Donald Satz

>Virgin recently, at budget price, reissued the Kuijken recording of Haydn's
>The Seasons.  I only have one version currently by Jochum on DG.  Any
>opinions on Kuijken's version, and how does it compare to the Gardiner on
>Archiv? Other versions I'd like feedback on are Marriner's on Philips,
>Kubelik's on Orfeo, Rilling's on Hanssler, Bohm's on DG, Harnoncourt's on
>Teldec, and Revzen's on Koch.  At a minimum, I'm hopeful that Bob Draper
>will provide the scoop on most of the available recordings, since this is
>prime territory for Bob.

My view on Kuijken is not a good one.  I found it flat and lacking in
excitement.  Some of the tempi are pedestrian too.  Maybe it's his HIP
approach here just too thin.  Hence this one no longer resides in my
collection.

On the other hand Gardiner's HIP approach is entirely different.  His is a
dynamic version well played well sung and a fuller feeling to it if you get
my drift.  I seem to recall that this was a gramophone record of the year
when released.

I have Karajan's version also.  This is of course a modern instruments
account but I love it.

These are the only versions I have heard to date.

Re Bohm:  his Creation is my favourite version (joint with Hogwood and
Dorati) so I'd guess his Seasons is going to be good too.

My scores:
Kuijken performance 2/5 sound 5/5
Gardiner performance 5/5 sound 5/5
Karajan performance 5/5 sound 4/5

Bob Draper
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