La Gaia Scienza - Haydn in London (2009)

La Gaia Scienza plays Haydn's 'Surprise' Symphony in an arrangement for quartet made in 1793 by the little-known composer, horn-player and chamber musician Ludwig Wenceslaus Lachnith, who was employed by the Duke of Zweibrücken; this is its first appearance on CD.The focus is on piano and flute (the cello merely reinforces the bass line), in whose melodic writing the Haydn scholar Robbins Landon constantly finds an "atmosphere of quiet melancholy" which "shows Haydn's appreciation of this aspect of the flauto traverso, too, and this ambivalence is a typical 18th century trait." Haydn's trios have been mostly overshadowed by his string quartets, but in this centenary year they deserve a re-evaluation that supplements the image of this master of chamber music.