Haydn Orfeus Chamber Orchestra

This live recording features the New Jersey Chamber Singers 40th Anniversary concert celebration. The program is anchored by the Mozart Requiem and also features festive works of Bach's Reformation Cantata, Ein feste Burg, because 2018 also marked the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. While it is more common to hear these works performed by larger ensembles, this historically-informed performance honors the repertoire's intimacy by only employing 32 voices and a similarly sized orchestra. All three pieces on this album were touched by hands beyond those of their composers. While many purists have worked extensively to cleanse iconic works of foreign elements, this performance embraces them. Bach's Ein feste Burg proudly features the extra parts for three trumpets and timpani added by his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. Haydn's Te Deum was written for Empress Marie Theresa even though he was employed to write music for the Esterhazy court in Eisenstadt. Even though the complete autograph is lost, trombone parts were later discovered to have been written in the hand of his copyist, Johann Elssler.

Joseph Haydn once remarked: ‘I was not a magician on any instrument, but I knew the power and effect of all of them.’ This knowledge he used to good effect in his cello concertos, composed some twenty years apart for two different cellists in ‘his’ orchestra at the court of Prince Esterhazy. Both works are firmly established in the concert repertoire, but this has not always been the case.

As ever, the conductor-less New York orchestra give lithe, impeccably groomed performances. Tempos tend to be swift, articulation exceptionally buoyant and precise, phrasing stylish and gracious. . . . [A]ll three minuets are beautifully judged, poised and light of foot . . . and the Andantes of the two D major symphonies are nicely done, too, with an awareness of deeper currents beneath the perky charm of No. 73. . . . [T]here's a lot of pleasure to be had from these nimble and elegantly crafted performances, cleanly recorded . . .

The Cello Concerto No.1 in C Major, Hob. VIIb/1, by Joseph Haydn was composed around 1761–1765 for longtime friend Joseph Weigl, then the principal cellist of Prince Nicolaus's Esterhazy Orchestra. The work was presumed lost until 1961, when musicologist Oldrich Pulkert discovered a copy of the score at the Prague National Museum. Though some doubts have been raised about the authenticity of the work, most experts believe that Haydn did compose this concerto.

This new release opens with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs Symphony in F major, Wq. 183/3. This symphony belongs to a group of four Orchestral Symphonies with Twelve Obbligato Parts, which were commissioned by an unidentified patron in 1775. Next, this release presents Joseph Haydns Symphony No. 39. This work is the first of Haydns minor key symphonies and is associated with his Sturm und Drang period. Finally, Beethovens Symphony No. 1 in C major rounds out this release. The work was dedicated to an early patron of Beethoven, Baron Gottfried van Swieten. This work is a clear indication of Haydns influence on Beethoven.