Introduction to Haydn

On Friday at the Great Hall of the Conservatory, cellist and pianist Alexander Rudin conducts the Musica Viva chamber orchestra in an original concert program titled "Music for the Austrian Empresses." The concert includes works written by Franz Joseph Haydn for three members of the Habsburg dynasty: Maria Theresa of Austria (Symphony No. 48), her daughter Marie Antoinette (Symphony No. 85, "La Reine"), and Maria Theresa of the Two Sicilies, who was the wife of Francis I of Austria (the "Theresienmesse").

Rudin continues to accquaint concert goers with the works of Haydn through his Musica Viva ensemble. A year ago, their performance of "The Creation" oratorio was one of the central events of the musical season. In Russia, there is practically no tradition of performing such music, which demands a strong team of soloists and a choir and orchestra to match.

Almost any conductor would say that Haydn's music is the best school for an orchestra. Unfortunately, Russians don't usually play it particularly well. They often adopt a pompous and sweeping style that can be traced back to the German conductor Wilhelm Furtw?ngler. In reality, Haydn's music requires precisely the opposite approach: to be played by a small group of musicians in a chamber-music style. That is how all self-respecting international orchestras now play his music.

It's good to see that Russian musicians are gradually picking up on this: In the current season, both Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Vladimir Yurovsky have conducted Haydn in a way that sounded completely European.

Imgartists.com Lucy Crowe

Rudin and Musica Viva have had a significant influence in this area. Musica Viva, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is one of the best chamber orchestras in Moscow. It was one of the first Russian ensembles to play early music in an authentic way. One of the patriarchs of the early music scene, British conductor Sir Roger Norrington, has played with the orchestra twice. On his second visit to Moscow, he told journalists that the orchestra musicians played excellently and called them perfectionists in the best sense of the word.

Musica Viva was the first Russian ensemble to perform Antonio Salieri's concerto for violin, oboe, cello and orchestra; Robert Schumann's Requiem; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's "Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu"; and Robert Volkmann's cello concerto.

Friday's concert at the Conservatory will also offer several musical revelations. The most complex work on the program, the Theresienmesse, is an oratorio that was one of the composer's last works. Rudin has invited a superb quartet of European soloists who are familiar with early music. Among them are the soprano Lucy Crowe, a young British singer whose talent sparkles in the operas of Claudio Monteverdi and Richard Strauss, as well as in performances by period music orchestras including The English Concert, The Sixteen, The King's Consort and Gabrieli Consort & Players.

Imgartists.com Stephan MacLeod

Finally, we will have a chance to hear the marvelous Irish mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon, who is renowned on both sides of the Atlantic as a performer of the music of George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georges Bizet and Giuseppe Verdi. She has performed at the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, as well as at the Glyndebourne and Aix-en-Provence festivals.

The Croatian tenor Kresimir Spicer, who has been called one of the best Mozartian singers of the current day, also accepted Rudin's invitation. He regularly collaborates with leading conductors such as Marc Minkowski, Myung-Whun Chung and Rene Jacobs. In the last two years, he has performed at the Salzburg Festival, the Paris Opera, London's Barbican Centre and at the opera houses of Zurich, Berlin and Los Angeles.

Bach-cantatas.com Patricia Bardon

Also performing at the concert will be the Swiss bass-baritone Stephan MacLeod, one of the best interpreters of Johann Sebastian Bach and Handel. He often performs with leading baroque ensembles such as Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan and Reinhard Goebel's Musica Antiqua K?ln.

The newly formed Musica Viva chamber choir will perform in public for the first time. The group of talented young singers who studied at the Moscow Conservatory was put together by the choirmaster Yevgeny Volkov.

Musica Viva performs Fri. at 7 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, located at 13 Bolshaya Nikitskaya Ulitsa. Metro Biblioteka Imeni Lenina. Tel. 629-9401.