Die Jahreszeiten
The seasons

"Die schlechte Nachricht zuerst: Es klingt ein bisschen topfig. Die Akustik ist nicht grade berauschend, gerade für inzwischen doch sehr verwöhnte Klassik-Konsumentenohren. Die gute Nachricht: Das war's auch schon an schlechten Nachrichten. Top-Solisten, ein leidenschaftlicher Chor, eine Chor-Dirigentenlegende am Pult, die sich mit den Finessen der grossen Chöre des Werks gut auskennt, und nicht zuletzt ein junges schlagkräftiges Orchester, das Haydn nicht ehrfurchtsvoll mit den Fingerspitzen anfasst, sondern ihn vom marmornen Podest des kühlen Kalkulators herunterholt. Kurz: Macht Spass zu hören!".

"Throughout, the performance strips away a layer of what we think of as classical restraint and gives the work tremendous impact. This goes too for the soloists, who, soprano Carolyn Sampson above all, are ideal for the work ... Highly recommended, even revelatory Haydn".

Read review

"The soloists make a fine team. All do very well in their recitatives ... it's through his conducting that McCreesh really brings Haydn's music to life. He secures a vivid, stylish and colourful performance ... This recording is a signal achievement and I hope there will be more joint Anglo-Polish recordings from this source in the future".

Read review

"Vurdering: IRR outstanding" - "This is Herreweghe's first recording of Die Jahreszeiten ... and there is a certain freshness and vitality to it ... He has certainly assembled a splendid team of soloists for the recording ... Some of the lovelist singing here ... from the fresh and beautifully focused voice of Christina Landshamer ... A glorious musical achievement".

"Vurdering: G (Editor's choice)" - "Herreweghe and his forces do eloquent justice to the poetry, grandeur and, crucially, the sheer joy of this least solemn, most life-affirming of oratorios".

"This new recording, if not necessarily displacing René Jacobs from pole position, is certainly a match for it, and him, and Haydn".

"Editor's choice: What emphatically sets this Seasons apart from all previous recordings, whatever the language, is the scale ... The big choruses, toppled by a shining, un-wobbly soprano line, generate a visceral excitement unmatched by any rivals ... McCreesh and his massed Anglo-Polish forces have given us a Seasons that thrillingly catches both the work's bucolic exhilaration and its invocations of the sublime. And for sheer sonic splendour it's in a class of its own".