I'll eventually get around to picking up the period HIP version of Haydn's Seasons by Rene Jacobs... but right now at nearly $35 US I put this one on hold. I'm an admirer of the recordings of John Eliot Gardiner and I considered his recording as a worthy alternative... especially with soloists such as Barbara Bonney and Anthony Rolfe Johnson... but then I saw two other alternatives: Karajan's recording with Gundula Janowitz and Walter Berry for a little over $3 US and Karl Böhm's interpretation with Gundula Janowitz and Peter Schreier for a bit over $6 US... and I couldn't help springing for both. I usually make every attempt to get hold of a good period recording for most older music... but I'm no purist. I prefer Glenn Gould, Murray Perahia, Andreas Schiff, and Angela Hewitt playing Bach on the piano to almost any harpsichord version I have heard. By the same token, while I love Rene Jacobs recent recordings of Mozart's operas, there is no way I'd give up my "old school" versions of
Die Zauberflote by Böhm and Klemperer or Don Giovanni by Carlo Maria Giulini and Josef Krips.
Karajan's recording of Haydn's
Die Schopfung is legendary. Of course part of this is owed to the contribution of the brilliant tenor, Fritz Wunderlich, who tragically died during the recording process. Yet at the same time... while Karajan is not the conductor one immediately thinks of for Haydn's grace and deftness of touch, his performance in this recording was worthy of the reputation. The recording of the
Seasons was undertaken not long after, and Karajan retains the soloists Berry and Janowitz. The resulting recording is dramatic... taking Haydn toward the romanticism of Beethoven... and considering the late period in Haydn's career during which this work was composed, such an interpretation is not without precedent and logic.
The Böhm recording was hailed at the time as the greatest recording of Haydn since Karajan's
Creation. From what I have heard of the recording, it conveys a vitality and drama and retains the sort of lightness of touch that Böhm employed with
Die Zauberflote.
Beyond these two choral masterworks, I would recommend any number of Haydn's choral works as worthy of exploration:
I have long loved both of these above discs. I would also second recommendations for J.E. Gardiner's recordings...
those by Richard Hickox on Chandos:
and The Seven Last Words of Christ (the choral version and the quartet version... the latter of which I would recommend in performance by the Kodaly Quartet, unrivaled for performances of Haydn... and dirt cheap to boot.