Pioneering Haydn On Record
by Christopher Howell

An occasional series dedicated to commercial and live recordings of Haydn symphonies up to and including those of the first two complete cycles by Ernst Märzendorfer and Antal Dorati

Symphony no. 58 in F major Hob. I/58 (c.1766-68)

A pdf version of this article can be downloaded for offline reading and printing here.

Despite the relatively high number, Symphony 58 is an early work. It opens innocently, more like a minuet than a symphony. The violins are soon spinning triplets as well as some long melodic lines. In its serene way, this movement is very attractive. It is followed by an Andante for strings only. Here, too, the charming melodic line, suggestive of a serenade, expands into florid triplets. At this point, Haydn decides to stop being conventional. The “menuet alla zoppa” (limping minuet) is so-called because the dotted rhythms of the violins are all over the place with respect to the steady bass line – anyone who tried dancing a formal minuet to this would get their toes trodden on. The trio is the real “slow movement” of this symphony, a mysterious series of chords in the minor key. It is mostly for strings only, but the horns have a long-held, low, portentous octave sustained throughout the second part. The finale starts with syncopations that must have caused some consternation at the time, not least among the orchestra. It also has a passage in bare octave that rudely interrupts in a foreign key.

So far as I can discover, no commercial recording was made before the two cycles, though I do have an earlier broadcast to discuss. Märzendorfer lets the first movement unfold unhurriedly, allowing both repeats. His rasping oboes are again in evidence, but I was not worried by their tuning as I was in Symphony 47. He plays the second movement lightly and charmingly. Here he omits both repeats, with some justification since this is a rather ordinary piece by Haydn’s standards. He is forthright and pointed in the Menuet alla zoppa and dwells solemnly on the trio. His finale, with both repeats, has vivacity at a tempo sufficiently moderate to let the syncopations make their effect. A very good performance. 

Nevertheless, I have to say that Dorati is better in almost every respect. I wondered at the beginning of the first movement whether its minuet character would tempt him into something over-stylized, but this was a momentary impression. A few bars in, he is allowing the music to unfold in a relaxed, gracious manner that is very attractive. On the whole, I think his mellower oboes are preferable and I only wish he had given the second repeat. He does, however, allow at least the first repeat in the Andante and his lighter touch suggests he found more affection for this movement than Märzendorfer. Again, the impression is of smiling grace. He makes quite a lot of the increase to forte in the second part. His minuet is sturdy and unaffected, with a well shaded trio. He is slightly slower than Märzendorfer in this movement, but it is far from a trudge. I thought Märzendorfer good in the finale but Dorati’s faster tempo, with both repeats, has an infectious verve – and the syncopations at the beginning are properly zippy. This is the best Dorati performance I have heard so far in this survey.

I have already expressed my surprise that the Orchestra Alessandro Scarlatti di Napoli, as a chamber orchestra specializing in 18^th century repertoire, did not investigate the Haydn symphonies more systematically. All the more surprising, then, that they should have set down Symphony 58 on 26 May 1965 for a television broadcast that went out on 3 January 1966, under an Italian conductor who did not regularly appear with the RAI orchestras. Francesco Mander (1915-2004) was born in Rome, though his family was from Friuli, in the extreme north of Italy, where he settled in his final years[1]. He was related through his mother to the composer Mercadante. Much of his career was spent outside Italy, his first major appointment being with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid in 1948. Some successful concerts in the UK aroused the interest of Decca, leading to a proposal to conduct a star-studded recording of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in Vienna. To the amazement of Decca’s General Manager[2], Mander turned the offer down because “that sort of music does not allow me to give the best of myself”. According to Mander, the Manager simply could not understand this. “You’re Italian, aren’t you? How is this possible?”[3] It must be said that Mander seems to have been one of those square-peg-in-a-round-hole personalities who often get in their own way. Don Pasquale was then offered to the young István Kertész, who was no more suited to that repertoire than Mander, but who grasped the fact that, in the face of such an offer from Decca, you do your best with it and hope it will lead to more congenial things – as of course it did. No further offer was made to Mander by Decca and his London manager lost interest in him.  

It was obtuseness of another sort that led to disappointment in Paris. His performances with the French National Radio Orchestra had been highly successful, not least with the orchestra itself, and everything was lined up for him to succeed Maurice Le Roux as Principal Conductor in 1967. Until President De Gaulle heard about the plan and declared that the orchestra was a national institution and only a Frenchman could be its Chief Conductor. The orchestra did not do too badly out of this, since they got Jean Martinon in 1968. Mander took up a post far from the international limelight with the National Symphony Orchestra of the South African Broadcasting Corporation in 1969 and remained there till 1976. Having settled in Friuli on his return to Italy, he continued to conduct local organizations for some years and also wrote novels and short stories. If they were published, I have never seen any. In his earlier years, like many conductors, he had also been a composer, but wrote nothing after 1957, though he did conduct his works from time to time, especially the Symphony. Another “problem” with Mander may have been that, like the similarly sidelined Herbert Albert and Tibor Paul, his interpretations were often very free in an age that took Toscanini’s “com’è scritto” as its motto. Apart from a longish rallentando at the end of the first movement, he takes no liberties with Haydn 58.

This long introduction is a prelude to saying that I find here the insight and engagement of a major conductor which raise the symphony itself to a higher level than either Märzendorfer or Dorati, at least on this occasion, could attain. The first movement begins innocently, much as with the other two, but as the music proceeds it acquires a sense of cumulative conviction. This in spite of the omission of both repeats. A feature that I have noted at other times with Italian orchestra, particularly under Italian conductors, is a vibrancy to the string playing typical of such groups as I Musici and I Solisti Veneti when playing baroque music. I find this here, especially, in the second movement. Mander takes this considerably slower than the other two. Under his direction, it is no longer a charming serenade but a warmly expressive Andante. Mander obtains considerable dynamic variation, avoiding any risk of monotony at the slower tempo. The sort of performance Giulini might have given. This movement is now revealed as the heart of the symphony. No repeats, though. Mander is quite brisk and stomping in the minuet, while finding a doleful quality to the trio that the others missed. The finale goes with a slancio that suggests he might have conducted Donizetti very well if had wanted to[4]. Here both repeats are played[5]. Good and excellent though Märzendorfer and Dorati are respectively, I would not wish to forgo Mander’s Andante, so this must be my personal go-to version.

Christopher Howell © 2026

[1] A thorough examination of Mander’s career in Italian is available here: https://www.academia.edu/44903344/Francesco_Mander_la_musica_come_universale_nel_secolo_delle_fratture, viewed 9 August 2026.

[2] The Manager’s surname is given as Hogwood. I have not been able to identify a Decca manager of that name at that time. Clearly, this is not the conductor Christopher Hogwood.

[3] A great many of the Italian conductors who were allowed to conduct only Italian operas on record were prolific performers of the German, Austrian and French symphonic repertoire on their home turf. 

[4] So far as I can discover, he did not conduct opera at all.

[5] The choice of repeats may have something to do with the TV time-slot. The other work played was Mozart’s “Coronation” concerto with Marisa Tanzini. I have heard this in audio only and have no idea if the film survives.