Haydn Jacobs

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 on Amazon

Conductor René Jacobs' turn to Beethoven has yielded impressive results by going back to Beethoven's works and rethinking them from the ground up. His revival of the opera Leonore, Hess 109, the original 1805 version of Fidelio, Op. 72, made a strong case for that little-performed version. Even better, perhaps, is this 2021 reading of the Missa Solemnis, Op. 123, a notoriously difficult work to interpret. It does not lie easily in the voice ranges of the singers; its mood shifts gears seemingly out of nowhere, and it ends on a seemingly uncertain note. Yet, in no way can the mass be considered a minor Beethoven work. The composer struggled with it for years, missing deadlines and returning to the mass text for fresh study. The work is a personal religious statement from a composer who has variously been called an atheist (by Haydn), an agnostic, or a freethinker. Jacobs treats the mass as a kind of passion play, bringing out the currents of thought in the music with strong contrasts and giving an uncanny sense of Beethoven's own responses to the text. Listen to the Incarnatus, where Jacobs catches the composer's relative lack of interest in the Incarnation as compared with the Crucifixion. Listeners are directed toward the interview-style booklet notes in which Jacobs expands on his ideas; his interpretation of the odd Agnus Dei finale is highly persuasive. In general, the music draws the listener in as if witnessing a spiritual journey. The performances are very strong; there is no hint of Baroque mechanistic quality in the work of the historical-instrument Freiburg Barockorchester, and the soloists handle the vocal challenges as well as any have. This is a Missa Solemnis that yields new insights with each hearing, and it is one that will be heard for many years to come.

Now attributed to Pergolesi on the basis of recent research, the ‘Seven Words of Christ’ has been regarded as ‘one of the most heartfelt works of art, full of profound tenderness and an all-conquering sense of beauty’ [Hermann Scherchen, on its discovery in 1930]. However, his judgment has remained unheeded and only the discovery of two more manuscripts in the abbeys of Kremsmünster and Aldersbach, by the musicologist Reinhard Fehling, prompted the firm of Breitkopf & Härtel to publish a critical edition.

Conductor René Jacobs' turn to Beethoven has yielded impressive results by going back to Beethoven's works and rethinking them from the ground up.