Ro­ger Nor­ring­ton con­ducts one of Europe’s lead­ing cham­ber or­ches­tras, the Cam­erata Salzburg, in per­form­ances of Haydn’s Sym­phon­ies Nos 82 - 87, known as the Par­is Sym­phon­ies: No. 82 in C ma­jor (The Bear); No. 83 I G minor (The Hen); No. 84 in E flat ma­jor; No. 85 I B flat (The Queen) - a fa­vor­ite of Mar­ie Ant­oinette; No. 86 in D ma­jor; and No. 87 in A ma­jor. These ex­press­ive works really al­low an en­semble to show off. Com­mis­sioned by the Comte d’Ogny, one of the fin­an­cial back­ers of a Parisi­an con­cert so­ci­ety called ‘Con­cert de la Loge Olym­pique’, and writ­ten dur­ing 1785 and 1786, these sym­phon­ies are among Haydn’s most scin­til­lat­ing.

Freed from com­pos­ing ex­clus­ively for Nikolaus Es­terházy in 1779, but con­strained in what he was pro­du­cing for pub­lish­ers, he rose to the chal­lenge of this com­mis­sion and cre­ated mu­sic that was both per­son­al and ori­gin­al.

The "Par­is Sym­phon­ies" were re­cor­ded live at the Moz­ar­teum dur­ing the Salzburg Fest­iv­al. Sir Ro­ger Nor­ring­ton, a pas­sion­ate peri­od spe­cial­ist as well as an in­ter­na­tion­ally ac­claimed con­duct­or, talks about the "Par­is Sym­phon­ies" and sets them in the con­text of the com­poser’s life and mu­sic­al out­put.

As he says, "Haydn’s melod­ies make you want to sing; his rhythms make you want to dance; and his hu­mor makes you want to laugh - even dur­ing a con­cert! ... Played by the bril­liant Cam­erata Salzburg in the beau­ti­ful hall of the Moz­ar­teum, I think view­ers will be led in­to a deep­er and more de­lighted in­terest in one of mu­sic’s most heart-warm­ing com­posers."

The Parisi­an Sym­phon­ies were re­leased without any re­gion code re­stric­tions as a 2-DVD-set for the Asi­an mar­ket.