Reviewed by Simon Carpenter

It is tempting to imagine that had Prince Esterhazy been a keen spoons player I might now be reviewing Haydn's Spoons something or other - and brilliant it would have sounded too. However, Haydn's employer was a great lover of that otherwise obscure member of the viol family known as the baryton, and so the composer was set to work to compose music for the Prince to play. Amongst them are these octets which bear witness to the astonishingly high skill of the Court musicians, other than the Prince. The works are for eight obligato parts, and each instrument is individually put to the test. However, the baryton plays on its own very rarely, and so in the event of any Princely hesitation no essential part of the music would be missing! The writer of the sleeve notes describes the octets as "high points of Papa Haydn's compositional skills...halfway between chamber music and the larger symphonic forms", and I'm not going to argue with that. Well worth treating yourself to if you fancy something a bit different by one of the musical giants.