Delightful,
unpretentious dances, imbued with that love of the popular
folk music of various traditions – the music of the gypsies,
of Croatia, of Hungary. This rarely fails to make its presence
felt even in Haydn’s most ‘serious’ compositions, such
as in the closing movement of the Piano trio in G minor
(Hob. XV:25), which is marked ‘rondo all’ongarese’, the
minuet of the String Quartet Op.20, No.4, which carries
the marking ‘alla zingarese’, or the first theme of the
finale of Symphony 104 (the ‘London Symphony’), which is
based on a traditional Croatian song, ‘Oj, jelena, jelena,
jabuka zelena’. Such musical materials are presented here
in simpler clothes, as it were, in works that fuse a wholly
unforced rusticity with a degree of musical sophistication.
Haydn,
we might remember, was the son of relatively humble parents – his
father was a master wheelwright, his mother a former cook – and
spent the first few years of his life in the relatively
obscure village of Rohrau. Although neither of his parents
appears to have had any formal musical training, his father
was a self-taught harpist, who regularly involved the rest
of his family in his music-making. Haydn, then, grew up
with an intimate knowledge of the popular music of his
day, a comfortable familiarity reflected everywhere in
the music on this enjoyable CD.
Most
of the pieces played by the Ensemble Bella Musica de Vienne
are regarded by modern scholars as only rather doubtfully
the work of Haydn – most appear amongst the lists of ‘doubtful
and spurious’ works in Grove, for example. This is not
mentioned, incidentally, in the enthusiastic, but slightly
vague, booklet notes by Michael Dittrich. Add to that the
fact that several of these pieces exist only in keyboard
versions and that the present versions have been orchestrated
by Dittrich and it is clear that from a scholarly point
of view this is difficult territory. It is, though, more
important to stress that much of this does sound like Haydn
and some of it, such as the six (of a set of twelve) dances
from Hob.XI:12, and the Ländler from The Seasons, are his
work.
A
particular colour is given to proceedings by the prominent
presence on some tracks of the Hungarian cimbalom virtuoso
Martha Fabian, whose contributions in the eight zingarese
are intriguing and evocative. Elsewhere there are a number
of beautiful miniatures, characterised by some witty and
alluring rhythms. Everything is recorded in bright – but
not over-bright – sound.
Even
if not all of this music is Haydn’s, it is enjoyable
and it does throw light on other areas of Haydn’s work.
As such it can be warmly recommended.
Glyn Pursglove
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Ensemble
Bella Musica de Vienne/Michael Dittrich 
