Reviews
New York Times
Haydn's “Die Jahreszeiten” (The Seasons) at Carnegie Hall (16 Oct 2009)
A Courtly Conductor Shows Off a
Wilder Side That wildness came out at Carnegie Hall on Thursday night
when he conducted a bold and spirited account of Haydn’s late oratorio “Die
Jahreszeiten” (“The Seasons”), with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
and the Monteverdi Choir, both of which he founded. Take the
extended chorus in the “Summer” section of the oratorio (performed in the
original German), a scene of country folk and hunters. The brash music depicts
blasts of hunting horns, shouting hunters, barking dogs, the thumping hooves
and steaming breaths of galloping horses and the delirious hurrahs of onlookers
when the exhausted deer falls. Here Haydn shows himself a proto-film composer.
Take that, John Williams! Under
Mr. Gardiner the orchestra and the chorus held back nothing in their arresting
performance of this astounding music. Two pairs of players of natural horns
faced off, trading volleys of hunting calls, at once clarion and raw. The
strings dug into Haydn’s spiraling riffs, the woodwinds exulted in the nasal
twang of their instruments, and the choristers half sang and half shouted this
breathless, giddy music. Naturally,
this great 1801 oratorio, divided into four movements for the four seasons,
also depicts nature at its most bucolic and contemplative. Mr. Gardiner
captured the moments of serene bliss beautifully. The chorus “Komm, holder
Lenz” (“Come, gentle spring”) breezed by, the choristers singing the songful
phrases with calming tenderness and rosy sound over the undulant, flowing
orchestra. There
are also passages of inspired scene painting: the opening of “Summer,” for
example, where the tenor soloist, here the splendid James Gilchrist as Lucas
(one of three archetypal country characters in the work), describes meek-eyed
morn peeking out of her dew-bespangled veil in recitative. The quiet daring and
strangeness of the music came through here, as the low strings slowly crept up
slithering chromatic lines, the horn evoked ominous birds of night slinking
away, and the violins and winds added layer upon layer of sustained sonorities
to convey the brightening sky. The
other vocal soloists were also excellent. As Hannah, the soprano Lucy Crowe
sang with focused, often angelic sound and supple phrasing. And as Simon, the
bass Matthew Rose was stentorian and imposing when appropriate, but also
elegant and noble. Haydn
composed this oratorio in the aftermath of “Die Schöpfung” (“The Creation”),
again to a text provided by his friend and supporter Baron Gottfried van
Swieten (this one based on a poem by James Thomson). Even in Haydn’s day “The
Seasons,” though a solid success, was not as popular as “The Creation,” and
that remains true, or so it would seem. There were a noticeable number of empty
seats at Carnegie for this first of Mr. Gardiner’s two programs presenting the
oratorios. In “The
Creation,” a searching, monumental piece, Haydn may have aimed higher. Perhaps
“The Seasons” dabbles too much in literal-minded scene painting, with
evocations of twittering birds, leaping fish and droning bagpipes. But when
the final chorus hails the glorious morn when we will rise from death and enter
the heavenly gates, the music becomes more cosmic, and Haydn taps the sublime.
And lest anyone suspect that his technique was failing in old age, Haydn placed
brilliantly intricate fugues for chorus and orchestra at crucial moments in the
score, including the final prayer. Take that, Bach!
))
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |