DEUTSCHE KAMMERPHILHARMONIE BREMEN
ELPHILHARMONIE HAMBURG & KONZERTHAUS WIEN RESIDENCIES
October 2021

Haydn: London Symphonies Nos. 94, 99 and 105

At the concert of Paavo Järvi and his Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen with three late Haydn symphonies on Sunday in the Elbphilharmonie, one was a little reminded of the orchestra’s overwhelming Beethoven project a good decade ago. With Beethoven, too, the Kammerphilharmonie had set in motion a completely new dynamic in the interpretation of classical symphonies.

Haydn in particular has to be played as vividly as possible, and deliberately sometimes quite unconventionally, so that the hidden wit of his symphonies comes to the fore. And Paavo Järvi, Artistic Director of the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen for almost two decades, and his orchestra are true masters at this
Hamburger Abendblatt, Helmut Peters, 18 October 2021

The consummate work of Artistic Director Järvi and his joyful orchestra brings out the musical motifs with awe and at the same time irresistible wit … Thus the originality of Haydn’s late symphonies numbers 94, 99 and his final number 104 unfold in all their sophistication, elegance and virtuosity … An evening full of visual and acoustic stimuli that meet Viennese demands and are greeted with bravos and long applause.
Wiener Zeitung, 19 October 2021

Järvi and his musicians have a particular penchant for this – and showed it not only, but also in the minuets, which have long since left the courtly parquet in favour of the bourgeois dance floor. But already in the first movement of the “Paukenschlag-Symphonie” there was a delicious Hmtata, in the underestimated number 99 the soloistic somersaults of the wind instruments (with clarinets!) were a delight in the finale. And in the final number 104, everything came to the fore once again: Seriousness and grandeur, bouncy rhythms at brisk but not frantic tempi, baroque austerity, contrapuntal art, exuberant joy in playing.
Die Presse, Walter Weideringer, 20 October 2021