Haydn's Joke
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Haydn’s joke-filled “Il distratto” started life not as a symphony, but as incidental music for a Regnard comedy, whose title loosely translates as “The Absent-minded Man.” Stay tuned for a late-evening laugh!
It’s hard to stop chortling long enough to appreciate the performance by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra of Haydn’s Symphony No. 60. Its six movements reflect its origins as accompaniment to a play, and the musical jokes and fun-filled quotations are numerous. The first movement’s players get stuck on a chord that dwindles to nothing as they apparently try to remember what comes next. The second movement’s dances are repeatedly interrupted by military fanfares. Irregularities of phrasing and scale patterns abound in movements three and four, while the last movement features a spectacular out-of-tune moment perpetrated by the violins.
In our first hour, the Albert Schweitzer Quintet offers us a sample of Antonin Reicha’s trail-blazing approach to the wind quintet with his opus 88/5 Quintet in B-flat. For our second-hour winner, Pieter Wispelwey is joined by pianist Paul Komen for a period-instruments interpretation of the Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1. Later, we enjoy Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s delightful “Idillio-concertino” in a reading by oboist Humbert Lucarelli and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra under Donald Spieth.
It’s hard to stop chortling long enough to appreciate the performance by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra of Haydn’s Symphony No. 60. Its six movements reflect its origins as accompaniment to a play, and the musical jokes and fun-filled quotations are numerous. The first movement’s players get stuck on a chord that dwindles to nothing as they apparently try to remember what comes next. The second movement’s dances are repeatedly interrupted by military fanfares. Irregularities of phrasing and scale patterns abound in movements three and four, while the last movement features a spectacular out-of-tune moment perpetrated by the violins.
In our first hour, the Albert Schweitzer Quintet offers us a sample of Antonin Reicha’s trail-blazing approach to the wind quintet with his opus 88/5 Quintet in B-flat. For our second-hour winner, Pieter Wispelwey is joined by pianist Paul Komen for a period-instruments interpretation of the Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1. Later, we enjoy Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s delightful “Idillio-concertino” in a reading by oboist Humbert Lucarelli and the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra under Donald Spieth.
