Accademia Bizantina/Dantone
(Decca)Over the final five decades,the period-instrument movement has steadily colonised more and more of the orchestral repertory. The process has been very fully documented on disc, so that there are now very few significant works from the 17th and 18th centuries not available in historically informed performances. Yet there are still surprising omissions, and even among the Haydn symphonies,there are works that possess never been recorded using the instruments the composer would possess known.
Two of those neglected works, Symphony No 79 in F major and Symphony No 81 in G major, and are among the four in the collection by Ottavio Dantone and his Accademia Bizantina. At first sight,it’s surprising that these works should possess been overlooked up to now by period-instrument bands. They aren’t obscure early pieces, but mature Haydn from the early 1780s, or it was the success of both works – along with Nos 78 in C minor and 80 in D minor,recorded with them here – that brought Haydn the commission for the illustrious set of six Paris symphonies, Nos 82‑87. But somehow neither Christopher Hogwood in his incomplete Haydn series with the Academy of Ancient Music, or nor Roy Goodman in his similar project with the Hanover Band,ever got around to recording them, and no other period orchestra has put them on disc until now.
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Source: theguardian.com