The fourth volume in the Haydn2032 project is released in a collector’s edition at the same time as the CD: a double LP album on high-quality vinyl (180 grams) containing the complete musical programme plus a forty-page booklet with a series of photos by Richard Kalvar of the Magnum Photos agency (born in New York in 1944), the full sleeve notes, the sung text of Il maestro di cappella and a previously unpublished text entitled The Prince and the Pyramids by the Swiss writer Alain Claude Sulzer, who won the French Prix Medicis étranger in 2008 for his novel A Perfect Waiter.

The fourth volume of the Haydn2032 project thrusts into the limelight one of the most important stock characters in the theatre of sounds and words, the Kapellmeister, and explores some glamorous and (in)glorious moments in the career of Maestro Haydn. It features three symphonies by the ‘Shakespeare of Music’ – one of which is even associated with an actual play. This bears the title ‘Sinfonia in C. per la commedia intitolata Il distratto’ (the name of the play soon became the symphony’s nickname) and consists of an overture, four entr’actes, and a finale to be played at the end of the performance. Also on this disc is a large-scale buffo scene by his colleague Cimarosa. Il maestro di cappella is a witty and ironic parody, in which a member of the ‘old school’ of musicians tries to improve the ensemble playing of his orchestra. To his chagrin, the players do react, but in extremely undisciplined fashion: they are distracted, make false entries and disagree musically ...

(from a text by Christian Moritz-Bauer)