Haydn Godman

Commissioned by the Comte d’Ogny for the Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, the ‘Paris’ Symphonies form a key milestone in Haydn’s output.

Trio Stadtlmann is a Japanese trio formed and active in Switzerland, featuring the world's rarest stringed instrument, the baritone. Celebrating their 10th anniversary, the Trio Stadtlmann released their first recorded work with the cooperation of Tokyo Zoshigaya Haiobun-tei, which has been conducting a project to perform Haydn's complete baritone trio works. It also includes the only quintet in existence that includes two horns!

Haydn composed more than twenty operas, mainly for the sumptuous theatre at Eszterháza, the palace of his long-time employers, the princes of Esterházy. Even so, his work in the operatic field remains largely neglected. This disc focuses on an even more closely guarded secret: the so-called 'insertion arias' that Haydn wrote for inclusion in operas by other composers. The rarely, if at all, recorded music includes Haydn's three contributions to La Circe, an opera pasticcio which combined music by several composers, and six of the surviving insertion arias. Among these is Infelice sventurata, written for an opera by Cimarosa, and one of Haydn's finest arias, here movingly performed by Miah Persson. The Swedish soprano shares the greater part of the programme with the Swiss tenor Bernard Richter.

Recently there seems to be an increasing interest in the music of Johann Michael Haydn. For a long time he was only mentioned as being the younger brother of Franz Joseph, and a good friend of Mozart, but his music was almost completely ignored. From time to time a record with sacred music or chamber music was released, but he was't appearing on concert programmes and in the record catalogue frequently. 2006 was the bicentennial of his death, and this apparently led to a number of new recordings with his music. One must hope this isn't a temporary wave, but the beginning of a thorough and serious exploration of his oeuvre.

Haydn's keyboard sonatas, more than sixty in total, span almost his entire career. However, in the 1780's the genre became much less of a preoccupation for him while he concentrated more on string quartets and piano trios. An increasing number of commissions further added to his workload. Then, in the period when he was preparing for the second of his two visits to London (1794-5), we find the sonata genre crowded out by his other commitments. Nevertheless, the sonatas Hoboken XVI: 48 to 52 (1789-94) are among the most richly satisfying compositions of Haydn's full maturity.