I am a huge admirer of the artist and musician Frans Brueggen.
Frans Brüggen, a Dutch pioneer of the early music movement, a co-founder and conductor of the Orchestra of the 18th Century, died in 2014 in Amsterdam. He was 79.
His performances of the Beethoven Eroica symphony is something I always cherish and return to. Yet he was also a master in performing music of Haydn, and music that is quite older, as well. He was a recorder player, and actually made that instrument much more popular through his playing.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Brüggen worked with both Baroque and modern ensembles, including the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Amsterdam-based Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — bringing a period practice philosophy to his musical interpretations.
Listen carefully to the opening of the Haydn symphony number 104, and notice the amazing careful adherence to dynamics, and the tension that is built up before the Allegro begins:
