Haydn: Baryton Trios - Comple [Box set]

With this genre largely forgotten since Haydn's time (i.e. the Baryton is not a mainstream instrument) this large body of work (over 120 of these trios) was just as forgotten until now. These recordings are a valuable resource for lovers of Haydn's music.

... that among the 126 trios for cello, viola and baryton there are not some genuine masterpieces, as original and affective as any of Joseph Haydn's enormous oeuvre of chamber music! The verdict certainly wasn't "in" thirty years ago when the Esterhazy Trio recorded the complete trios, here released on 21 (twenty-one!) CDs. Not only had the music lain unperformed for more than 200 years but also the crucial instrument, the baryton, had become extinct except as a museum display piece. It must have taken both reckless courage and Herculean effort on the part of Riki Gerardy to develop concert-worthy mastery of a bulky, balky instrument for which there were no conservatories or even private coaches. It was not a career choice that an ambitious mother would have tolerated in her child.

The baryton is a cello-sized instrument but closer in playing technique to the viola da gamba than to the cello because of its seven or more gut strings and its frets along the neck. A masterful gamba player can use those frets much as a guitarist would, to play double-stopped and triple-stopped chords, yielding a kind of solo polyphony. But the baryton have even more polyphonic capabilities, since under the fretted neck there is another set of metal strings which the performer can pluck with his/her thumb. The metal strings have a dual function in the character of the baryton; they are open at all times, so that even when they are not plucked, they resonate sympathetically with the bowed notes of the gut strings. Sound challenging? Haydn himself found it so. Apparently he spent six months teaching himself to play the instrument to his own satisfaction, and it seems he became quite enamored of its distinctive resonance as well as its unique capacities for multi-voicing, i.e. polyphony. There's an old musicological notion that Haydn was compelled to write endless trios, reluctantly, for this absurd instrument, at the whim of his patron Prince Esterhazy, who was a musical duffer. Well, as I said, don't be so sure of any of that!

This pioneering performance of the baryton trios was not and is not the final word. Thirty years ago, we all would have congratulated Riki Gerardy without any hesitation over matters of interpretation. The Esterhazy Trio performed these works in a stately, aristocratic, galante fashion, so that they all sounded much alike, and much as 'we' imagined the stuffy duffer Prince would have played them. Limited, in short. Recreational. On the boring side, especially over 21 CDs worth.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with these performances, except that they lack 'interpretation'. The Esterhazy Trio was almost flawless in intonation and ensemble. No rushing, no dragging, etc. However, there's more to be discovered in these pieces than the merely competent structuring of notes. Lacking spirited, individualized interpretation and affect, one can hardly deny that the trios all do sound much-of-a-muchness, and that 21 CDs are more than sufficient.

Luckily you and I, amici miei, have lived long enough to hear the baryton and its repertoire (chiefly by Haydn) carried beyond mere correctness. The baryton technique achieved by virtuoso gambist Guido Balestracci is expressive enough to require a re-evaluation of the the trios as a major portion of Haydn's vast oeuvre:
Baryton Trios
What will you hear in Balestracci's playing that you don't hear in Gerardy's? Balestracci shapes his notes and thus shapes his phrases. He varies the timbres of his bowed strings, and graces his bowing with delicate ornamentation and well-placed vibrato. The trio of Balestracci, violist Alessandro Tampieri, and cellist Bruno Cocset treat these works as a concert-worthy quartet would treat their repertoire, with insightful variety of tempi, dynamics, attacks, etc. And the six trios they've chosen for this recording are either some of the best of the 126, or else they've convinced "us" of the exceptional quality of their choices by the quality of their interpretation. Honestly, I for one am likely to listen to this single CD by Balestracci and friends more often than to all twenty-one CDs of the Esterhazy Trio's complete set.

But I don't want to dishonor the Esterhazy Trio's mammoth accomplishment. If you relish Haydn's chamber music, you should certainly hear several recordings of the baryton trios, by various artists not excluding the Esterhazy Trio. Buy one or two of their separate selections rather than the whole overwhelming box, and be sure also to buy performances by other ensembles as they appear. You'll get more musical enjoyment for you money that way.

Here are a few more choices:
Music for Baryton Trio 71 in a Major
Haydn: Baryton Divertimenti
Franz Joseph Haydn: Four Baryton Trios (Volume1)
Hadyn Baryton Trios

Haydn wrote a very significant amount of music for the baryton which is seldom performed today. The baryton is now an obsolete instrument which is rather like a viola da gamba but with strings set into the back of its neck which were played with the thumb. It has an echoing, somewhat gamba-like quality and it is fascinating and enjoyable to listen to when it is played as well as it is here by Michael Brünning.

Haydn's employer, Nikolaus Esterhazy, was a keen but not very talented player so at his instruction Haydn continually composed new trios for the instrument, which do have real grace and charm. There are 126 of them, though, which is an awful lot of trios - especially when written for a limited player by a somewhat reluctant composer. Haydn was incapable of writing poor or dull music, but these works seem to me to lack the real inventive flair and variety of much of Haydn's other chamber music, much of which is among the greatest music ever written. I confess that I have not yet listened to every one of these discs, but I am working through them and although I love Haydn's music, I am not sure that I really need 21 whole discs of baryton trios. It's not that there's anything wrong with this set: it's enjoyable music which is very well performed, well recorded and nicely presented, it's just that I don't think it's among Haydn's best work.

I would have no hesitation in recommending a 21-disc set of the String Quartets (I own and love the Angeles Quartet's fantastic set) or large complete sets of the Piano Trios or Keyboard Sonatas because these are chamber works of real substance, endless variety and true genius in places. I can't say the same of the baryton trios - they are enjoyable pieces individually, but one or two CDs of them would do me quite nicely, I think, so I'm afraid I can't recommend this very large set unreservedly.

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