People of the musical environment know pretty well that Haydn is a difficult composer for the audience: it's very rare that people like a Haydn symphony as much as a Mozart or Beethoven one… The barmaid of the place in Formigine where we usually practice and perform - a person who never listened to any classical music before meeting us - told us that Haydn 93 was by far the thing she enjoyed the most among all of the symphonies we had studied! Such a compliment coming from her is the best evidence that we did a good job looking into Haydn's witty sense of humor, and that at least part of the message that this symphony is carrying was delivered!
Haydn is a difficult composer: as modern listeners we're used to looking for melodies, lines… while Haydn always plays with contradictions, turning the musical form upside down, interrupting gestures, making jokes in a language whose roots are somehow lost for us XXI century people. If we learnt to love this absolute genius of music history, it's thanks to our time in Barcelona, and we wanted to try and work on one of his amazing London symphonies on our own.