Reviews

THE GUARDIAN

Haydn 'Die Jahreszeiten', Barbican, London (15 Mar 2007)

Five Stars

Haydn's last oratorio, though the greatest secular example of the genre ever written, has never matched the popularity of The Creation, yet it is just as full of those picturesque touches that he delighted in and shows his comprehensively excellent compositional technique at its peak. There's also something profoundly touching about this elderly man (he was 69 when The Seasons was premiered) recalling so vividly the rural life of his childhood.

In this performance with the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, conductor John Eliot Gardiner was returning to a work he knows well. Throughout, he brought a vigour and a trenchancy to proceedings that kept the music light on its feet, especially in the fugues, while the distinctive colours of the orchestra matched every vignette in Haydn's vision. In the rollicking autumn section, the hunting horns blared out their exultant cries and the drinking scene had a Bacchanalian bravura.

Gardiner was aided not just by choral singing of precision and spirit but by an impeccable trio of soloists. Baritone Dietrich Henschel's Simon was lustily bucolic, tenor James Gilchrist's Lucas agile and expressive, and soprano Rebecca Evan's Hannah a model of clear diction and clearer tone.

But beyond Haydn's exquisite miniatures, the metaphorical identification of the passing of the year with the cycle of human existence found expression here in a reading that took in the oratario's spiritual dimension. The Seasons is a celebration of life that also contemplates its close, and this was strikingly conveyed.

George Hall

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