The Symphonies : nos. 17-33

Abstract

Out of the formidable list of 104 Haydn symphonies there are eighteen which constitute the best and most mature of his orchestral creations---six Paris Symphonies and the twelve English ones which he composed during his two sojourns in London; and it is upon these that his fame as creator of the first Master-Symphonies rests.

Those which sprang from his early period were written with more speed than reflection, no doubt, usually a half-dozen at a time; but they all contain some original and lovely touches, which reveal the rare genius of the youth; and are a foretaste of the choicer fruits of his maturer years. The quaint titles of many of his early Symphonies (the first forty, from 1759 to 1770) imply a disposition on Haydn's part to adopt some poetic and dramatic basis for the work. Thus we encounter: Le Midi, Le Matin, Le Soir (closing with a thunderstorm), Philosopher, Absentminded, Farewell (or "Candle" Symphony), Schoolmaster, fire, La Chasse, L'Ours, Children's Symphony, and many others. This descriptive tendency, however, is not to be taken seriously; it does not detract in the slightest degree from the seriousness with which Haydn prosecuted his art---notwithstanding the utterly unconquerable buoyancy and cheerfulness of his temperament. It may be accounted for largely as a transient concession to the widespread custom of the day (compare the titles of many of the harpsichord compositions of Couperin, Rameau, Kuhnau, etc.) And, in any event, it afforded Haydn an effective means of fathoming the powers of tone from this natural angle.

It must be admitted that the music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach already presages many of the excellent traits that are so abundant and distinctive in that of Haydn, and this would account for Haydn's veneration of him.

What immense influence the imposing works of the "great" Bach might have exerted upon Haydn's whole manner, had he known them, it is hard to determine. But these works, excepting the Well-Tempered Clavichord, were for many reasons only locally familiar to North German music lovers, and even there they were soon neglected, and might have been forgotten, but for the resurrection of the St. Matthew Passion, by Mendelssohn in 1829, which led to the restoration of much of the greatest music that has ever been penned.