Haydn : trios Esterhazy pour cors de basset (Le Trio di Bassetto, Jean-Claude Veilhan)

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The contents of this curious and speculative but not unpleasant release aren't apparent from the artwork, and listeners may wonder whether Haydn might in fact have written some forgotten trios for basset horns. He did not; what's heard here is a selection of the trios for baryton, viola, and string bass (the baryton is an odd remnant of the viol family with sympathetic strings like a hurdy-gury), composed in the late 1760s and early 1770s for Haydn's employer, Prince Esterházy. They are in three or more short movements, with slightly expanded binary forms. Haydn was less likely than Bach or Vivaldi to arrange music for new instruments, although he did so occasionally, and wind ensembles involving basset horns were not unkown. These little trios work reasonably well in their new setting. The odd tonal quality of the baryton, set against the viola and bass, is lost, but some of the strangeness is restored by the Trio di Bassetto's method of rendering the sound of the sympathetic strings: they strike the edges of a set of musical glasses, and one movement of one trio is arranged for the glasses alone (they are arrayed on a table, not rigged up into Benjamin Franklin's glass harmonica). This configuration, suggesting rather than clearly outlining the forms of the music, offers the players chances to elaborate the music in repeats, and they do so with gusto. It's not quite Haydn you're hearing here, or even music that Haydn might have created, but it does carry a good deal of charm.
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