Embodying the highest ideals of the Enlightenment, Die Jahreszeiten is surely Haydn's supreme masterpiece and the greatest secular choral-orchestral work of the second half of the eighteenth century. It's pantheism at its grandest and the pathetic fallacy at its most glorious, with the whole of nature given voices to sing God's praises. It's exalted and exhilarating and exciting and also occasionally funny. There have been great recordings of the work in the past with Karl Böhm's lofty and majestic recording arguably the best. But while there have been many of what used to be called period-instrument recordings, there has yet to be one to compare with Böhm's until now. This 2004 recording of Haydn's masterpiece by René Jacobs conducting the RIAS-Kammerchor and the Freiburger Barockorchester is not only one of the best period-instrument performances of the work, it is the first recording comparable to Böhm's. Jacobs is a superb technical conductor: Die Jahreszeiten is a huge work with enormous technical difficulties, but the performance is wonderfully balanced between voices and instruments, between sections and movements, between mass and movement. But Jacobs does more than guide the work: Die Jahreszeiten, for all that it embodies of the highest ideals, is also a deeply human and deeply affecting work. With soloists Marlis Petersen, Werner Gura, and Dietrich Henschel and the Kammerchor, Jacobs goes beyond technique to the deep humanity of Haydn's song of praise. Harmonia Mundi's sound is clear, deep, warm, and true. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
