Haydn L’incontro improvviso Bernhard Berchtold, Markus Miesenberger, Elisabeth Breuer, Rafael Fingerlos, Annastina Malm; L’Orfeo Barockorchester/Michi Gaigg CPO 555 327-2 111:43 mins (2 discs)
Haydn composed L’incontro improvviso for festivities at the Eszterháza Palace in the summer of 1775. Its fashionable ‘Turkish’ setting – plotwise, it’s a clear precursor of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail – allowed him to include some exotic percussion instruments to lend a tinge of local colour, an aspect of the score that’s vividly conveyed in this lively performance.
Haydn may have lacked Mozart’s genius as a dramatist, but any shortcomings on that front are compensated for by the beauty of the individual musical numbers. There’s a ravishing first-act trio for two sopranos and a mezzo accompanied by a pair of cor anglais, with some remarkable chromatic writing in its coda; a languorous love duet in the second act, and a no less heart-stopping soprano canzonetta at the start of the third. There’s some vivid word-painting in the accompanied recitatives, too: graphically depicted heartbeats as the hero, Ali, contemplates the unfortunate course his life has taken; and, in a later number, rapid wave-like motion as the princess he loves informs him of her plan to escape from the seraglio by sea.
The cast on this new recording is adequate, if not stellar. Markus Miesenberger doesn’t adequately convey the buffo character of the slave Osmin, and Elisabeth Breuer makes for a somewhat bland heroine, but some of the lesser roles come off well: Rafael Fingerlos as the dervish Calandro, and Anna Wilderling and Annastine Malm as the princess’s two confidantes.
Misha Donat
