Joseph Haydn, Symphonies Nos. 55, 56, 29 and Franciszek Lessel - Finale from Symphony No. 5

Premiere album released on November 28^th, 2025

An album released on November 28^th, 2025: Volume 18 of the Haydn 2032 series proposed by conductor Giovanni Antonini for the Alpha Classics label.

This ambitious project was launched in 2014 with the first volume of the series and aims to present the complete cycle of Haydn's 104 symphonies by the time of the Haydn 300 anniversary in 2032. Giovanni Antonini leads the project together with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and the ensemble closely associated with his name, Il Giardino Armonico.

The album released on November 28^th is entitled Il maestro di scuola (The Schoolmaster) and brings together works that evoke Haydn in his role as teacher and mentor. Here we hear the Basel Chamber Orchestra and Giovanni Antonini in Symphony No. 56 in C major, a score that one of Haydn's pupils, Franciszek Lessel, received with the composer's autograph in October 1805. The work dates from 1774.

Beyond the brilliant interpretation, which preserves the authentic character of Haydn's style, this album also reveals the musical intelligence behind the ordering of the works on the disc. It would have been easier to present the three symphonies in chronological order; however, such logic would not necessarily serve the listener, who also seeks diversity in listening experience. Thus, the next work we hear is Symphony No. 29 by Haydn, composed in 1765, whose final movement has been described as sounding as if written by a mischievous child who has momentarily escaped the supervision of a strict teacher.

Volume 18 of this complete Haydn work, produced with the support of the Haydn Foundation in Basel, takes its title Il maestro di scuola from Symphony No. 55 by Haydn. Written in the same year as Symphony No. 56, 1774, this explains their similar sound world. Der Schulmeister, or Il maestro di scuola (The Schoolmaster), is not a title written by Haydn in the score; however, Symphony No. 55 began to be known under this name from the 19th century onward, due to its second movement, whose rhythm seems to suggest the pedantic figure of a teacher beating time in the classroom.

"The Schoolmaster": here we encounter Haydn as a teacher, among others, of the Polish composer Franciszek Lessel (1780-1838). Lessel composed five symphonies, but only the final movement of Symphony No. 5 has survived. The Basel Chamber Orchestra recorded it for this album, placing side by side the music of Haydn the teacher and that of one of his pupils, an intriguing journey from Viennese Classicism toward the early dawn of Romanticism.