Luogo e data di registrazione		Glenn Gould Studio, Toronto, Ontario (Canada) - 15/19 February 1994
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Markus Heiland (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Sony / Vivarte - SK 66 295 - (CD) - durata 73' 04" - (p) 1994 - DDD
	Cover Art		Haydn Portrait (1799) by Johann Karl Rösler (1698-1762) - (Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin)
	Note		-

Haydn: Paris Symphonies Haydn's music was immensely popular in 18th -century France. In 1764 the first Haydn symphonies and string quartets were published in Paris, and in the course of the next two decades French publishers capitalized on the composer's popularity, issuing symphonies, quartets, string trios, piano sonatas, piano trios, and the Stabat Mater. Haydn earned nothing from these wily publishers; they secured Viennese copyists, who fed them “Haydn” in a steady illegal stream. By the end of the 1760s the publishers had run out of authentic material and began to issue quantities of spurious works under the composer`s name. Thus it happened that symphonies and quartets by other Austrian composers whose music sounded like Haydn's were pirated and published under his name in France: favourite sources include Haydn's brother in Salzburg, Johann Michael, but also Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Leopold Hofmann, Johann Baptist Vanhal, and Carlos d'0rdoñez. In one case we can even observe how the engravers operated; a set of string quartets by one Pater Roman Hoffstetter - a monk in an obscure South German monastery - arrived in Paris, and the engravers began to work on them. Midway, they decided that the works could be marketed as “Haydn”, and so they erased (but not thoroughly) Hoffstetter's name and substituted Haydn`s. In this fashion came into dubious being the now-celebrated “Haydn” Quartets, Op. 3, with the famous Serenade. Bearing in mind, then, the composer`s colossal popularity in France, we turn now to the commission that produced Haydn's finest symphonies of his pre-London period - the set of six composed for Paris in 1785-1786. The initiator of this scheme was a remarkable French aristocrat named Claude-François-Marie Rigoley, Comte d'Ogny (1757-1790), one of the backers of a celebrated Parisian concert organization, Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, founded by a distinguished group of liberal Freemasons. D'Ogny`s father had been the Intendant Général des Postes, a prestigious position inherited by the son in 1785. In order to begin negotiations d'Ogny asked the orchestra leader (chef d'orchestre), le Chevalier Joseph-Boulogne de Saint-Georges - a colourful native of the French colonies who was equally proficient as a violinist, composer, and lady-killer - to write to Haydn with the commission. Later, in 1871, H. Barbette reported the details of this contract in Le Ménestrel, stating that negotiations began in 1784 or early 1785, and that the Concert agreed to pay Haydn 25 louis d'or for each of the six symphonies (“ce qui avait paru à Haydn un prix colossal, car jusqu'alors ses symphonies ne lui avaient rien rapporté'”). Haydn was also to receive a further 5 louis d'or for the publication rights. This fee, according to a recent study by Gérard Gefen (Les Musiciens et la franc-maçonnerie, Paris, 1993: 77), was five times that which the Concert usually offered for a symphony. For comparison, twenty-five louis d 'or represents about 300,000 fr., DM 100,000, or $ 60,000 in today's money. Haydn wrote at least two symphonies (Nos. 83 and 87) and possibly a third (No. 85 - no autograph survives) in 1785. The others (Nos. 82, 84, 86) were written in 1786, judging from the evidence of Haydn's dated autographs. The first edition of the set, published by Imbault in Paris, is ordered: 83, 87, 85, 82, 86, 84, possibly the order in which Haydn wrote and sent them to the Loge Olympique. Artaria in Vienna, who also published an authentic two-part edition of the “Paris” Symphonies (as they are now universally called), used the order common today - although it is chronologically false. The orchestra of the Loge Olympique - “rempli indépendamment par les plus habiles amateurs de Paris” - contained forty violins and ten double basses. They were dressed in skyblue coats and wore swords at their sides. Symphony No. 85 became a favourite of Marie Antoinette, and on Imbault`s first edition it was entitled “La Reine de France”. The first performance appears to have taken place in the 1787 season, for in January 1788 the Mercure de France published an announcement by Imbault, advertising the six new works for sale: “These Symphonies, of a most beautiful character and of an astonishing standard, should be studied with the most vivid enthusiasm by those who had the good fortune to have heard them, and - even by those who do not know them. The