. The ‘Toy Symphony’, attributed to Haydn for 200 years before it was discovered that it was in all probability composed by a Benedictine monk, completes the programme in a similarly light and cheerful atmosphere.