North Devon Theatres Released A CD

Featuring some really spectacular horn parts in rare and wonderful works by Haydn, it seemed an obvious choice to print an eighteenth century horn player on the front cover. The orchestra's first Horn, Mark Paine found just the thing and as he lives half his life in Cairns, Australia, the photo and the proof of the cover were sent back and forth between Barnstaple and the antipodean rain forest. Furthermore, one of the Sinfonia's regular directors is Gernot Sussmuth, Concert Master of a leading Orchestra in Germany, the Weimar Staatskapelle.

The CD includes a Haydn Divertimento, last recorded in 1967, which is for certain a neglected masterpiece. Alongside this are Haydn's Diverimento Op.1 no.1 and two middle period symphonies, no.49, "La Passione" and no.22 "The Philosopher". This has a remarkable opening movement, in which Haydn is supposed to have said that "God the father speaks to an unrepentant sinner."

The CD is available to purchase from the Queen's Theatre Box Office priced £9.99. -- www.dodgetheatre.com