Classical
The season's brightest records from oratorio to disco
Haydn: The Seasons (Soprano Ileana Cotrubas, Tenor Werner Krenn, Bass Hans Sotin, Brighton Festival Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Antal Dorati conductor, London; 3 LPs). This is Haydn's other major oratorio, structurally less cohesive and dramatically less powerful than The Creation, but a work in which the aging composer set out to demonstrate all that he could do in a wide range of styles and forms. In other words, a compendium of glories. The text, from James Thomson's panoramic poem written in 1730, inspires passages of...