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Classic FM Magazine - December 2007

Haydn Six String Quartets, Op.9
The London Haydn Quartet
The earliest of Haydn’s string quartets were not described as quartets at all but as ‘divertimenti’. Many were originally intended for outdoor performance in the streets of Vienna, often to serenade society ladies at their balconies. The original instrument London Haydn Quartet play with such deep feeling, dynamic subtlety and phrasal sensitivity that even the simplest ideas become things of wonder. Passages of generic cadencing and decoration that often pass by unacknowledged by other ensembles sound utterly magical here, the enhanced expressive flexibility of gut strings revelled in to the full. Without doubt one of the all-time great Haydn quartet recordings.
Hyperion CDA 67611
Julian Haylock

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Gramophone Magazine - December 2007

Josef Haydn. Six String Quartets, Op.9
Hyperion CDA67611 133’ DDD

Delicacy and nuance which makes the listener a privileged eavesdropper.

Haydn’s Op.9 quartets of c1769 have always led something of a shadow life. The minor mode around this time invariably drew a special rhetorical intensity from Haydn; few would disagree that No.4 is the finest of the set. There are occasional longueurs elsewhere, nowhere more so than in the knit-your-own variations that begin no.5. Compensations, though, abound: say, in No.6’s hunting-style opening Presto; in the sorrowful, Gluckian C minor Aria in no.2; or, more obviously in the entertaining finale, all of which feature far more dramatic interplay than in the first-violin-dominated earlier movements.

The London Haydn Quartet, using gut strings with classical bows, opt to play, controversially, from a 1790 London edition which even lops bars out of the first movements of Nos. 4 and 6. Initially I thought the playing, with its abstemious use of vibrato and limited dynamic range, slightly austere. But I quickly warmed to the pure, glowing sound of gut string played perfectly in tune, and to the ensemble’s delicacy of nuance and sensitivity to harmonic colour, treating the listener as privileged eavesdropper. They take a very broad, ruminative view of the Moderato opening movements of nos 1-4 and while I would have preferred more fire and forward momentum, even a touch of brilliance, in the first movements of nos 2 and 3, in the first movements of nos 2 and 3, the players are always keenly alive to both the smaller and larger shapes of the music. Catherine Manson is a graceful and nimble leader, and the less-favoured lower instruments ensure that accompanying figuration never lapses into routine. And when, in the finales, they have a chance to compete on equal terms, the results are delightfully witty and spirited. Recorded in the warm, sympathetic acoustic of St. Paul’s Deptford, these performances should win new friends for an undeservedly neglected set.
RICHARD WIGMORE

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HarmoniaPodcast
Public Radio from Indiana University
December 6 2007
podcast here

MusicOMH.com

Haydn's Op.9 string quartets, composed around 1770, roughly a decade after his first attempt at the genre, probably represent the true birth of the medium.
On this superb double disc set from Hyperion, the London Haydn Quartet's playing of the set is intense, passionate and revelatory. It is difficult to imagine finer interpretations of these occasionally formulaic but always melodically colourful works.
The quartet - comprising Catherine Manson and Margaret Faultless on violin, James Boyd on viola and Jonathan Cohen on cello - play on gut strings with classical bows. There is to be found none of the reserve or prissiness that can sometimes characterise period performance. The sound here is bright, resonant and gritty, the lack of vibrato adding a spicy, piquant tang to the ensemble timbre. The bowing is confident; tempi are firm and steady, yet subtle inflections and rhythmic manipulations crank up the drama to breaking point.
There is not one dull passage on either disc; the group fully understand the architecture of each quartet and strive to bring a natural ebb and flow to their playing. At times, one is reminded of Philip Larkin’s glorious description of string playing: "cascades of monumental slithering". Not that there is no moment of repose: in the Adagio of No.6, a stately violin aria with fluttering, murmuring triplet accompaniment, one cannot help but bask in the gloriously lyrical, graceful violin solo, by turn searing and withdrawn, brushed with flecks of glinting portamento.
Quartet No.4 is perhaps the most famous of the set - possibly the first of the six to be written (consequently it's the first work on the CD) and Haydn's first quartet in the minor key. Here, the group's vibrato-less sound gains an eerie, strangely nocturnal quality. Their expressive range is great, with large dynamic and textural palates; Haydn's stuttering, sighing melodic lines and rhythms are carefully, confidently laid out. And the players know when to hold back too: the Presto's contrapuntal opening is subtly, not ostentatiously, virtuosic, while the development section's arpeggiated staccato passages eagerly and successfully balance raucous comedy with sad resignation.
The trend continues, every performance a minor masterpiece of deft, dramatic playing. Hyperion have recorded the performances in clear, clean (if not luxurious) sound, with each string line bright and carefully balanced and no extraneous noise present. Richard Wigmore's concise, thoughtful programme note can only add to appreciation of these fine works.
Dave Paxton

