Want to understand a conductor? Listen to their Haydn

When a music-lover is tired of Haydn’s London symphonies, they’re tired of life. It’s not just the sheer creative verve of these 12 symphonies by a composer in his sixties. It’s the generosity of spirit. Beethoven demands a battle of wills; Mozart a near-impossible grace. But a conductor can run straight at a London symphony and Haydn will show us, with a smile, exactly who they are. Beecham is urbane, Bernstein camps it up; Abbado is trim and impeccably turned out. Eugen Jochum (a belated discovery) is just very, very German. Haydn’s still bigger than all of them.

Paavo Jarvi has reached the second volume of his London symphonies with the Bremen-based Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and he’s surely never been anyone’s idea of a ray of sunshine. First impressions suggest a historically informed approach: bracing tempi, lean low-vibrato string-playing and what sounds like a pair of 18th-century timpani. They’re certainly explosive enough. Jarvi clearly enjoys extreme dynamic contrasts – this is one performance of the Surprise symphony that does exactly what it says on the tin.

But you can’t be cynical for long when Haydn’s in the room. Jarvi initially feels impatient, but there’s an insistence – a physicality – to his performances that overpowers your reservations and pulls you into the dance. Haydn famously hankered after a ‘really new minuet’ and Jarvi delivers: oom-pah band schwung and priapic bassoons in No.94, menace in No.95 (the darkest and most neglected of the London symphonies) and Austen-like flirtations in the trio of No.98. I never thought I’d say this, but I think he’s having fun.