Symphonies No. 44 Trauer Symphonie Funebre No. 77

Abstract

This symphony acquired its nickname ("Symphony of Mourning") because Haydn in his old age requested that it be played at his funeral. It is a work of the period between roughly 1768 and 1774, when the so-called Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) style, with its dominant aesthetic of heightened emotionalism, flourished not only in Haydn's output but in Austrian music in general. The Sturm und Drang came from the title of a 1776 German novel, and was also applied to a German literary movement.

This emotionalism took the form of devices such as increased use of minor keys, a tendency towards stronger, even violent, contrasts in the music, restless syncopated figures in the accompaniment, and other devices, many of which had originated in Italian opera of the 1760s. The sudden interest by Austrian musicians in writing music of this sort may simply be that they saw in these new items of musical vocabulary a way to enrich and extend the expressive content of their music beyond the rather genteel "galant" style that had ruled since the end of the Baroque era.

The symphony begins with a forceful four-note motif that Haydn uses extensively. The music is unusually contrapuntal, with the high point coming in a three-part counterpoint passage in the first movement's coda. The minuet comes second, a rare format for Haydn. Like the first movement, it is severe and contrapuntal. The slow movement is similar in character to those of Handel, and the final movement maintains the learned use of counterpoint. The main theme later in the movement is treated in double counterpoint. The finale bears one of the fastest available tempo markings, but it is not light. Its energy is frenzied and threatening. It was expected at the time for minor-key works to end with a movement in the major, or at least affirm the major in a resultantly uplifting conclusion. Not here. The power Haydn has built drives inexorably to a minor-key ending of deep despair.