wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

A flashy Leopold Godowsky rewrite of Richard Strauss’s “Standchen” begins the evening, as we marvel at Martin Jones’s flying fingers; rather like starting with desert before a meal, as we listen to what is more often thought of as an encore work. Johann Peter Salomon, the concert organizer who brought Franz Joseph Haydn to London in 1790 and who commissioned the “London” symphonies, arranged them for just a few instruments, publishing the manuscripts for domestic consumption and performance. The original orchestral scores weren’t published till after 1800. Who knew? It is one of these arrangements we hear in this evening’s second hour, as Peter Wispelwey and the ensemble Florilegium bring us Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 in D, scored for flute, two violins, viola, cello, and pianoforte.

Two Magnificats vie for attention mid-evening: first, François Couperin’s “Magnificat anima mea” is sung by sopranos Veronique Gens and Sandrine Piau, with Christophe Rousset at the organ; second, Alan Hovhaness’s Opus 157 Magnificat, Eric Plutz at the organ, while Donald Pearson conducts the Orchestra and Chorus of St. John’s, Denver.
Horns inhabit much of the last hour, as we hear Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Suite in D, Rolf Hasler’s Brass Suite, and the Oregon Symphony Horns bring us a John Cox arrangement of Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor. Sir John Barbirolli conducts the London Symphony in Delius’s “Briggs Fair” as the evening draws to a close.