February 2005 The Strad magazine:

ST JOHN'S, SMITH   SQUARE, LONDON 30 SEPTEMBER 2004 

There were two great Haydn quartets in this lunchtime concert: the D major op.76 no.5 and before it the D minor op.9 no.4. The latter, unconscionably, is rarely heard in comparison with its illustrious companion. Catherine Manson, the quartet's leader, introduced it as 'one of our absolute favourites'; Hans Keller, in The Great Haydn Quartets (Dent  1986), called it 'the first great string quartet in the history of music'. He would surely have approved of this period-instrument performance:  eloquent, vital and occasionally humorous. All Haydn's hallmarks are in place: the harmonic sidesteps, the rhythmic, wrong-footing inventiveness, the stream of melody ­ now succinct, now extended. The London Haydn Quartet was everywhere alive to this cornucopia, in the subtly nuanced shaping of phrases, the enjoyment of interrupted cadences and the sheer gusto of the finale, with its constant conversational passing of phrases between instruments. In the later work the insights of period performance were particularly evident. With this vibrato-less playing (bar the odd expressive dab) the lilting opening, for example, acquired a captivating rustic simplicity. Chordal harmony, thus unadorned, and given the exceptionally good intonation of these players, became all the richer, something especially effective in the small harmonic miracles of the slow movement. Indeed, it was a feature of both these performances that, for all the fire and energy within them, there was always a beguiling lightness and clarity to the textures. This was superlative Haydn, present in all his many colours.  - Tim Homfray 

May 1 2006 The Washington Post:

Early music specialists can really be thugs, sometimes.  After the Kuijken Quartet’s massacre of Mozart at the Library of Congress in February -- when three innocent string quartets were beaten senseless and left for dead– ears all across Washington trembled in fear.  Would more Mozart be sacrificed this year on the cold, harsh altar of historical authenticity?

Those fears were swept away on Friday night, when the London Haydn Quartet played an all-Mozart program at the Library that was virtually detonating with musicianship and fresh ideas. The Quartet plays on period instruments using historical techniques, which makes for a colorful and appealingly low-voltage sound -- but which can also quickly sap the guts out of Mozart. Joined by early-clarinet virtuoso Eric Hoeprich, the Quartet’s solution was to highlight the personalities of the individual players, resulting in music that was absorbing and genuinely honest.  Or, in a word: authentic.

The program started with the Clarinet Quartet in B-flat Major, an arrangement of Mozart’s violin sonata, K.378.  It’s an amiable work, but the real pleasure was in Hoeprich’s flawless technique and molten-gold tone. A tight, energetic account of the Quartet in F Major K.590 (the “Prussian”) followed, as well as some historically-interesting Mozart arrangements of Bach fugues.

But the high point was the radiant Clarinet Quintet in A Major K.405, played by Hoeprich on a recreation of an 18th Century basset clarinet. With its peculiar bulbous end, the thing looks downright cartoonish, but its sound just shimmers in the ears -- and Hoeprich’s mastery of the piece made a perfect close to an altogether fascinating evening.

Stephen Brooke

feature in the July 2003 issue of Classic FM magazine
"Four go mad for Haydn"

Click here to read the article