Any new series of Haydn symphonies should excite keen interest among music lovers, and Richard Hickox offers some fine things. His period instrument band, Collegium Musicum 90, understands the uninhibited side of this music well. Pungent brass and timpani underline the exciting outer movements of Symphonies Nos. 103 and 104, and Hickox has his drummer improvise a cadenza at the opening of the “Drumroll” Symphony–correctly taking Haydn’s description of the opening (“intrada”) as license to do just that. Occasionally Hickox’s tempos sound a mite staid–the Menuet of No. 104 needs a character more “scherzo-like” than this–but where these performances really fail to measure up is in the scrappy, undernourished string textures. When the winds and brass cut loose, the violins simply vanish, and Haydn’s crucial bass lines often count for nothing. This problem rears its ugly head most dramatically in the highly contrapuntal finale of Symphony No. 95, a movement that thrives on equality of balance between parts and that demands a consistently high level of intensity from the strings in order to convey the appropriate degree of energy.
Compare Hickox to what Szell or Bernstein do with modern instruments, and contrary to what you might expect, those big band versions have both more power and more transparency. Haydn’s 12 London Symphonies take well to a very large orchestra. Indeed, these are “big” works in every sense, just a short step from Beethoven (who profited mightily from their example). Irrespective of the type of instruments used or the style in which they are played, the music must sound big. It does so here only intermittently.