name of Haydn [sic] guarantees their extraordinary merit.” Reviewing performances of these new works in the Concert Spirituel for the 1788 season, and in particular their concert of Saturday, April 5, 1788, the Mercure de France offered the following Commentary: “In all the concerts one played symphonies by M. Haydn. Each day, one listens more carefully, and, consequently, the more one admires the productions of this vast genius who constructs, in each of his works, such rich and varied developments from a single subject. [He is] quite the opposite of those sterile composers who pass continually from one idea to another instead of choosing a single, variable one; and who produce mechanically one effect after another, without linking them, and without taste. The symphonies of M. Hayden [sic] - always sure in their effect - would have been heard to even greater advantage had the room been more resonant, and if its shape had permitted the director of this concert to place the orchestra more advantageously... ”. Once the "Paris" Symphonies had been engraved by Imbault with the express indications, “Grave d'apres les partitions originales appartenant à la Loge Olympique”, they passed into history and became so popular that French audiences began to attach names to them. Thus No. 82 became “L'Ours” (The Bear), No. 83 “La Poule” (The Hen); and, as we have seen, No. 85, on the first and subsequent French editions, was called “La Reine de France”. In Sieber's Parisian edition, passed for publication on January 9, 1788 by the famous composer Grétry (1741-1813) (acting for Monseigneur le Garde des Finances), No. 85 was moved into first place, to honour the soon to be dishonoured queen. We consider now the “Paris” Symphonies, not in their presumed chronological order (see commentary above), but in the order in which they are now generally known. Symphony No. 82 became known as “L'Ours” because of its Finale, in which people thought they heard a kind of music that might have accompanied a dancing tame bear. The symphony is in C major, which has become known as Haydn's “festival” key; he uses high horns in C alto, trumpets and kettledrums, as well as the usual string and woodwind instruments. In this case Haydn, perhaps worried whether the French would have such instruments, indicates that trumpets may substitute for the horns. The first movement (Vivace assai) is an enormously powerful affair, with thundering fanfares and, later, those dancing strings in semiquavers that are so typical of Haydn. The second subject is a graceful melody that offsets nicely the drive and power of the opening subject. A brilliant coda is based on the principal theme. The second movement (Allegretto) is dominated by the kind of melody one imagines having known all one's life. In it, Haydn effectively switches back and forth from major key to minor. The Menuet is a ceremonious and beautifully constructed movement that appears, like many of the minuets in these symphonies, to be a kind of compliment to French taste. The Finale (Vivace) returns to the power of the first movement; its development section, in particular, generates an enormous forward drive, and its coda is a brilliant conclusion to this highly masculine symphony. Symphony No. 83 has come down to us as “La Poule” because of the clucking oboe that accompanies part of the second subject. The first movement (Allegro spiritoso) is dominated by a rather grim opening melody, fashioned in such a way that Haydn later could use it contrapuntally. The slow movement (Andante) is a most lively and poetic piece that uses varied dynamics and surprise repeated notes most effectively; we draw particular attention to the passage at measure 64 ff., in which we hear some of Haydn's most poetic music. The bucolic Menuet is followed by a racy Vivace in 12/8 meter, but this happy and unconcerned theme .icquires tiger's claws in the development section. Symphony No. 84 opens with a majestic and beautiful Largo, while the ensuing Allegro is one of the most neatly worked-out and highly intellectual movements in this series. The slow movement is a subtle Andante, with a contrasting section designed to offset the enigmatic quality of the first section; towards the end is a cadential six-four chord followed by a brilliant solo wind section with pizzicato strings, constituting a truly sophisticated cadenza. The Menuet is more Austrian than most of the dance movements in these symphonies; the snap of the upbeat has something particularly Viennese about it. The Finale (Vivace) is written in the manner of the fast movements of No. 82; the violins often race ahead in semiquavers, supported by a bass line in quavers. But it also has a mysterious and highly effective contrasting pp section that broadens considerably upon its reappearance in the recapitulation. © 1994 H. C. Robbins Landon