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Completely revivified by XR remastering
Notes on the recording: Despite the source material for this transfer - a German 10" Decca pressing - being in excellent condition, it was hard at first to hear quite what might have earned Münchinger's Haydn 45 a starred entry in 1955's The Record Guide. The sound was of a dullness which seemed to pervade and almost overwhelm the performance. What a difference, then, the tonal rebalancing inherent in XR remastering made to this rather fine performance! We note that the authors of the aforementioned Guide stated "...the performance would have received a double star but for a certain lack of sprightliness, and for passages in which the string tone sounds thin..." - and cannot help but feel that this remastering does much to address both of these criticisms. If one adds to that the way that Ambient Stereo processing opens out the soundscape and we find a truly delightful performance of this favourite Haydn symphony lurking in those early fifties grooves. Finally, I'll turn to the Gramophone reviewer's comments, which serve to remind what a different choice landscape the record-buying music-lover scanned some 57 years ago: "...the performance is elegant and poised; and is recommended on its own merits, not simply because it is the only version obtainable."
Notes on the 24-bit download: Please see this page for test files and further information regarding this format. Although restoration work is done at a sample rate of 44.1kHz, we have upsampled the final 24-bit master to 48kHz for additional replay compatibility of our FLAC download. Our twenty-four bit FLAC downloads can be replayed in full quality using a standard DVD video player, a DVD writer and an inexpensive piece of PC software - see here for more information about replay from Video DVD discs.
Karl Münchinger biographical notes from Wikipedia
Karl Münchinger (May 29, 1915 – March 13, 1990) was a German conductor of European classical music. He helped to revive the now-ubiquitous Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel, through recording it with his Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in 1960. (Jean-François Paillard made a rival, and also very popular, recording of the same piece at around the same time.) Münchinger is also noted for restoring baroque traditions to the interpretation of Bach's oeuvre, his greatest musical love: moderate-sized forces, judicious ornamentation, and rhythmic sprightliness, though not period instruments. Born in Stuttgart, Münchinger studied at the Hochschule für Musik in his home city. At first, he guest-conducted often, supporting himself also with other duties as an organist and church choir director. In 1941, he became principal conductor of the Hanover Symphony, a post he held for the next two years. He held no other conducting position until the end of World War II. The year that the war ended, he founded the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, which he built into an impressive touring ensemble; it made its Paris debut in 1949 and its American debut in San Francisco in 1953. Under his leadership the orchestra issued (for the Decca label) numerous recordings, mostly during the 1950s and 1960s, and mostly of Bach's output; these included the Brandenburg Concertos (not once, not twice, but thrice), the orchestral suites, the St. Matthew Passion, the St. John Passion, the Musical Offering, and the Christmas Oratorio. Of his and the ensemble's non-Bach releases, probably the best – and certainly the most famous, other than the Pachelbel performance mentioned earlier – is that of Haydn's The Creation. In 1977, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra became the first German ensemble to visit the People's Republic of China. Münchinger retired in 1988, two years before his death. Stylistically Münchinger's approach with his band was rather similar to those of his somewhat younger contemporaries Raymond Leppard, Sir Neville Marriner, Claudio Scimone, and the above-mentioned Paillard, though displaying an extra element of tonal solidity (not to mention a fierce rigor during rehearsals as well as performances) which might be thought of as Teutonic. With the increased fashionability of 18th-century instruments, from the 1970s onwards, Münchinger's interpretations fell dramatically from critical favor and were often dismissed as passé. This was unfair, because he always showed himself to be a fine, tough, disciplined, and sensitive musician. There have been more profoundly imaginative German conductors than Münchinger, but there have been very few who matched his consistently high standards.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Münchinger
Haydn - Symphony No. 45 "Farewell" musical notes from Wikipedia
Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, known as the "Farewell" Symphony (in German: Abschieds-Symphonie), was composed by Joseph Haydn in 1772. It was written for Haydn's patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, while he, Haydn and the court orchestra were at the Prince's summer palace in Eszterhaza. The stay there had been longer than expected, and most of the musicians had been forced to leave their wives back at home in Eisenstadt, so in the last movement of the symphony, Haydn subtly hinted to his patron that perhaps he might like to allow the musicians to return home: during the final adagio each musician stops playing, snuffs out the candle on his music stand, and leaves in turn, so that at the end, there are just two muted violins left (played by Haydn himself and the concertmaster, Alois Luigi Tomasini). Esterházy seems to have understood the message: the court returned to Eisenstadt the day following the performance. The first movement of Symphony No. 85 contains a reference to this symphony.
Movements The piece is written for two oboes, a bassoon, two horns, and strings (violins divided into two, violas, cellos and double basses).
The first movement of the work is a turbulent affair in F-sharp minor, an extremely unusual key to use at the time of the work. It opens in a manner typical of Haydn's Sturm und Drang period, with descending minor arpeggios in the first violins against syncopated notes in the second violins and held chords in the winds. The movement can be explained structurally in terms of sonata form, but it departs from the standard model in a number of ways (just before the recapitulation, for example, new material is introduced, which might have been used as the second subject in the exposition in a more conventional work). Aside from these departures from the norm, the first movement is "hardly able to be perceived as revolutionary" and "is not at all that adventurous, containing a development that ventures only to the levels of IV, II♭, and VI in addition to the mediant and tonic."[3] The second, slow, movement in A major is also in sonata form. It begins with a relaxed melody played by muted violins, featuring a repeated "hiccuping" motif. The mood gradually becomes more somber and meditative with an alternation between major and minor modes, resembling many similar passages in the later work of Schubert. There follows a series of dissonant suspensions carried across the bar line, which are extended to extraordinary lengths by Haydn when the same material appears in the recapitulation. James Webster (see reference below) hears this music as programmatic, expressing the yearning for home. The following minuet is in the key of F-sharp major; its main peculiarity is that the final cadence of each section is made very weak (falling on the third beat), creating a sense of incompleteness. The last movement begins as a characteristic Haydn finale in fast tempo, written in sonata form in the home key of F-sharp minor. The rhythmic intensity is increased at one point through the use of unison bariolage in the first violin part. The music eventually reaches the end of the recapitulation in a passage that sounds very much as if it were the end of the symphony, but suddenly breaks off in a dominant cadence. What follows is a long "coda" — essentially a second slow movement — which is extremely unusual in Classical symphonies and probably sounded very surprising to the Prince. This is written in 3/8 time and modulates from A major to F-sharp major, during which time the musicians take their leave. The ending is a kind of deliberate anticlimax and is usually performed as a very soft pianissimo. This final adagio includes a bit of stage business that may not be obvious to a listener hearing a recorded performance: several of the musicians are given little solos to play just before departing. The order of departure is: first oboe and second horn (solos), bassoon (no solo), second oboe and first horn (solos), double bass (solo), cello (no solo), orchestral violins (solos; first chair players silent), viola (no solo). The first chair violinists remain to complete the work. A typical performance of the Farewell Symphony lasts around twenty-five minutes.
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._45_(Haydn)
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