Notes and Editorial Reviews
It’s a cliché to say that Haydn was not so major a concerto composer as Mozart—no one was. But these three works have plenty of charm and a character all their own. The D major, with its Hungarian finale, is rightly celebrated as the finest of Haydn’s keyboard concertos, but there is plenty to enjoy in the other works as well. Hamelin’s polished technique is placed completely in the service of the music, whether it’s in the brilliance of his passagework, the songfulness of the slow movements, or the gusto of his own cadenzas in the F major and G major works (in the D major concerto he uses delightful cadenzas by Wanda Landowska).
Bernard Labadie and Les Violins du Roy
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accompany with equal ebullience and precision; they represent just about the best in period string playing, with a tone that is lean and incisive but never raw and scrappy. Both the F major and G major works use strings only, and you really get the sense in these performances that you are listening to a duet: piano and orchestra as equals, thanks in part to the beautifully balanced sonics. There have been excellent Haydn concerto recordings in recent years on Harmonia Mundi and BIS, but forced to choose, I would go with this one for its all around excellence and its characterful realization of Haydn’s genial writing for solo keyboard and orchestra.
– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com Read less
Works on This Recording
1.
Concerto for Keyboard in G major, H 18 no 4 by Franz Joseph Haydn
Performer:
Marc-André Hamelin (Piano)
Conductor:
Bernard Labadie
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Les Violons du Roy
Period: Classical
Written: by 1781; Eszterhazá, Hungary
2.
Concerto for Keyboard in F major, H 18 no 3 by Franz Joseph Haydn
Performer:
Marc-André Hamelin (Piano)
Conductor:
Bernard Labadie
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Les Violons du Roy
Period: Classical
Written: by 1771; Austria
3.
Concerto for Keyboard in D major, H 18 no 11 by Franz Joseph Haydn
Performer:
Marc-André Hamelin (Piano)
Conductor:
Bernard Labadie
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Les Violons du Roy
Period: Classical
Written: by 1784; Eszterhazá, Hungary
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