Which Haydn edition?

I've just come across this message from an informed listener on the Radio 3 message boards, and thought it appropriate to discuss here.

When presenting Haydn's Symphonies, why can't Radio 3 provide us with recordings of the original scores? In the case of No. 63 (in the morning of 7th August) we were given the feeble revised version - notable for the rewritten movements 3 and 4 - both immensely inferior to those of the original version. Additionally, this revision leaves out trumpets and timpani and in this Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performance the easy option was taken by putting the horns in the lower octave for most of the time.

The original score was published back in the 1960s edited by Harry Newstone (Eulenberg edition) and H. C. Robbins Landon (Universal/Philharmonia edition). Both editors came to almost identical conclusions in matters of detail. Some time ago this original version was broadcast using the old Leslie Jones version (the only recorded version in my recall to get the horn parts right).

Jones used the Newstone edition and this year at the English Haydn Festival at Bridgnorth, Anthony Halstead also got everything right in an exciting performance of the original version (using the Landon edition I believe). The Orpheus performance was dreary (what a soggy trio to the minuet) and it made the revised finale sound so uninspired that I began to wonder whether Haydn did the rewrite or if the publishers had got a house composer to do it.

I'm inclined to agree, though should perhaps note the times when the producers have got it right by using rare recordings by Max Goberman which few, if any of us, possess.

Anyway, it would be good to know what other people think.

Denis McCaldin is Director of the Haydn Society of Great Britain.

• The playlist from Classical Collection, presented by Sarah Walker on 7 August 2009.
• Haydn's Symphony No. 63 in Wikipedia.
• Harry Newstone died in 2006. The Independent published this obituary and here is H.C. Robbins Landon's Wikipedia entry.
• Listener Trstnik posted in the Performance section of the busy Radio 3 message boards. Click here to join in.
• Haydn's page on the Radio 3 Composers of the Year site and Denis's other Haydn posts on the Composers of the Year blog. Composers of the Year blog posts will appear here on the Radio 3 blog from now on.
• The picture shows one of Haydn's sketches (not Symphony 63, sadly), from the Wikimedia commons.