Haydn in the Pocket

They don’t make them as crisply fresh as Haydn’s symphonies anymore. From his Austrian home, he gave the symphonic genre a big whack, and it was heard as far away as London. In 1791, Haydn was welcomed there like a superstar. The 12 symphonies he wrote there are the absolute highs and lows of his orchestral oeuvre. Expressively charged intros, swirling closing passages, imaginative colours: even in the contemporary chamber music versions made of Haydn’s ‘London’ symphonies, his originality stands steeply upright.

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