I Solisti di Zagreb, Antonio Janigro
Vanguard Classics 08 5024 71
The most sacred, and to some as well as to me, the most beloved symphony of Joseph Haydn, whose spiritual dimension was recognised just in 20th century, both by exquisite interpretations and courageous attempts of various composers, such as the one of Sofia Gubaidulina. This recording is exactly one of such significant revivals of The Seven Last Words, dating back to 1964, the age of dominance of various soloists and virtuosi, so the same formula was reasonably chosen for I Solisti di Zagreb as well to follow the trend. Antonio Janigro was leading the Zagreb Soloists during that time, time that we perceive today as the golden age of this ensemble. This is what this recording reveals, fascinating at first sight, at first listening. Although somewhat dry, it should not be looked at as a sequence of dramas of each of the seven individual, elegant movements because here Janigro, with the soloists, attempted the impossible: to obtain a Beethoven-like orchestra, which he easily achieved in the last movements Lento alla breve, and particularly in Largo in Es-major. There is also the great, Mediterranean gesture of Fasan or the warmth of the painful cantilena in Barenboim’s interpretation of Bach; and yet, the Mozartean uniformity of style, resting on fidelity to the score, resulting, thus, in an exciting insight into the tone colour, true, of a chamber orchestra, but with the power and density to be heard much later in Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Seventh” or Franz Schubert’s “Eight”. How come that Haydn, instead of building the seven Golgothic musical images upon sacral, chamber-like musical performance, relied on the orchestral, symphonic sound. He was known for expansion and elaboration of all related to that musical body, but could not achieve such a level of seriousness and polyphonic stability in any of his other one hundred symphonies. Written in 1801, eight years before his death, this mature piece is, if not summa operi of the inventor of the classical symphony, definitely a palette of extremely demanding musical studies for the cathedral service in Cadiz on the occasion of Good Friday. This may be the reason why Haydn did not care much about getting into the meaning of each individual sentence but was rather eager to spiritually articulate the words uttered by God himself in such a fateful moment for the entire mankind, to which end he employed everything he could, that is, the entire palette of the orchestra available to him at that time, and in his vision in the immediate future. As a counterpart to the “Creation”, Janigro has surrendered the entire spiritual pilgrimage of the New Testament to the players, which was not a mistake at all. Indeed, the Soloists sound here just like members of a symphonic orchestra, of the best one – the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
Đurđa Otržan