Haydn: Symphonies Nos 85-87
The Hanover Band, Roy Goodman (conductor)
CDA66535
Despite the insularity of Haydn’s existence at Eszterháza, by the early 1770s his music had spread far and wide across Europe, to places as distant from Austria as Cadiz and London. Parisians in particular took Haydn’s music to their hearts, as shown by the large number of local publications of his works, with as many by other composers passed off under his name. As there were no such things as international copyright agreements in those times, Haydn inevitably gained little remuneration from such popularity. Yet he took every opportunity to respond to commissions from abroad, particularly from Paris. The most important resulted in the six so-called ‘Paris’ Symphonies, numbers 82 to 87.