Haydn’s Divertimentos are surprisingly under-represented in the catalogue; yet, besides providing valuable insights about the composer’s later symphonic style, these pieces also offer delightful examples of Haydn’s open-air music.
On this newly reissued disc, flautist Hans-Martin Linde directs his Consort with subtlety and sensitivity in highly engaging performances of four works. The two five-movement Cassations, HobII/20 and HobII/G1 are scored for nine instruments, including two horns. Here, the fast, outer movements are projected with lightness and elegance – especially so in the G major Cassation’s neat, witty finale – while lithe phrasing, supported by gently pulsating accompaniments in the Adagio (scored for strings alone), maximizes the music’s expressive impact. The minuets and trios – which fully exploit the horns – show Haydn’s potently imaginative instrumentation most vividly, and provide ideal settings for the Linde Consort’s accomplished soloist skills and deftly blended ensemble.
The two four-movement Divertimentos, HobII/1 and HobII/11, use only six instruments, and demonstrate what theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch described as “a brilliant synthesis of unity and diversity”. The two variation-form finales, in which successive variations present a different instrument as soloist, and the beguilingly comic “Mann und Weib” (HobII/11, second movement), whose bare octaves and opposition of violin and double-bass enchantingly illustrate both the unity of marriage and the difficulties of conjugal life, are particular highlights here.
These eloquent expressions of Haydn’s characteristically infectious wit, which are attractively presented in excellently balanced recordings, should appeal to a wide audience.'