These peerless recordings of Oboe Concertos are despatched with beautiful clarity by Ernest Rombout both playing the oboe and directing the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra.

Together with associate performers from the Musiktage Mondsee, András Schiff recorded chamber music by Haydn, Bartók and Janácek for Decca. This is the first of a critically-acclaimed two-volume set of selected Haydn Piano Trios recorded by Schiff together with cellist Boris Pergamenschikow and violinist Yuuko Shiokawa.

The high spirits of the opening movement of Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 77 No. 1 are totally infectious and the playing of the ‘original’ Takacs Quartet is without peer – with sweep and a vocalism so particular to their ensemble.

These vocal works are mostly late Haydn and the performances are based on texts derived from recent scholarship.  ‘Arianna a Naxos’ was written with keyboard accompaniment; Haydn intended to orchestrate it but never got around to it. This version is a collation of two anonymous orchestrations, plus ‘vocal embellishments and cadenzas’ presumably by H. C. Robbins […]

The ‘Stabat Mater’ was one of those works which served to promote Haydn’s reputation in the rest of Europe, for a successful performance in Paris in April 1781 was followed by a lengthy and highly complimentary article in ‘Le Mercure de France’, publication of the full score in London (1783) and Paris (1785) and a […]

As a pendant to his legendary cycle of the Haydn symphonies with the Philharmonia Hungarica, Antal Dorati also recorded supplementary symphonies and the Sinfonia Concertante, all of which made their way into the highly-regarded boxed set of these works. He also recorded these gorgeous 24 Minuets as a pendant – then, as now, a comparative […]

The take-over of Hungary and Czechoslovakia by their respective Communist governments a few years after the end of World War II had one curious side-effect: it proved to be the greatest event that ever occurred in the world of Haydn scholarship. In Hungary, the vast Esterházy Archives, previously closed to all except the very occasional […]

One of the world’s most benevolent conductors, Eduard van Beinum cajoled out of his orchestras some of the most luminous sounds ever to be heard in concert and on record. He recorded extensively with the Concertgebouw for Philips and earlier, for Decca. Three Haydn symphonies were recorded for Decca in 1951, 1952 and 1953 and they […]

Quartetto Italiano made critically-acclaimed recordings of the complete string quartets of Mozart and Haydn. The group recorded almost exclusively for Philips Classics, leaving a legacy admired for its insight and technical brilliance. Two of Haydn’s and one of Mozart’s nicknamed compositions are here offered as a single album.

Overshadowed by his father, Michael Haydn penned some delectable music and here are father and son on a single disc of Violin Concertos, completed with two Mozart ‘movements’.

As a companion to the 2CD set of ‘Paris’ Symphonies, this CD presents the rest of Ansermet’s Haydn recordings – two symphonies (recorded in 1965), the Trumpet Concerto (dating from 1957) and as a pendant, the Hummel Trumpet Concerto (recorded in 1968). The readings are certainly on a larger scale than that which we expect […]

‘Die Schöpfung’ (The Creation) is one of the great choral masterpieces that Haydn composed after finishing his 104th symphony in 1795. It is a work championed by Igor Markevitch who made this critically-acclaimed recording of it with a compelling team of soloists, including the radiant Irmgard Seefried.